Plumber

Not come across this guy before, thanks for the link, he has quite some skills!

I just received an order through BuymyBricks, went very smoothly and they even added to the order after submission and payment, no customs issues and pretty sure shipped from China. they would seem to be a French based wholesaler, the pricing was excellent but the range is definitely more limited than many. Just goes to show how much more clued up you are than me that said, not sure how much use an address in China would be in the event of a dispute I've never had an issue with any Chinese purchase unlike some UK organisations I could name!!!

I have looked at over twenty sites that advertise as Gobricks outlets and all were unable to complete my recent list, I guess sites list bricks they expect to sell the most, not that surprising! Some sites would not find parts from BL number but would display if using GDS number (harvested from AE) others sold the parts but with differing colour availabilities. I can find almost anything on AE but Gobricks sellers don't seem to participate in any of the capped shipping schemes so if after more than one or two brick types shipping gets silly again. I thought it looked far more 'legitimate' than Brickwith with GB branding etc. obviously wrong I kinda hoped someone would point at a site and say 'these guys keep everything'. Not to be by sound of it! I'll make Brickwith my first port of call in future and do my research on a case by case basis for parts they don't carry, not so different from BL I guess. I'll make sure to check this out

Yes - That's one of the sites I have looked at. The parts I'm after are not special or rare in general, I know those will often need specific orders but for instance: 5091/5092, often difficult to find both hands in quantity on BL/BO, available from Brickwith.com and Mygobricks.com but not Gobricks.net or Buymybricks.com There are examples that work the other way round - its frustrating! Good to know BW is the official site, maybe that's the first one to try in future.

There seem to be an increasing number of sites selling Gobricks but I seem to find that none of them offer a complete range. The bricks are not any generally any cheaper than sensible Bricklink/Owl prices but the attraction is the possibility of sourcing larger quantities of lots with only one shipping charge. eg I just purchased a wanted list of 4000ish bricks in 130 lots the best BL could do for me was 35 stores where the shipping was more than bricks :-( Can anyone recommend which sites have the most comprehensive selection or whether some sites specialise in non-lego brick designs?

Great mail coach and the correct LMS brake van! How about a second mail coach with a pickup net and dump chute for non stop lineside mail bag collection and delivery. https://www.railwaywondersoftheworld.com/tpos.html

Look forward to it!

Loving the loco but light (lamp) positions indicate a time sensitive/perishable goods/livestock train so you need to build some vans 'tout de suite' or be expecting to be hauled up at next signal One in the middle (and a tail lamp) for light engine

As a typical Brit who has only a smattering of schoolboy French, the level of English used here never ceases to amaze me!

It is my opinion that TLG behaviour over the last few years has made it increasingly clear that they see MOC builders who buy only parts on the secondary market as an unprofitable cohort and as (in the technic forum at least) many post this creed it is not surprising to me they have withdrawn support here. TLG have moved on and I see no issue with Eurobricks doing the same. As regards MOC's from alternative manufacturers parts, the lack of a secondary market place like Bricklink/Owl (or even a parts catalogue) severely hampers the ability of MOCers to build with their product, I am firmly of the opinion that TLG purchased BL purely to prevent other makes from becoming more widely available. While there are a number of third party resellers of Gobricks there sites are chaotic and feature major variances in available parts and colours. Aliexpress etc.is a source but is even more chaotic. Given the above reality I do not see there being a sudden upsurge in the number of Alt.MOCs if they become permissible and therefore while I voted for option 3 I am increasingly persuaded by 2GodBDGlory's view that single (marque) threads in the current theme forums may be sufficient, with option to make additional sub forums if traffic warrants in future. From a personal viewpoint I restrict myself to the palette of Lego parts (past and present) in order to provide boundaries to the 'puzzle' of finding a solution to a problem/challenge. I can quite appreciate the temptation to utilize logical extensions to a brick family (and have succumbed occasionally) or to 3d print a compact functional solution, but for myself, this seems a slippery path that begs the question where lego stops and scratch build modelling (which I also enjoy) begins. However I am quite happy to use parts by others where the identical TLG brick is not available for sale or is unjustifiably costly in my required quantities.

The type and position of lights will vary depending on what headcode arrangement you have modelled (difficult to see on images) but looks like a block headcode. At different stages in their very long lives class 37 have had: disk head code, split head code and block head code at front with related white lamps. I'm not familiar with that particular loco but https://www.class37.co.uk/fleet.aspx?str_ID=6757 shows D6757 or under TOPS 37057 as having a split headcode with nose end doors. The tail lamps were generally fitted bottom left and right of nose end just outboard of buffers most commonly in a d -shaped shroud though early examples (with disc codes) used a discrete lamp hung on a lamp iron. https://www.cornwallrailwaysociety.org.uk/latest-input--news--old-pictures-etc/27th-october-2022 bottom of page for rear view! While a single off centre red light is most common certain trains would combine red and white tail lamps and engineering trains often use flashing lights

Thanks for all your suggestions and help, have found a solution that works for me! Copied Brickstore inventory (complete with drawer locations!) and my model parts list onto a spreadsheet and performed a MATCH() on part number columns of the two lists - bingo - an instant list of quantities (in hand or short) and locations independant of colour - one happy Plumber and actually frighteningly easy in the end!

I think I understand what you are saying but there is no hope of me reproducing it Way over my limited abilities! This sounds more promising, do I need to have a 'pro' membership for this? Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'm going to have a proper play this weekend see if I can make something work!

Thanks for the suggestion, just taken another look at Rebrickable and tried a compare search, unfortunately it still wants to match part colours The other reason RB doesn't work for me is that there doesn't seem to be any means to record where the parts are located/stored ( my aging brain is not up to the task of remembering where any of 4000+ part types are stashed!!), this seems to be a missing feature on most of the popular sites, its a workaround on Brickstore to add the location info as a remark or comment, I only ever found one brick inventory control software that offered this functionality natively but it was obviously a pro product with a price to match and that waaaay was out of my budget I used to use Basebrick which is great but it's part storage location system was not comprehensive enough for my needs and also with my glacially slow broadband/their server speed it was painfully slow to use, it does have a 'compare' function which on the face of it offers what I need (check box to ignore colours) but it seems to return pretty random results for me If I can find a way to convert my inventory Brickstore file to a CSV file I guess I'll have to dust off my spreadsheet (lack of)skills and query that way, though I can't help thinking I'm missing something obvious here!

I have a large project on the go and build sections in Studio, not being the sharpest tool in the box I often make daft mistakes in Studio which just don't work in real bricks, so I design in Studio then build IRL to check, then modify the Studio model with any alterations needed (often multiple cycles) These 'check builds can be done with any bricks I already have regardless of colour so I can make alterations before making BL orders that turn out un-needed I recently spent some considerable time and effort to catalogue all my parts into a Brickstore database along with their locations in a new storage system. The idea of the database was that I would down/upload the Studio model parts list into Brickstore and compare the uploaded model list with parts in main inventory to show if I have the parts needed in any colour and to have the locations (comments and remarks). So tried this for first time today and it seems that Brickstore is not capable of this colour agnostic manoeuvre It seems that if a field is not in the 'Edit/Copy Values...' dialogue then its value MUST be a match. I can get parts quantities on hand and quantities short for order but only if all fields of the part record match i.e. colour (as well as status, condition etc). It seems my only option is to make a copy of my inventory and set both files with all parts colour N/A gives me locations for picking but no quantities on hand/needed which I would have to note down as picking or run a separate data merge from start. So is it me? I'm not very IT literate so am hoping I've missed something obvious? I imagined many people would check build in colour vomit before committing to large BL orders and therefore do something akin to what I am trying? Assuming Brickstore cannot do this for me is there another way? Can it be done in Bricklink? In conjunction with BL? I'm not a seller but I do have a 'closed' store as it seems to be the only way to obtain a key for BL/BS synchronisation.