SteamSewnEmpire

Not to pick nits, but I think it was actually based on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_C-123_Provider

I'm not raging - I wasn't going to buy the thing anyway (I'm just not a Technic person, is all). But I feel for the people who were... and I don't appreciate hypocrisy from Lego. And, let's be honest, they've been shoveling it on pretty thick a lot lately (remember the 'police are bad, mmmkay?' thing from earlier this summer?). "Guns are evil," but cowboys and U.S. cavalry armed with rifles, pistols, and even a Gatling Gun are okay? And I don't for a moment begrudge the inclusion of these themes - I want violence. So do kids - it's simply human nature. We, as a species, enjoy action; our stories and legends are tales of loss and triumph over adversity, and when that adversity is human in nature, it's typically well armed. But I don't appreciate being preached to by a company that actively profits from historical - and even, occasionally, contemporary - death and destruction about how 'evil' violence as a whole is (not in the least because it's enormously silly - did the medieval knight with his arm cut off, left to bleed to death on the battlefield somehow suffer less than some victim of a hypothetical missile strike from the V-22? C'mon. I know which death I'd choose if given the option). If the Osprey was pulled because there were serious QC issues, that's an entirely other can of worms, and they should be honest about it. But if it was truly yanked because some nebulous internal policy was ignored, only to be last-minute applied helter-skelter to this single instance of portraying a machine of war, Lego deserves to take more than a small amount of flak.

I also think it's ridiculous. That's CLEARLY based on an F-35. So... what's kosher about that over the Osprey? I absolutely guarantee that the F-35 is going to kill more people over its lifespan than a transport hybrid.

Would like to see a video of it running, if possible.

I so wish there was a part that could capture the hood over the light.

Kind of reminds me of the old micro machines trains.

You did a fantastic job capturing it. As others have pointed out, the original locomotive is a bit of a rolling brick (it reminds me of a toolbox on wheels), and thus very well-suited to Lego.

You should invest in 4x custom wheels and do real rods. Even if you don't physically connect them to the cylinders, it would be a marked improvement.

This is not a redo, but a completely new Razee, based on the real 44-gun ship. It's not quite right (the hull is too narrow; it's missing a few cannons), but this is about as close as I can come using the stock hull pieces without it looking absurd via over-lengthening.

No worries - never say sorry about advice. I decided to redo the whole ship anyway. Look for the Indefatigable thread!

Lego Digital Designer. Thanks! I kind of waffled on the waterline height. I feel like Razees were fairly low slung. Based on the render below (and the waterline shot), do you think it needs to be heightened? I may be reworking the bow and stern to give the appearance of more flare, anyway, so if you believe it's still too low, I can give it a look. I really also want to make more of an effort to capture the clipper-like bow on the razees. Thanks!

I spent longer on this than I should have. Indefatigable was used as a reference, but I wasn't quite trying to copy it.

Virginian was a smallish, kind of no-nonsense railroad. Only three total locomotives from the entire line were spared.

Yeah, I was wondering if that would cause problems. I might be able to just run a shared technic axle through the boiler. I'll see what I can work out when I get back from vacation.

Thanks. It's definitely a top contender for building I'm not going with tender power for a few reasons: 1) I am not confident about a 4 axle tender being able to push a 12 axle locomotive and maintain stability 2), I am a purist, and like my engines to pull, and 3) that particular tender is pretty small - not sure I could even get 2 can motors in there. One thing I likely could do is get 3x large PF motors in the loco - 2 for the trailing drivers, and one for the front set. The question then becomes: is 3x large motors a better tradeoff than 1x XL motor? Especially with all 3 nursing on one battery pack?

I went back and forth on the stack, but apparently most of them didn't have it: A number of these wound up in Poland and Italy, and I think they did their own mods, too.

This was an Austro-Hungarian Empire design that served all over Europe. I didn't have a lot of photos to go off of, and none were of good quality. I also elected to go with a normal stack, and not the weird wide one that the KKSTB experimented with for a while.

I had a few power questions, but decided they probably didn't require a new thread. Is there a rough torque equivalency for motors? For example, would 2x PF Large motors be roughly the same pulling power as one XL? Are certain motors better for certain tasks (speed vs. power), or is it all dependent on gearing? Thanks much.

I think my problem with it is that I simply cannot see any but roller coaster track. Track is weird like that - it's so simple, yet we spend a ton of time staring at it; more, arguably, than any other part of our railroads. It's undervalued in a way. I think the only way roller coaster track would work for me is some form of street running. So you bury the center under plate pieces and only the rails show.

Bulked up the boiler (hightened, but lost one stud in the front) and ditched the rear top downslope (I decided it just wasn't worth the accuracy to make the locomotive appear less burly. The forward and side slopes remain), as well as shrinking the tender. I think this is much closer to the mark, frankly. The minifigure gives some idea of scale. He's probably still a bit too big for this size, but it's at least close. The only thing I'm not so happy about is the front wheelset being unpowered (the loco is driven by a single XL motor). I would have preferred 2x XL motors, but it would have come at the expense of aesthetics, and I don't think it would have been worth the tradeoff.

These were so large that the cylinders had to be removed when ALCO shipped these to the Virginia tidewater. They had the largest diameter boilers of any locomotive in history, and were considered the ultimate slow drag freight engine.

I cannot answer for him, but I will tell you some areas where you can make improvements (I'm not picking nits - I'm saying where you can put in work while the engine remains in a digital state): 1) You don't need 4 large motors. Like 2 is more than enough. The more moving parts you have, the more likely is for something to go wrong. Minimalism is king. 2) Your driving wheels are too small - custom wheels would be better. These Challengers had 69 inch drivers - that's an almost perfect match for Big Ben's XLs. 3) The driver sets are too far apart, and the locomotive probably 6-8 studs too long overall (at least). There's no sense in making a big engine even larger than necessary. The bigger it is, the more difficult it will be to get it to run properly. You can see from the picture below that there's less than one wheel-width between the two wheelsets: 4) The tender could be reworked in terms of shaping and dimensions, and the wheels on the trucks are too widely spaced. It's good you made allowances for a flexible central wheel, but the bogies could be compacted more to improve this even further (and make them look better). 5) The trailing truck on the locomotive is an enormous block. 6) The domes on the locomotive are huge and could stand to be re-thought (you can see from pictures that they're a stud tall at most, and actually have a pretty simple shape). 7) The lead truck is probably at least a stud too long. Like I said originally, I think you're on the right track and could definitely get there, but further changes could be made. I didn't make this post to pick on you, single you out, etc. (and wouldn't have normally said anything, except that you did ask) - just to guide you to areas of concern that, should you choose, can be worked on. Rome wasn't built in a day.

Oh, that's really interesting. I had no idea. Yes, it helps loads. I imagine it also makes @zephyr1934 also feel even more confident in his choice. As a slightly-related aside, I decided to drop the big bucks on this tonight: I found most of the websites with locomotive lists and classes wanting. This should allow me to build some additional locomotives that aren't widely known.

I think a bit of additional detailing under the cab would do a lot. You don't need tons - just 10-15 pieces to suggest piping and such.