ivanlan9

@zephyr1934, you must be in or near Chicago. Metta, Ivan

I'm so sorry about the fire. I can't even begin to imagine. ... Metta, Ivan

Dear КвадратГнездо: For a "gloomy soviet genius" you are a very funny guy. Also a talented modeler. Metta, Иван

What a lovely, lovely building! Metta, Ivan

I wanted to buy it, figuring I wouldn't need much Italian (and could rely on my specks and shreds of Latin to help me through the rough spots), but I couldn't get amazon.co.it to recognize me. ... after about an hour I gave up. Too bad, it looks like it would be a great book, as I admire Sergio's trains enormously. Metta (not my name), Ivan (my name)

So, @traintraum, do you friends know you're crazy? How about your folks? Your cat, as cats do, rolls with the punches. (If you haven't figured it out yet, I am insanely jealous. ) Metta, Ivan

You really need to post photos of the finished project here. Fine furniture that shows off your trains? That's a no-brainer. And there are (or must be) some few of us who do both woodworking and Lego. Metta, Ivan

Just to clarify: the prototypes are all 750mm guage, correct? About 2.5' Imperial. And you're building 6-wide models on standard Lego track, so that would make them what scale? Excellent work on all these, by the way. I like Russian diesels, and these are especially entertaining. Metta, Ivan

Let us know about the Tibet Railway Train, please. I placed one order with BlueBrixx; for 6-wide, the design was adequate. Building the three locos was--frustrating. The quality of the bricks is on par with MegaBlocks. I won't be buying any more from them. But I will continue to get their free instructions; I've so far found nothing that can't be built with official Lego parts (color substitutions may be necessary). Collecting the parts takes a lot of time, whether you dig through your existing parts collection or you buy them through BL, or wherever. Once you get the parts, however, you have a decent build with proper quaility parts. I would rather pay official Lego prices for official Lego parts, instructions and boxes than BB and typical Chinese knockoffs. However, TLG doesn't produce enough trains to satisfy me; I bought every single 9-volt train, as well as the two RC trains, and the Emerald Night. I have not bought any of the newer Power Functions train sets, although I did buy three of the Crocodiles. I would buy more 7-wide sets if TLG would make them--the PF 6-wide sets weren't quite interesting enough. Metta, Ivan

The GP30 and the RS3 for me, please. Very, very nice. I am also extremely impressed with the wagontop boxcar in the consist the RS3 is pulling. I think the roofline on the GP30 might be a plate too thick over the cab, but that's the only flaw in a very nearly perfect loco. 7-wide is the max I can handle, so I encourage you to make instructions for the two locos and the wagontop available. Metta, Ivan

So I don't understand those bulging radiator grids. They're not on SD40s, -2s, -3s or -4s. Is this a custom mod or what? Regardless, it is, as to be expected from @Terry Akuna, a fabulous build. Love the innards! Metta, Ivan

Nice. Now do one for American RRs! Metta, Ivan

Super model and excellent film. I would very much have like to see the E194 pulling it around the track. Does it negotiate the curves & switches? Unfortunately for you I only build in 6-wide, so your instructions are of no use to me. I'm sure they're excellent, however. Metta, Ivan

Long time Alco fan here. To me, the proportions look really good, but the square grills on the sides look too big. Could you use the backs of headlight bricks for this purpose, perhaps? Metta, Ivan

Hugh the Borg meets Thomas the Tank Engine.

I'll buy a circle of whatever radius is put up first (plus a bunch of straight track), just to support the endeavour, and I'll fervently hope for the production of R40. Due to space constraints I can't use anything larger (which also explains why I build 6-wide only). Metta, Ivan

Not only a rail bender, you'd also need a decent soldering iron, grinder (and jigs) and other tools in order to make your own turnout frogs, guardrails and so on. You would have also needed these tools for the ME track, but as I recall the rail itself was not code 250 but simple metal strips. My memory might be wrong, of course. Given the ties, it would be worth it. But it's the ties that are the kicker. Metta, Ivan

I'd be very interested, but note that ME Models and its track is dead, dead, dead. And even if they came back, I would avoid them strenuously--too many horror stories and too much ill-treatment of paying customers. I'm of the opinion that the only way we're likely to get 9V track is for someone to make injection-molded ties of various sizes with grippers to slide onto code 250 rails. Then we could make our own track! You'd need regular ties, plus shorter and longer ones to allow for turnout ties, as well as crossings, 90° and otherwise. Metta, Ivan

Nice, but how heavy are they? Did you add weights? If not, the books will push over the loco. ..

I dislike steam, but by golly, if this were a TLG kit I'd buy it. Fantastic job; you should be extremely proud of this design. It'd be great to see it in real bricks sometime. Metta, Ivan

I ordered this morning at around 0900 (9AM) Mountain Time; being in the US, it gave me a limit of three, which is exactly how many I wanted (for me: I don't part things out). I got the bonus automatically, 1905 points automatically, and was told they'd ship 17 July--which I can stand. I also didn't try to use my 3800 other points, figuring I will use them all on other things. ... possibly on Powered Up stuff. Metta, Ivan

Sigh. A crying shame. Lego did not do right by this set (I have two of them, by the way). For a while after it came out you could buy 9v motors from S@H, so I bought a few that way. You guys put in a horrendous amount of work, and the way that TLG handled it a great deal of it was wasted. Now, what I remember hearing about the end of 9v was that sometime before this kit was ready the machine that crimped the metal onto the 9v plastic track broke. Lego looked at how much it would cost to replace and weighed that against the sales of the 9v line, and decided to drop both the track and the rolling stock. The death of the child came after that decision, which I guess made TLG even more convinced that the had made the right decision. My memory could be making things up, of course. ... Metta, Ivan

Yes, as @M_slug357 said, those pinholes are more useful than you think. That said, I'm holding out for 9v metal track. Sorry, mate. Metta, Ivan

I actually hadn't noticed how huge the magnets look until @Vilhelm22 pointed it out, but now that's all I'm able to see! The engine is adorable, as is the little coach. And using the gold crystals in the ore cars is a very nice touch. The ball joints would look far better than the magnets, but prototype mining locos & cars typically use link & pin couplers, or even chain dropped over a couple of hooks or pins, as is shown here: http://www.brassmasters.co.uk/3-link_couplings.htm Lego does both chain and hooks, and you might have better luck rigging up something with those than the link & pin. Please cultivate being bored more often! Metta, Ivan

Um. No.