SteamSewnEmpire

Are you planning on doing an 8w Maersk loco to match?

I can't shake the feeling that it's too short.

I try to power 2 axles on any 6-driver loco, with the rods powering the third. Generally speaking, I always aim to keep the number of unpowered axles at no greater than 1.

Yeah. Just google "BR Experimental Purple." There are a few photos of engines in various versions of it.

I'd be very interested to see it run on some larger curves. It's hard to get a feel for it snaking around the Lego ones (though I appreciate that it can do it). Here's the no less bizarre (and no more successful) American equivalent:

Does anyone have any thoughts on this (as opposed to the green)?: Before you thumb your nose, British Railways did paint a fair number of steam locomotives into a scheme called "experimental purple" for a while. None of the Rebuilt BoB locomotives were painted in this color, but their very close sisters - the rebuild Merchant Navy Class - were. I've gone down the parts list, and while using this color would require some swapping, it looks to be very doable. I have to say that, to my eye, this is more attractive than the green, but that may be just me, and this is a massive eyesore to everyone else. Looking for opinions.

This. Thomas died when they stopped being real models. That was the whole impressive joy of the thing - that, somewhere, a Thomas "layout" (or at least modules) existed. Even as a teenager I could appreciate how cool that was.

Potted plants, some trees set up in raised stone "planters," luggage, benches, lamps, a flag, a semaphore, or express mail winch, etc. Don't go crazy (there is such a thing as "too much"), but having too clean a setting is inaccurate:

I'd use Big Ben's Large, I think? Whichever ones are the same size as the rims on the stock Lego wheels.

I'd encourage a bit more detailing: plants and vines, luggage piled, some kind of awnings over the windows (or flower boxes under them), framing for the doors, possibly the use of these on the corner stonework: It looks to me like a lot of elements on the shape of the original would be very, very easy to replicate. In fact, I'm bored - if you'd like, I could probably design that station in an hour or so... I could use selective compression, too, so it won't wind up substantially larger than what you've got. Just let me know.

Thanks! And, at some point, yes. This would join the queue behind the BoB 4-6-2 and the NYC J3 4-6-4... but it's definitely on my to-do list when funding is available. I think it turned out pretty darned good, and they're really neat locomotives IRL (even if the Crosti boilers are long gone). The idea of a 2-10-0 that actually hauled passengers for ferry trains - including named trains - is fascinating to me.

Proto: Model: I went with the naked stack instead of the smoke lifter - not because the lifter was any trouble - but because it effectively hides the Crosti stack... which is sort of self-defeating.

They sure are pretty.

That's okay, I suck at most other stuff - like gainful employment! Lego doesn't pay the bills. Besides, I still haven't successfully built anything - just digital models.

My guess is, without motors, it would be about 120 USD. Maybe a bit more. I prefer the bright red even if it isn't 100 percent accurate.

The Hogwarts Castle. Proto: Model: Only 1,000 pieces.

Not a fan of 6 wide, but that's awesome.

Oh, I did. Immediately.

Hi all, This isn't exactly a minifig question, but it is a customization question, so I was hoping you might be able to help, since this is the forum for those sorts of issues. I'm going to be building a pretty fancy locomotive in a few weeks. IRL, the driving wheels were very uniquely painted, and I'd like to capture this look if possible: I've already acquired 6x custom wheels in white, and I was thinking that the best way to achieve the black rings would be to buy some kind of masking tape and then cut circles to cover the center of the wheel, and rings to cover the rims, and then spray paint the middle (perhaps even using vinyl automotive dye - although I am not sure how successful that would be on 3d printed plastic (I know from experience that it works really well on Lego stuff, though]) Problem is, I have absolutely no idea what kind of a tape product would be best used to mask those areas. I think, ideally, the tape would be on hard sheets that would be simple to draw on and cut with scissors into shapes (in this case, circles and rings)... but I do not know of any product like that. So... what should I use to accomplish this? Or am I going about it totally the wrong way? Any help is very appreciated.

I managed to get the Mercury down to about $200 (minus battery boxes and motors, for which it is cheaper to buy shipping-free from Amazon), so that's what I ordered. I got REALLY screwed when, about 3/4ths of the way down my buy list, I discovered a vendor with 5 lot limit (really? Into the dustbin your store goes, guy), and Bricklink had dutifully assigned him like 50 of my lots. So I would up spending a full 45 minutes creating a new wanted list for just those parts to clean up the mess he'd made for me. Thanks, bud. Big wishes on your success in the future. So, optimistically, I'll be able to start building sometime in late March. I'd like to eventually do all three of my most recent locos, but I just can't swing the ~$600 USD that the parts, S&H, and additional motors/battery boxes will cost for the additional two right this moment. Thanks again for everyone who helped - especially izx. I'd upvote you if I could, but we don't have that feature here :/.

Lol, thank you!

This wound up being immensely helpful, thank you, but prompted another question. When I let Bricklink auto-select stores and then get this: How do I know what parts haven't been assigned at that point? And how do I get Bricklink to assign them? You've already more than halved the price of the Battle of Britain loco, so provided I can get this last confusion resolved, I am going to go for it.

Thanks. Any idea why parts I have already removed from the list keep ending up in carts?

So far, I've been unable to get it much below 390. It's a 1900 piece loco - I doubt it's more part heavy than a Challenger, but who knows. And it's still generating searches for items I have already removed from the list... not sure how to stop that.

I'm working on that now. Honestly, Bricklink is not the easiest site to use... and it's giving me a problem. Every time I remove a high-priced item from my list, that item is still showing up in the carts of "auto-selected" stores. I can remove the stores, reload the part list, etc... and it's still generating these "phantom items" that are no longer in the list. How do I get Brinklink to forget about these items? *Edit* Does the auto-select just not work on Brinklink? So, normally, I just buy North American. This is the store list it generated for me for the Mercury if I went with NA: And here is the store list it generated if I went "anywhere": So... according to Brinking... by clicking "anywhere"... I should be charged 300 dollars more? What the heck?