SteamSewnEmpire

Slowly, yes. Money is, of course, an issue. I'll start with the loco and then take it a car at a time.

That's probably more than the little engine can haul, but there we go.

Yeah, I'm a little tentative on it, too. On the other hand, I wanted a dining car, and I feel like it's okay to meander a little into the fantastic when dealing with Lego. If anything, I want to try to squeeze some more detail onto the walls to doll it up even more. I'll either do a combine or a straight-up baggage car. I'm also probably going to do some kind of single-occupancy private car at some point as well. The stove is pretty basic (but has an element of fantasy, too) - the exhaust pipe also heats a coffee maker located on the counter top:

Probably not prototypically-correct interiors, but with the limitations on space, I did my best (and yes, I know that sleeping cars from the 19th Century were mostly open with no dividers, but I wanted some privacy). The "roomettes" would be closed off by cloth curtains if the car was built. There are also light fixtures in both cars, but they hang from the ceiling, and so aren't visible with the rooftops off.

Imgur is also hassle-free (you don't need an account to upload, unlike Flickr).

With 3d printing, pretty much any gauge is now possible. Plus, I expect my models are more likely to end up on a mantle than a loop at some club.

Lol, wait, most of that was directed at Thai, not me, right? I generally regard the unaltered track that Lego releases to be North American and British standard gauge (and I try to do standard gauge trains in 8w, although they can loiter closer to 9w sometimes when cabs, roofs, etc. are factored in). I treat 3 studs between the ties as either 3 foot track (Colorado, Alaska roads, etc.) or as 3'6" (Cape Gauge) keeping to 7w rolling stock, and then 2 studs as 2' stuff with 6w rolling stock. This isn't a perfect system, but it's what I default to for simplicity's sake. As far as linking the tender to the locomotive, I was going to pop standard magnetic couplers into these: Although I may have to slightly alter the part to make it work.

Thanks!

Just a quick question. For the purposes of LDD, is there a part that can stand-in for Big Ben's mediums to assist with figuring out positioning? Thanks in advance.

They're 7 studs wide (except the top of the loco cab, which is 8 so it overhangs), with three studs between the wheels. They do run a bit large, but, on the other hand, I find the 2 stud width narrow gauge to be too problematic to bother with.

I was going to look at you, yeah. :) When I have the dough, I'll be in touch. Yeah, I was looking a 168 (and watching videos). I spent like 6 hours trying to produce a satisfying slope up into the smoke box before finally deciding to heck with it and just doing a freelance version. The was the primary basis, though - good eye. :)

It was a holiday, so I decided to try one more. I think I'm done for a while - my fingers hurt. I think, of the three, this is the one I'd build. Unfortunately, only the front two axles are gear driven - if that causes binding, I guess I'd have to live with it. The model is intended to use custom rods and valve gear - not sure they'd be available with the odd spacing, though.

Love the curvature and use of the tan "wood."

I decided to incorporate some of the things I had learned on the 4-4-0 into a standard gauge locomotive. This is a Virginia and Truckee engine that's still preserved and on display at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento - I have seen and touched this very loco. I went with the diamond stack iteration simply because I like it better.

Sir Archibald looks like the type of man you'd follow "over the top" in WWI and expect to live.

Wish they're just introduce a 6 to 4 cone piece. Sigh.

I noticed last week that the White Pass & Yukon's first road locomotive was a 4-4-0. Although only one photo survives of #4, she looks to have been a pretty standard American engine. My model isn't a perfect reproduction by any means (I am pretty sure the WP&Y only ever painted their power in black), but rather something that could stand in for a lot of different engines on varied narrow gauge lines in North America.

I think if you put together a Youtube video demonstrating how to mess with the side-sway, people would get it down. Most AFOLs understand that there is a certain amount of finesse necessary to get things right when it comes to detailed models, and if you simply showed off the process of how you wiggle things into place, there would be no need to convey that via instructions. If that sounds like too much, I understand entirely. But I figured I would throw it out there.

Given the widespread popularity of the subject - I know Casey Jr's scenes (especially with the thunderstorm closing in) were some of the chief inspirations for many of us at a young age in our collective love of trains - are you thinking of selling instructions (once the competition is over)? I wouldn't mind having one of these on the shelf.

I think the regular blue is the closer color.

I clicked on this expecting nothing, and was really, REALLY surprised and impressed. What an excellent rendition of the engine.

No. That's not what you want if you want to save Star Wars, because Star Wars is definitely already damaged. The root cause of Star Wars' problems right now are due to three figures: Kathleen Kennedy, and her pet dogs Rian Johnson and JJ Abrams (it's a coin toss which of those latter two has been worse for the franchise at this juncture; Johnson is subversive, Abrams is derivative. They're both terrible directors). Star Wars itself isn't going anywhere in the short term: the IP is worth too much, and Disney forked over a king's ransom for those spoils. But for Star Wars to change, significant personnel shifts need to be made in the management of the series... and that requires TROS to either bomb (which it won't do), or at least underperform based on Disney's internal projections. No matter what, TROS is going to make money - it just needs to make less money than what Disney bean counters believe it would have made if it wasn't being run by a hag and her yes-men. It doesn't matter if Star Wars goes off and takes some 5 or 10-year hibernation at this point - honestly, it would go a long way to healing some of the massive rifts that have developed in the fandom. And it would also allow Disney talking heads to take a long, hard look at the product and make some firm (and, hopefully, logical [based less on emotions or transient political movements]) decisions on where the franchise goes from here. But to see this film do really well? It will ultimately ruin Star Wars, and further fracture the fans, possibly for all time.

Hey, man, they're the pros. I mean, look how creative they've been in the past decade. So many new ideas:

Helps to have a script for a planned trilogy before you start filming, too. You know, so it doesn't turn out as a disjointed, incoherent mess.

Nice. I always liked the Venators.