Hrw-Amen

Oh no, I was sure I had dreamt that awful Minis Tririth set, how can that be right it is tiddly like smaller than a small thing on a being very small day, dreadful, I hope that they do not release that it would be so disappointing on so many aspects!!

I do like the CMF one because it is the proper colour for a Mini-Fig like so many others have said, but in this case I voted for the generic elf guard as he could be anyone of many soldiers in the elf army. Although I dislike the fleshies as being un-LEGO-y I have given them a reprieve for anything LOtR or Hobbit related simply because they are so cool I have to have them. I wish there were more generic figures available though as to make realistic scenes. I mean how many goblins were swarming in LOtR Moria as opposed to how many we get in that set?

I do like the water effect, but I am wondering how deep it is? I mean how many layers are there of those trans round plates and bits? Do you start with a dark layer and then spread lighter ones on top, I would like some tips with this method as it looks so good especially where it splashes around the rocks and stuff. Great use of the telescopes for the bridge and that tree is magnificent.

I managed to get the Riddles for the Ring and Escape from the Mirkwood Spiders at my local toy store today. Guess what, they opened at half eight this morning and by the time I got there, around nine they had sold out of the Unexpected Gathering. Fortunately for me I was up waiting last night for it to tick over midnight and got it off the LEGO online store at 12.01am. I think I'll order the Barrel Escape as well in a couple of days as they said they had not had that one in at the store. My wife and I have just built the two sets we got this morning. It was good to get a couple more elves although I don't recall Legolas making an appearance in the Hobbit, at least not by name. I assume he must have been somewhere in the elven halls though. I am thinking of getting a Riddles for the Ring set for my mother for Christmas as she is a big Gollum fan from the books and after watching The Lord of the Rings at the cinema and on DVD she a few years back she has taken to saying 'Teethies' and 'Precious' in a very Gollum like way and when I told her this morning I had just bought the set it sparked a session of such utterings as I drove her to the supermarket.

That is really neat, I guess you would never have managed it with a LEGO battery box unless you wanted a grey one. But this is really neat, espeically hiding the IR Unit like that and still being able to fit the driver in the cab. Excellent work.

So looking ata lot of these sets, the aliens vehicles do not seem to be actual ships to me. They appear much more like walkers, like insects would be. Is that the impression the rest of you have or do you imagine them flying through space?

OK, I have had a bit of a redesign and have uploaded pictures to the original flickr album in my first post. These new ones are for a single line and I am working on needing between 30 to 40 of them for a single line in the areas where it will be seen? I have a Bricklink order placed for the bits I need. I have replaced the green and red round 1X1 plates with LBG ones, I think that looks a lot better and more like the photos I have looked at.

Not really in film or TV but on the Radio yesterday. Driving home from work I was listening to a programme called 'More or Less' on BBC Radio 4. It had an article on it where somebody had written in asking if you stacked LEGO bricks on top of each other how many would you have to stack until the bottom brick was crushed? They did some sort of experiment to find out how many, and it was some ridiculous amount that would stretch well over 3Km high, but obviously they would not be able to do that as it would fall over. i think they used some sort of crush testing machine and then calculated the number of bricks it would take to create that much mass. They were using a 2X2 brick I understand. Anyway it was quite interesting. You can find the article on the BBC i-player under Radio and search for it in A-Z under M.

Wonderful news and these look so much better than the Galaxy Squad sets. I do wonder though if TLG will feel they conflict too much with that line and hence not make them? I don't think that is definately the case and even so they would make one ever so good set or two that could easily be written into the Galaxy Squad line up given the different colours already in the mix. One thing I really am hoping for but think is a bit too far for them to go is to make those four legged aliens. A part with four legs and torso to fit onto it would open up so many avenues. Just think how much better the Galaxy Squad bugs would have been with the correct number of limbs!

I am not familiar with this Gaston Lagaffe except from what I have just goggled, however it does look like a cute little engine.

That is great, you even have a TARDIS!

Yes that is much better than the LEGO small christmas train. Really cute!

I did consider the wires once before. When I had a N Gauge layout years ago we had the catenary for this as it mostly had German locomotives which had pantographs and for the same reason I wanted to include them. I did see in some of the magazines that were around about actually powering your locomotives from the wires as they had pick up built into the pantographs. My father and I bought some intending to try it out. We set about setting it up but after a long weekend of frustration and irritability gave it up as a bad job. It seemed to be excessively difficult and just not worth the hassle. So in the end we just used the masts. Now LEGO is obviously a much bigger scale but I expect that as Steinkopf said it would just be a problem with the strength of masts and so on. I guess if you were to try it then it would be a case of actually glueing the bricks that made up the masts to give them added strength and whilst I may end up doing that anyway I am not quite there yet. Another thing I found on my old n Gauge layout was even having the masts there it was really hard not to knock them over every time you had to put an engine or rolling stock onto the track. Something else that would be easier with LEGO but probably done more often due to the speed that people run the trains at and the inherent nature of LEGO Trains to fly off in corners when running at those speeds.

Fantastic news, i really hope this is made into a theme, would be a real knock for the whole programme in my opinion if it gets refused. Would like to see a whole theme but even one set would be good especially if it is a big one.

Actually neither do I thinking about it. I built them just after I finished building the forest police helicopter so I think I had port and starboard going around in my head! But you are right I may have to change that and remove them. I think my idea was partly to make sure they were all the same way round if I put them on a double track, but that was before the design was finalised so as to speak and as they are the same on both sides it is somewhat redundant. I'll take them off right away.

Perhaps several people should do this around the globe as the conditions in one country will probably be totally different to another. It is the start of winter where I am, but i could do something similar once the sun starts to comes back as I would also be interested to see..

As most of you probably know by now, one of my pet dislikes is that all these trains run around with pantographs on top seemingly drawing electricity from thin air. Whilst that might be really wonderful if they could do that we all know that in real life that does not happen. (Yet!) So with the advent of the Horizon Express I decided to bite the bullet and make some. Now they are nothing fancy, I have had a look at what others have done and come up with a really basic design that is simple to make yet seems to look vaguely like the real thing, at least enough like them to satisfy a LEGO railway. The ones I have made are for a twin track although obviously they would be simply modded for single lines and probably will be. I only have five so far as that was all the bits I had but anyway here they are. Like I said nothing fancy. One thing I would like to have your opinions on, for those who have catenary already, how far apart from each other should they be on average? On the section of track on my work bench I have only spaced them every five or six sleepers which is probably way to close to each other, what do you think, one every two track lengths?

Really good depiction of the movie.

I would not fiddle with something that old. If you do it on a current model or a MOC fine, but that being a classic set should in my opinion be left as it is. For me i leave all my LEGO brand trains as they are made up out of the box. What I do on my own models is up to me, but I'd leave well alone an official set, at least from an appearance point of view. I understand people may want to change 12V to PF or 9V or whatever and that is OK as long as you are not changing the external appearance.

I don't really like teasers, I just prefer to know in advance what I a getting. I have fallen foul of the saving up for a big purchase only to find it is discontinued and out of stock by the time I have enough to buy it. Obviously that does not really apply to custom minifigs as they are not expensive, but it has kind of put me off the idea in general. I'd much rather have as much notice as possible, that way I'd be getting all excited seeing what I am going to buy. Teasers just don't do that, they simply frustrate me.

I recall having a set like that as one of my first trains, not sure if it was that one though(?) but similar in about 1970. I had a lot of trains back then, most had 4.5V blue motors and battery boxes and were great fun. Does anyone remember that train carrying black ferry boat that the ends lifted up on? I had hours of fun with that loading the trains on and off. I found the baseplate for it the other day in a load of old bricks. I thought of trying to rebuild it, as it was one of my earliest favourites.

Well I do of course find that there are many more police or fire sets and of course I understand why. But they do make several sets that are not related to these even amongst general service utility vehicles. Sometimes these are hard to find and have to be ordered directly from them which is OK nowadays with good internet access. What annoys me though with the layouts is the lack of ability to buy straight or curved roads alone. Why do i have to get a junction or cross road with every set? The real world is not built like that regardless of whether I am 8 or 48. I would like the ability to add proper straight or curved roads, be able to buy a set that was cheaper and had the section I want, or the same price but have two straights or whatever. OK we do need junctions but not every twenty meters or so.

How about the 'Tile & Plate,' or the 'Stud & Tile.' The 'Plate of Cheese' perhaps? Maybe that would be better for a cafe?

I like the look of most of these. I think the only one I am not keen on is that little fire truck with the garden shed on fire. To me it just looks like a smaller scale to the proper fire truck. I'll probably end up having to get it though as the wife likes fire sets for some bizarre reason(?) One thing I would say is why is it that in all the sets with the police and criminals, you always get more police than you do crooks? I would have thought it should be the other way around at least some of the time, I mean the police are supposed to be heroic heroes are they not, it is not very heroic to take down one criminal when there are three cops about him. Maybe if one cop took down to or three criminals that would be a better play set and make the police seem a little more like a hero. What do people think?

Yes those slopes are just like the real thing, it would be good to see the real thing running.