Hrw-Amen

Found some in the south of the UK today in WH Smith. Could not feel them as right on counter and were handed out by staff, (Which is unusual.) but I got five random ones. Annoyingly when I got home and opened them I have three Grandfathers, One Roman Commander and One Biker/Mechanic Guy. I mean THREE Grandfathers out of five random bags, that is not really very random is it?

Looks good especially with those coaches on behind.

Great engine, I like those ones with double sides and raised middle, you don't have to turn them around to run the other way! Nice rolling stock and track ballast as well as the little signal baox you have built.

Maybe we will get many more animals from the Friends line, maybe even farm animals as the mini-dolls seem to get up to all sort of horse related things. Maybe it is not too much a stretch to have a Heartlake Farm of some sort, then we could get all manner of animals in different shapes etc? My CITY is already benefiting from a giant brown squirrel hoping down the street! Just what do they feed those animals on?

Well I do not have children unfortunately (I'd really of liked one.) and as such usually it is not a problem. My best mate has two sons though and one is really into trains. I have been on to him to get him a LEGO train for a while now and so the other day they came around to have a go on mine. We set it all up before he arrived and I was really pleased with the layout we had so speedily constructed for him. However when he arrived all the little chap seemed to want to do was push the train around the track, never mind the IR controller that we showed him several times how to use. He just dropped it ran over to the train and pushed it! Now that I would find really annoying if he were my child, so I would have to insist no touching. I did begrudgingly invite him around to play again but I may have to make a specific push along train for him until he grows into be able to appreciate running them remotely.

Has to be the 1X2 Grill, probably in black or Dark Bley.

My wife certainly prefers the Mini-Dolls to the Mini-Figures. I think it must be a girl thing as I don't really like them. Cannot say I have had any issues getting them to sit. It is also hard to line up a whole load of tools that Mini-Figures use. They tend to end up just carrying them which implies an action by association rather than by doing.

Very nice example of St Pauls. I thinks the tiled dome looks better myself than a petal one would and whilst It is hard to compare without seeing a petaled one that is my opinion. It is a super build though in anyone's book and would be a good set were it ever made. The camp adds lots of color and is so St Paul's in its recent history at least! Well done.

My space sets never get taken apart. Just trying to think when the first wave of classic space stuff came out? (1978/79?) Well when ever it was that is how long the longest lived set of mine has stayed together. I had lots of sets (Pre Minifig.) when i was a kid that were taken apart/played with and built into other things etc. But with the advent of classic space they became my collectable range and just stayed together. That has pretty much continued right up to now. I buy lots of sets that never get made up though as I specifically want the bits for something else. However most of my MOCing bricks come from Bricklink or LEGO PAB, so not really any need to take apart a set anyway. Even if there was a bit I needed and I knew it was in a set made up, I would not dismantle that set, I would just buy another bit off Bricklink and wait for it to arrive. So in answer to your question, some sets have been made up for 37 years right up until about the start of the April which was when I bought the last set that I made up and it is still made up. It is unlikely that these will ever be dismantled beyond me dropping them by accident.

On a personal note, I usually get to look at this forum when I get home from work. I get about an hour or so of internet time per evening among other stuff, I look on here. I try to follow the Historical, Sci-Fi and Train-Tech threads and sometimes the Town thread. Now I have quick glance through to see if anyone has come up with something I like. I do like to look and see the pictures as it gives me ideas of my own or inspiration. However I find that often I do 'Like' something but feel I have nothing to add that has not already been said and also if I stayed and commented on every single thread I would soon use up all of my time and I would be torn away from my PC (By the wife yelling at me that tea is ready.) long before I had got through all the things I wanted to do. A simple 'Like' button would enable me to add my approval without the need to write something along the lines of 'I like the look of this,' which would mean the same thing and not add anything to the thread overall. Often then I find I do not add a comment even though I would like to show my appreciation I feel I cannot as what I have to say is meaningless beyond that I liked it and would take up time that I could be using to look at other threads. That would then leave me free to just add comments to those i felt I could in some way contribute more positively towards beyond just giving my approval of it. Therefore although I do not like 'like' buttons generally, here it would be a useful tool. I don't think a 'dislike' button would be a good idea at all though. I do feel if you are going to put something down, then you should at least have the balls to tell someone why you don't like it and that in a way (Depending on how you word it.) would still be constructive to the thread as it may give the poster some insight that they had not considered beforehand, rather than simply putting them down without a reason.

I took some photographs today of the station block as it is now. It is currently 80 studs wide by 96 studs long. I fell it needs another 32 studs long to correspond to the adjoining buildings. This will probably be in the form of an increase in platform length and also the addition of a crane on the goods siding, but that is all way in the future. I also have to build a 32X48 section on the other side of the road to the crossing which will raise the tracks a couple of studs just to let the normal ballasted track fit onto it as this is slightly raised.http://www.flickr.com/photos/hrw-amen/8669372602/in/set-72157632042497224/lightbox/

Looks good. Yes need to have more coaches. Quite often I will build an engine that has features such as cab structure of 7 studs wide but overall it is more like 8 studs in total. Theses can normally pull 7 or 8 stud wide wagons / coaches. In the real world bits do stick out on locomotives here and there so I don't myself see that as a big issue.

I think part of the problem nowadays is that there are just so many parts that it is almost as though if a thing you build does not resemble an actual scale model of something people are going to trash your efforts, whereas back then as long as it was vaguely the right shape that was then reasonably good. Yes those days were fun and I did enjoy the trains back then, but I would rather have what we have now and the ability to build something more realistic in a LEGOy kind of way. I would love to see a new LEGO Trains Ideas book brought out that was up to date though. It is handy to have a reference book or picture of what you are trying to build, especially as my building desk is nowhere near my computer desk and even on different floors!

Is that one huge rail gun on the back of the Blacktron wagon? Whatever, it should take care of those Space Police trying to pull them over. I imagine it being in a convoy of Blacktron utility vehicles, placed there on purpose to look innocent until the Space police move in to break them up, them out comes the guns and blows them away. A bit like an armed merchantman in the North Atlantic!

That was the very thing that i wanted to do as a kid or certainly in my teenage years. I still do now but unlike then I can now afford it. I think the main reason kids don't do that has nothing to do with 'want' but everything to do with cost. It certainly was the case when I was growing up, can't see that it would have changed that much?

An interesting solution. My worry would be though that it does not look that 'track' like as some other examples I have seen. Still if it works correctly and is easy to build it could be a good solution for some people.

Nice model but have to agree on the curves. Like the others I have settled on 42-44 studs (Mine are 7 studs wide as well.) as a reasonable trade off for length versus reality. We would all like our trains to look real, but you have to remember that they are after-all made of LEGO so have to conform to LEGO railway curvature. Nonetheless, though a nice example of this type of carriage of which generally we do many of nowadays on the railways..

Looks very nice and very complicated. I always envy people who can make trains with all these gears and get them to work. I had enough trouble powering a set of wheels straight from an M Motor, so things like this impress me a lot.

Gosh, it would be so hard to contain them as they are everywhere all around the house! It would be good to get them to do stuff for me, but I may have to resort to dismantling them and only putting some together when I wanted something done or else I don't think I'd be able to control that many!

Is it likely that we will ever get battle packs? Trying to make a good sized attack on anything is almost impossible even adding up all the orcs from every set I have (All first wave LotR and Hobbit.) I only get about twenty or so which really is quite pitiful. I remember similar things when I was a lad, and I would get a set of models (Not LEGO.) and it had the 9 characters from the Fellowship and half a dozen orcs, I mean it was pretty useless as a toy and I would have thought that children nowadays would have similar views? I understand why adults (Like me.) still buy these sets but even then surely more orcs or more of any faction would be a good idea to make the sets stand out with a realistic display? Is there any hope of this? Anywhere, ever?

Interesting I got set 70705 Bug Obliterator up on the UK site for £59.99 but there was no button to enable it to bought? But you could look at it and get all the larger pictures and everything, it was under the 'whats new' tab.

Looks pretty good and swoopy, I would not like to be chased by them.

Yes, I did, but not so much the different colors. I always pictured them as from different units or factions, but within them they had ranks and I used those little epaulets that came in some sets, like the pirate themes. In fact I still do it today with some. My ADU troopers have some of them with the male and female (The pink CMF.) troopers being depicted that way. The heavier armored ones (From the CMF range.) have different colored helmets. http://www.flickr.com/photos/hrw-amen/8645986255/in/photostream

Very nice to see, I wish I had the knowledge and bits to put something like this together.

Nice looking front. Trouble is stations can always get bigger and out of hand can't they? Mine keeps growing, adding extra lengths to platforms, goods sheds and so on, but that is really part of the fun of it being LEGO. We can add bits until the 'Cows Come Home' (As my dad used to say.) and they are never completed. You have a nice start there, but don't give up on it, one day you never know it may seem complete and you think, what if I just add a little bit .......! So keep up the good work and remember to post your pictures so we can all see!