High_Admiral

Getting into Lego trains, especially the aftermarket parts like Trainedbricks and BrickTrax, is nearly as expensive as O-Scale models if the Lego model is detailed enough. It is honestly comes down to your choice on which medium of model railroading you choose.

Looking good!

I personally would love to see bigger wheels for the rear, most hot rods did have larger/wider rear wheels. Regarding engine block size, I know that EMD had 20-cylinder blocks powering their SD45 and SD45-2 among other engines (Found this on the internet, absolute monster of a engine if I say so myself) This seems to be the largest amount of cylinders put into a single block for a loco from what I can tell.

The Left design really sells the hot rod look, mabye add some flames shooting out of fake/real(but rerouted to be more hod rod like) exhaust.

That's a mighty fine lil loco done up in a nice grey! One of these days, I might try my hand at the big DMIR Yellowstones, this build is surely driving me in that direction!

iirc, Tony Sava did the DMIR Yellowstone in Dark Bluish Grey, which looks freaking great. I would recommend that .

It looks like it could've been from this picture. The fittings and cab do have a higher contrast from the boiler jacketing so I'd say its highly likely that they ran in grey jackets for awhile

The sheer ugliness of that brute irl is fantastic and you've gotten the general feel of the thing perfectly! Great work!

I did triple bucks underneath my big loco's tender as well. Took me awhile to figure this out in a way that allows me to use the bearing wheelsets, but I think it's passable.

Posting this about an hour before the Youtube video premieres. Good luck to everyone here who entered! I can say that I've been impressed by a great many entries myself and whoever wins this year's awards is well-deserving of it.

Got around to dealing with the tender handrails and experimented with Studio's render engine to get a test render of lighting done. Marker lights, both the headlight and Mars light, firebox glow from under the skirts and in the cab are what's been decided on lighting-wise. May add yellow cab lighting that turns on when the engine is stopped as well as the tender rear reversing light.

Neat! Will there be any motorized builds or is it just too small for that?

I quite agree, it seems like a very half-baked system instead of just updating the PF system with this functionality.

Congrats on the 10k!

Impressive. I like how you went for the extendable stack in the deployed position instead of the hinged down position. Great work!

It's understandable. Roller Bearings did have a profound impact on the hobby in my opinion, but not everyone uses them or perhaps even know that they exist. I for one am still hoping for some enterprising people to come up with roller bearings for the Technic Axles(or third party parts to meet the need) so we can have even less rolling resistance on steamers and other builds that use them. Having people who stick to the "old ways" so to speak is a good thing I feel as it helps continue an era which has taken the back seat to the PF and PU era designs. One word: Safety. The E/F units are probably not as safe as the Chargers or the P42s

Fair enough, still looks freaking great!

This is something that I actually now am wondering. Why did you go with 6 wide along the entire consist when 8 wide would be more prototypical?

Nice work on the Amcans. The P42 looks a bit off to me, a bit too boxy in my opinion, but then again, this is 6-wide so not much room for SNOT for the rest of those angles on the nose there. Still, great work, easily recognizable

I too wonder about the feasibility of using Fx track in conjunction with things like Power Functions. If a suitable pickup, wheel or otherwise, gets developed to where it draws the power from the track, but we can also still put batteries into the models as a backup for shorts in the track/low voltage/ off-9v running, I will see to perhaps purchasing some myself. I always felt that the 9v system was more realistic-ish, now all we need is the rails in rust brown to complete the look! I do also have a question regarding the PFx stuff you got @michaelgale . I've been seriously considering using the sBrick controller for my latest build, just due to the sheer number of outputs it has. With the PFx controller, is it possible to have both outputs be on the same channel, but opposite each other? By this, I mean that the motors on one of the outputs are spinning, say, clockwise, while the other output's motors are spinning counter-clockwise, but they're all controlled by the same thing, the brick just flips the output. I've taken a look at your system, and what it all has going for it, which does actually meet what I want to do with my latest build. I'm just very curious as to how close we can get to DCC with it. Thanks in advance!

Update, Feb. 11, 2021: She's finished. Pictures added to original post. She's just over 55 inches long from pilot to rear coupler and tips the scales at 7.5 pounds. There are a few parts missing because either Studio wasn't cooperating with me on them or the parts don't have a LDraw file to add in. Special thanks to all the Lego Train Enthusiasts who over the years have turned this from a toy to a hobby scale, and to those who currently forge ahead with providing parts and services to further the development of Lego Trains. Couldn't have made the loco look this good with out all y'all's inspiration and creativity to drive me forward.

Very nice!

This looks like a great product, and a great review! Any idea if a new 9v motor might be in the works to supplement and replace the aging official ones?

I think so too. I’m considering making additional section for the model so I can quickly swap out the two schemes without totally rebuilding the engine each time. Might be worth it later on.

Well, it took a bit longer than anticipated to find the time, but here she is done up in Daylight.