Hrw-Amen

Really nice train station there. Some interior shots would be good, also some close ups of those passenger coaches and engine would be much appreciated. By the way I like the added feature of the teenage gang of racer boys and girls. It makes the scene look more realistic. I have a gang of girls in punk outfits on skate boards! Can I ask what is the Yellow building you have a few frames down in your flickr photostream, Is that a station too or something else?

It does really come down to what you want to do both from a point of play and also as they are your sets and only you can decided. I would say that both of these Creator sets are great little buildings and will fit well with a City layout as many have said. OK they don't open up like you want but you can easily mod that with a few extra bricks and parts. Have you tried that yet, it is so easy really if you have the bits to do and will make them so much more playable in the way that you like whilst maintaing the overall look.

The turret is good and I like the overall idea. i think though if it was me I would have used the ADU yellow wheels so that it matched the other ADU vehicles. I realise that would have bulked it out a bit which you were trying to avoid, but that is what I would have (And indeed have done with my own.) done. Still it is a nice little scout non the less..

Well I have been after some of these doors in blue for a while. I tend to only buy from UK sellers being in the UK myself and having been hit by import taxes more than once doubling the price of my purchase. I want them to make passenger coaches that can pass as BR Blue and white scheme. I have managed to get a couple but both the same side. I am on the look out for more all the time at a reasonable price. I'll keep an eye out for the service pack though now i know it exists.

I actually have to say that i like the design of the Enlighten Green passenger coach, but I do not like the look of the bricks it is built with. I don't know they just look a lot cheaper somehow and even in the photographs you can tell the bricks are not as well made as the real LEGO ones. Having said that the actual model is OK, i could see myself trying to make it but with LEGO bricks instead. I like the idea of printing the curtains and that onto the windows as well. If LEGO did that we could probably build a better quality version of this coach to the same design which would be very nice indeed.

OK I have to ask as I cannot find an explanation after reading loads of these pages. What exactly is a zamor? I mean I know it is that trams purple pod thing in some of the sets, but does the term Zamor have some special meaning that I am not getting or is it just a made up word in the back ground story of the Galaxy Squad sets? I tried google and got some results about a French bloke, but I can see it si nothing to do with him./

I would as others have said convert the 9V train to run on Power Functions. I can see that 9V stuff is more like normal model railways in that the track is powered and that is why a lot of people like it, but from my experience of those normal model railways I would say PF is better simply because you do not need to worry about short circuits and changing polarity and all that stuff. OK PF can be a pain with batteries, but if you run on rechargable ones it is not so bad. A bit of layout to start with but once you have them you have them so as to speak.

I really should make up some of my old stuff. Trouble is I only have bits and pieces at the moment. One day I will get the main box back. But all these old trains make me feel nostalgia for the ols blue 4.5V days of my youth.

That is one monster of an engine. It will be so good when you get a video of it running. In a way seeing it on those tight LEGO curves will be something to see that it can indeed handle that.

When you say 10 X 10 and 15 X 15 do you mean studs, inches, cm or something else? The usual base plates that are sold around where i live (In the south of UK.) are either 32 X 32 studs or 48 X 48 studs. These can be bought in most stores that sell LEGO although they are not some thing that is usually at the front of the pile. In the store where I go they are pushed to the back a lot of time and I normally have to ask for them. The sales person usually knows where they have been put. Normally they stock the 32 X 32 stud ones in green or blue and the larger 48 X 48 studs ones in grey.

I have not looked at this thread for a while but am glad to see it continuing to gather support. Much better designs in these latest vehicles and the aliens are just so good especially the legs. These look way better than the Galaxy Squad aliens to me.

I kind of like the look of the green vehicle, also the android is very similar (At least in its head.) to the Games Workshop Space Marines that I have loads of. I think the green vehicle will probably be my first purchase. But to be honest I am going to have get all the Hobbit sets before these. I like them, but they are not that great. On a personal note and I know it will not be very popular but I think I preferred the Alien Conquest line.

Hello, Not sure who to direct this to, one of the MODs I guess? Just gone to access themes in the train section of the forum and I am getting blocked by my PC's security programme. The message is long but the important bit I guess is this 'Access to this page blocked as ox-d.traffiqexchange.com known malware distributor has been inserted into the page. Just thought I should report it to someone but not sure who?

I started out when i was about two years old and my parents bought me some LEGO, (I think my dad bought it for himself as he played with it more than me to start with.) that would have been around 1969-1970. As time progressed I amassed more and more and was building it right up until I left home to go and work away in about 1986. Even then when I bought my first house in around 1987-8 I was still buying sets. I bought a lot of the larger space related sets from Ice Planet, Blacktron, Space Police etc that my parents had not been able to afford then. I then changed jobs in 1991 and in 1995 was transferred to a different area of the country, back to where I came from. As a result I had to rent out my house and move back to my parents. The house prices where they lived where just too expensive for me to afford so I had no choice. I think this was when I stopped building and it was simply down to not having space having gone from a whole house to myself to one bedroom. Most of it was stacked away in the attic at my parents. Then I got married in 2002 and bought a new house having had to sell my old one that I'd rented out. For a while I did not think of LEGO but then I was out shopping with my wife and we saw the collectable mini-figs and she asked what they were. We bought a couple out of nostalgia more than anything and that was it really. That must have been around 2009/10 I guess, (When-ever the collectable mini-figs first came out?) So I guess the Dark Age was from about 1995 to 2009'ish, but more to do with constraints of space than actually wanting to stop.

Exactly, wait until you have bought several sets, you will soon run out of space. When i got back into it after my Dark Age I just bought a few of the custom Mini-figs and thought 'Oh yes I can just put these on the shelf here.' But very soon that had grown to two shelves, then I bought some actual sets, just the small ones to start with thinking that would satisfy my desire. It did for about a month or so, then a few years later there is no space at all and some LEGO sets are on strings hanging from the ceiling and eveything!

So what is this all about? It is just a picture of a box with some lights, no description or anything, what has that got to do with LEGO?

I've only got one set that has never been built that is really old. It is the base set for the Ice Planet 2002 space range. It is still in the box, I've opened the flip up lid to look at the parts all nice and clean but never opened it or built it. The main reason for this was that I never had room to display it without it getting knocked about. I still don't have room. I have read some reports that say it is a crap set, others that it is a good one. I would love to have it out and see as I did enjoy the other sets in the range. The reason i don't is simpl,y because there is nowhere to put it not because I am worried it may decrease in value. I have no plans to sell it, it is LEGO it is supposed to be played with.

Yes that fire station the one with the yellow strip across the front of the roof, the one you say came as a promotion with cornflakes for Danes. That is the one that I had which was in the south of the UK. I think it must have been about 1970 my parents got it for me. I am sure it was with one of those cardboard road plans as I mentioned in another of your threads. There was a small bungalow with it. This was white and had 33 degree red slopes for the roof. I think back then it was the only building I had with those slopes as most of what I had came with 45 degree ones in either blue or red. There was i am certain another building (If not two.) in the set but for the life of me I cannot recall what it was?

The chain drive one does look kind of like a normal traction engine but mounted on some bolt on railway wheels. I'm sort of surprised we have not seen more of that sort of thing as it seems a kind of obvious thing for smaller companies to have on their private sidings. But I have never seen one like it before? Those weird motors on wheels look a bit odd, I mean where does the driver sit? On the Bruntons Traveller what are those weird arms sticking out the back for? It almost looks lie something a model railway geek would have to run around and at the same time clean his track for him.

I often but multiples of the smaller sets to make a subject more 'real.' For example with the ADU sets from Alien Conquest, I bought several of the smaller sets. I cannot believe that an invading alien intelligence would simply bring along just one tiny little fighter / skimmer craft or one walker. In the same vein I cannot believe the ADU would have just one small vehicle with a gun mounted on the back. (It would be akin to the army having just one Challenger or one Abrams depending on where you live of course but you get the idea.) So to make a credible battle scene you really do need multiples some times. It is fine to have only one of the massive sets, say a base or really big vehicle, like in the Alien Conquest the Earth Defender as that is essentially where they control the battle from, you get my drift? So yes I buy maybe one big set, lots of little sets, sometimes to just have more than one, sometimes to have parts to make MOCs that fit in with the line. I guess it comes down to if you are an army builder or not really. I have no idea which ones are worth more money wise, I don't buy things with any plan to sell them so I don't look at that side of it.

That looks quite nice for the ADU, not a fan of mechs normally but that one is good.

It is a bit lame for an insect, I would at least expect it to have the correct number of legs, that looks like a human with an insect mask on and some strap on party wings. I will be disappointed if that is what we get for the aliens. I was expecting something, you know, a bit more alien!

Hopefully we will get it with one of the Sun promotions next time. I have seen some of the promotion polybags (Cars & City ones.) on sale in TRU in the UK after the promotion week is over so it maybe worth checking a TRU in the UK although the ones I saw were being offered for £3.99 which was a bit steep for what they are and a bit too much to army build with, still I'd probably grab a couple if I saw them just because of what they were and what was in them. Fingers crossed we get them though..

Thanks, yes I think he was pleased. He is a little shy still around people he does not know that well, But we did have a good time running the engines and wagons around and he had a go himself. I think he is just coming out of the phase where he likes to have contact with the train and push it about by hand so it was good that he not do this and used the controller. I wish I had enough room to set this up and leave it but alas I do not. Maybe one day I will have a big house but not today. It is quite good though to see it all come together like that. There are a few things I need even for this, straight roads included to go down the side of those buildings being one, but gradually I am getting there.I think my friend was surprised by how heavy some of the buildings were, but then I took the roof off one so he could see how they are all detailed fully inside each room kitted out as it should be.

The last of the green coaches I have been making is the Dining car. I was kind of inspired by the Horizon Express having one and thought I'd go with one for my green set. It is also identical from the outside as the other normal coaches apart from the extra vent in the roof. But take the roof off and it is totally different. It features a toilet with opening door along with a small serving area where they can make drinks and do light refreshments such as the croissants. Then the seats are arranged around little round tables for the people to sit at to eat their meals if they don't want to return to their normal seats. Here is the flickr link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hrw-amen/sets/72157631684467959/with/8193245717/ Annoyingly it seems to show all the other green coaches as well. I tried a few times to get just the pictures of the Dining coach but for some reason it was just not having it. Sorry, but this coach is in there.