SteamSewnEmpire

I finally parted and priced out a couple of my locomotives tonight and... wow... $600 for the Mercury, and $570 for the BoB class. I wasn't expecting this to be cheap, but I also was not anticipating HO scale brass locomotive prices, either. Even swapping for all used parts only dropped the overall tag about 40 bucks per loco. I didn't even bother finding out what the NYC J3-A would cost because the first two were so enormously disheartening. How do people afford this hobby? I'm not even trying to buy track, scenery, buildings, etc. - just put together two (not enormous; not, like, articulated locomotive-sized) locomotives (let alone passenger cars which I would expect, based on these results, to be 300-400 dollars per-car). I'd like to see some of my creations actually built and perhaps even running, but not at the cost of, like, food for a month.

Just FYI, I'm pretty certain something can't be "plundered away." Maybe 'frittered away?'... or 'squandered on'...?

I've never understood Lego + outdoors, and I never will.

I don't regard monorails as trains (or roller coasters pretending to be monorails, for that matter), so I guess I hope there's something else.

I went back to PF 1.0 in all my designs. The cable length issues, price, inability to stack cables, and needless complexity of the entire system were deal breakers.

That's the same height as before, but the top plate swapped down for more brown banding (and then I would do a black sticker along the bottom of the grey).

I'll sleep on it. The problem is, if I ditch the black stripe and essentially trade it for an extra brown plate below (and then re-apply the stripe later as a sticker), lifting the roof off will no longer be possible. I might be able to incorporate the sides into the lift out, but that would be something I cannot just accomplish on a whim with a few part changes - it requires completely rebuilding all three cars.

I think that would make them too high. I measured the height of the cars based on the front of the boiler of the locomotive as compared to real-world photos. The peak of the roof should really be one plate lower than the top of the front of the boiler - as things stand, I am right at that mark. If I raise the cars, they'll actually become taller (proportional to the locomotive) than they should be.

Originals: Models: Some decals would obviously be necessary (especially for the windows).

Yeah, I like the station, too. It's a bit on the fantastical side for my tastes, but I think the build itself is creative and looks solid. My beef was singularly with the subway - and normally I wouldn't criticize a fellow MOCer's work... I just took umbrage with the way it was marketed.

Awesome! Love it!

Harsh but true. I would never buy a subway. I'll be honest: I'm not a fan of the design, either. The guy went with, what, 10w, still managed to achieve only a stud-covered box? It's also obvious that almost zero effort was put into the trucks - they're just stock Lego wheels, and the cars themselves look like they're mounted something like 3-4 plates too high for no reason other than sheer laziness. No fluting for the roof? No effort to replicate the elongated windows? Why do anything, right? This causes me to further question the purpose of Lego Ideas at all. I call rank Canadian jingoism on this one, and I hope Lego sees through it. *Edit* It doesn't even look like the real thing: I wonder if I submitted a design and plastered it with American flags and stuff like this if I would get 10k supporters, too:

Couldn't care less about the set, but I am grateful for the parts it added.

I don't have access to a 3d printer... and certainly not one of a quality high enough to produce really precise things like drivers. I've decided I want to commit to building my Rebuilt BoB class locomotive, but I really would like to have accurate wheels for it. Shupp offers normal boxpocs - and I really like the wheels I have gotten from him before - but the Bulleid Firth Brown wheels were very unique: I've seen that some people have home-made their own (but normally in XL), but, again, that's really not possible for me. Does anyone know if anyone is making these things in XXL?

I think we're just going to have to conclude that that exact shape simply isn't possible to achieve in Lego at this scale. I've looked around the web, and this locomotive has been MOC'd more than a few times - most people either make no effort to achieve any contours on that part of the locomotive, or, if they do, they default to custom parts (like actually cutting Lego and gluing it). For example, this (really good) model of the P2 warps a bucket handle to make a similar window: I'm not going to go to that length.

It's a versatile part. The unfortunate thing is LDD won't allow you to do stud-reversing with it, which it can also do IRL.

I'm going to try SNOTing that whole section in a bit and see what I get.

In terms of raw shape, I think this is the closest Lego is going to come in this scale: Stickers will be required, and glue for the little pizza slices... but that's really about as close as it's going to get. It cramps the living daylights out of the cab having the roof dropped that low, but I am willing to suffer it to achieve the shape necessary.

Redid the tender so it has the proper in-slope on the bottom. I'm still thinking about the cab angling.

Yeah, that was just my initial effort. I tend to spend like 6-7 hours straight designing the things, and then - exhausted by that point - post what I have, and then go to bed. I had already 'redone' that portion of it before you even said anything. Unfortunately, it's STILL not to my satisfaction: For one thing, the little pizza slice would require gluing to work in that spot, so that's not satisfactory. Second, it doesn't even come in dark green, so I'd likely have to use tiny stickers on it (since I seriously doubt I am going to be able to find dark green dye in the right shade). So, all in all, that's still a mess - I plan to attack it a third time in a few minutes, but am totally open to suggestions. Unrelatedly, I also completely redid the front:

Yes, I do try to check color availability - this one, at least, does appear quite doable (I was worried, because dark green is a newer color). I've toyed with doing the hush hush, and am going to mull it over. She's the ultimate mess of sloped pieces, so it's appealing from that standpoint.

So, I have a question. Normally, I would go flanged-flangeless-flanged on the tender wheels. Currently, I have it (front to rear) flangeless-flange-flange (this is to for the purposes of making the side frame as robust as possible. I also double-articulated the trailing truck of the loco to assist with the 'overhanging' forward wheelset of the tender. Will this arrangement work? Or do I need to retool the tender to F-NF-F? *Edit* The other thing I wanted to ask is: to anyone's knowledge, is there a vendor that sells the Bulleid style boxpok drivers in XXL?

Unfortunately, those fig hats don't come in LBG (or even the old light grey). The closest is dark grey. I might try dyeing some white ones when the time comes.

Wow, what a setup!

Real thing: Model: 'Kay, no more British locomotives. Those freaking crazily-angled fireboxes are giving me hives.