Hrw-Amen

It is both good to know that someone so young was so inspired and also to know that LEGO, something designed as a toy for children to play with, (As well as AFOLS of course.) can be made into something so potentially useful.

For me the old ones that you refer to here were for a long time the new ones. I grew up with hinges being great big red (Occasionally white, black or yellow,) 2X2 things that ere about a brick, or at least two plates thick. On a personal note I did prefer the new old ones over the ones in fashion nowadays, these modern ones do seem a bit chunky and from a MOCing perspective a backwards step, but I can understand why they did it as clutch power was never the strong .

Very nice engine set. It will be good to see it finally built, like you say lets hope it holds together well. Persoanally I'd like to see a A-B set up as we do not get much of that sort of thing in the south off England, we just get two engines joined together if we are lucky. Not even that very often.

So the tunnel has two tracks going in one side and then two seperate exits at right angles to each other? Or am I confused? I like the overall build and style, the bear cave is nice and the way you have done the falling water. It looks good but I am just not sure about the track layout inside.

I imagine dressing up as mini-figs of any sort could be quite fun.

I take time with big projects, usually several weeks or months. I get a couple of nights a week where I have a spare hour that I can use, usually to relax me just prior to going to bed. I would like to spend more time on it and sometimes at weekends I get longer as I do not need to be up Saturday or Sunday mornings. The trouble for me is like most people space to display them. I have boxes full of railway wagon, engines, coaches but no room for a layout. Most of the stuff I build once I am happy with it gets left built, most of it is railway related so does not take that much room and is easily stored in stackable boxes. You tend to get trains of half a dozen more or less identical coaches or trucks, or at least the same length, so they fit together in storage neatly. As for afording the bricks, I put in a couple fo Bricklink orders a month, normally not very big, but enough to just keep stocked with parts, bricks, plates. If you are not too worried about colour schemes you can get some good deals if you buy in bulk.

This isreally neat, when I looked at it first I thought it could not possibly be powered. I am assuming that the power is supplied by the box car behind, but feal free to tell me if I am wrong! Really nice looking engine though and an inspiration to use all to consider making a narrow gauge engine and wagons.

I have quite a few of them, bit I do find that the edge for seperating tiles, plates etc blunts quite easily and so it is good to get a new one every now and then.

On a personal note I think I would have to vote No. Odd, as some of my CITY police (And criminals) do have guns imported from other themes. It would not really bother me if the occasional policeman or criminal had a gun, but it would if they all did as this would not reflect the reality of where I live, it is the exception rather than the rule, but not never seen. I think though that it is my choice to do that. I am pleased it is not thrust on children in a real to life theme. It is one thing to have conflict in fantasy and I think most people, even children realise that this fantasy and not real life. Whilst some police where I am do have guns, it is normally only in extreme circumstances and you do not see them every day on the street. As such this is the case in my LEGO CITY.

I will at some point get photos on my flickr account. However I am not sure they are as good as your version, also they are like the rest of my stuff 7 studs wide in general. But I will get them up eventually.

Looks very sleek and the longer coaches i think are a must.

I like the way you havedone the front. I have two class 73s myself one in green livery and one in blue, but I think your front is better than mine. I know when building the first one I had real trouble trying to get it right and built it over a dozen times I reckon before getting something I thought was acceptable. I still don't like my dangly pipe cbling bits at the front anf yours looks much better just using those straight tools. I tried to use the tap parts (4599b on Bricklink and levers 4592c02 on Bricklink.) but they are not so clean, I may have to swap them out seeing yours. Looks good!

Very nice wagon and I agree that blue will probably look better than red, but we will have to wait and see.

That is rather an impresive train.

I cannot recall the exact set, but it was in 1970 and a push along train using the old blue rails.

I have a few Duplo bricks for this purpose and they are good, they fill up a big space. The trouble is getting them in big enough quantity. Maybe garage/car boot sales would be a good idea? It is my experience though that actual sets tend to not have large numbers of just Duplo bricks. It can take a while to actually build a selection of Basic Duplo bricks to use for this. Apart from that its a good idea.

Looks nice going along, as everyone else has said better on bigger curves but all in good time.

Looks good, I particulalry like the way you have done your field, sort of ploughed in a muddy kind of way, i would have never thought to use those bricks like that myself.

It is a pitty they are so expensive, I'd love to have a couple but not for the prices they go for.

A really nice model. Nice to see all the workings of it recreated. I have a question though, I have not seen one of these engines in the real world. All of the models I have seen are articulated which I guess is down to the length and need to get it around sharp corners. I have looked at several pictures online of these engines but cannot tell from them. So where the ACTUAL real locomotives articulated or is this just a thing done y model makers to make a realistic copy? Any photographs of actual bent engines if they exist would be good as I could not find any. (Although admittedly I only spent ten minutes or so looking.)

A nice big stationModel. Well done indeed!! It is something I' lke a nice big station.

Nice set of good looking old passenger wagons.

In the very dim and distant past before the internet and LEGO could only be bought via very slow postal service or in one of a very few stores (Sort of around 1980) I have resorted to painting bricks black to finish a MOC that I just did not have enough black bricks to make. It was only about four or five bricks. I did feel really bad about doing it, but as the MOC still has not been dismantled I guess it was justified due to its long livity. If I could get it out of the parents attic i am not even sure I would change those bits out now due to the length of time they have been there. Nowadays I would not paint anything, It is so easy to go onto bricklink and buy the odd part and it will be with you in a day or two at the most. As for Modding a part. The only time I have done this was with the PF railway switches when i just wanted to make a switch that could be the same ratio as the four way oone TLG used to make but has since stopped producing. Other than this I have just cut wires in PF extension cables as i have needed to rig them to the old 4.5v battery box and/or motor. It seemed prudent to cut wires on a reasonably cheap extension cable rather than actually on the IR unit itself. As for the 4.5V bit that connects it does not really need cutting as the connectors have little screws that you can undo to attach wires drectly into. I don't think of that as modifying a part as they are made to be used that way, other wise they would not have screws in them to enable it. So generally I am against modifying bricks, but sometimes with electrical connectors it is impossible to do otherwise if you want it to work.

If you find a good way then please share it as it is something I have wrestled with for a long time now. What width do you want to build? I have tried 8 wide and just about managed to get something realistic but ideally I'd like to keep the main build to 7 wide so it matched the rest of my stuff.

Seems good. I have a very small no of Modulex bricks that I got off Bricklink more out of curiosity than anything else. they do seem nice and I appreciate that they are a different ratio to normal LEGO brick. It would however be really good if they could produce a few Modulex Bricks that enabled them to interact with normal LEGO bricks, I think I would buy more of them then. Thinking about this, will they be considered a clone brand and shunned by most people or does the somewhat ancient connextion to real LEGO make them acceptable in most LEGO collectors eyes? What do people think?