Tube Map Central

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Also, you used panels on the sides, I always think they give a modern look to a building, 1930s plus. The trouble with Victorian railway stations is that they were massive, and glass structures had lots of curves, both problems for the Lego builder. An image search for "Lego greenhouse" and "Lego curved roof" gives lots of inspiration, the use of Lego track to give a curved roof is very clever, narrow gauge track could be used to keep the size under control.

I do wish people would stop being so downtrodden: trains are the nichiest niche, so we can't expect anything at all. Trains came fourth in the Ideas anniversary vote, remember, almost 15,000 votes, that's a lot more people than just readers of this Eurobricks forum. I certainly cried foul when Lego reran the vote with trains removed, it was clear what they wanted the result to be.

I just find the colour availability of Lego parts to be utterly demoralising before I even get to thinking about train parts. Even not-so-exotic parts (clips, windows and headlights) in not-so-exotic colours (dark green or dark red) can have crippling rarity or outright gaps. I don't particularly want to spend the rest of my life building in the basic garish colours (red, yellow, green, blue) or boring tan, reddish brown, bluish grey, black and white, but what else can be done?

Wish Eurobricks had a 'like' feature for posts, so that I could express appreciation without having to post a comment that does not necessarily add useful information.

The best brutalism is fantastic. Pleasing outside, bright and spacious inside and Lego is perfect for doing brutalism really well! Good and bad brutalism? It's sort of the difference between the University of Sussex and the University of Essex!

Or perhaps the Crystal Palace https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_Palace But this one is more square, more Bauhaus or Brutalist

The morality of this is so murky grey, I just can't get my head round it. Let's take Emerald night, cheapest new/sealed price on Bricklink £390 (from South Korea). Bricklink auto-select of parted out set (any condition parts) £460 (yes, I know I could fiddle about, but that's not the grey issue). That's rather a lot of money so ... I take the list of parts to Bluebrixx, ask them if they have all the parts and can pick them out for me. 1) They have, they pick them out for me, one by one, and send me a bag. 2) They have, but Emerald night is a popular set, and they already have ten bags of parts ready in the back of the shop. They pick one off the shelf and send it to me. 3) They have, but Emerald Night is a very popular set, and so they have 100 bags of ready-picked parts, which they advertise for sale on their website. Somewhere the loose morality switches from customer to retailer, but I am not so sure where. [To avoid minifigure debates, let's say they have bought genuine Lego versions and put those in the bags!]

So what is a rare part? Are 2x4 tiles rare? Is white a rare colour? I have just looked up 2x4 white tiles on Bricklink, any condition, quantity 12. Just 32 UK sellers can fulfil this, with a price starting at 20 pence each. Ouch. So, I go for 24 2x2 tiles instead, 5 pence each, that's better. Using Bricklink, if there is a specific build in mind, is a constant battle of wits. First with the Lego colour gaps. As soon as you want clips and headlight bricks then any build with rarer colours, such as dark green or dark red, becomes a game of 3D chess. Second, the frequent unexpected high prices for those parts that are available. Yes, you end up changing colours and the build, and you end up adapting the design to what is available and affordable, but that sucks away at design time, and there are always nasty surprises. There is a fun element to going into battle with Bricklink, and you quickly learn design troublespots to avoid, but I would rather my tombstone said 'designed some really nice MOCs' than 'learnt the ins and outs of Bricklink thoroughly'.

I think the unpopular views here are getting mixed together, so let's start again. Lego will be put under increasing pressure in two different directions. 1) Competing sets from other manufacturers, as well designed as Lego, parts as good quality, same price or even cheaper. There is only so much of this sort of competition that a brand name can withstand. The toy world is littered with dead brands that once looked unassailable. 2) Comprehensive on-demand brick service. Of course this won't be cheaper than buying a set but how long would it take to part out an order in a massive state-of-the-art warehouse? One hour per 500 bricks? Two hours? I can think of plenty of ways of making this more efficient. Divide the order between different parts of the warehouse, barcode the bags and gather them together. Expected weight of bags gives you easy QC. Lego doesn't do this because Lego doesn't want to do this. The culture of the company is to create boxed sets that look nice on shelves. But the price of those boxed sets isn't just the bricks, it is also design, logistics, retailers cut. The economics of this versus a direct B2C brick service look interesting. So what if you could choose any design you wanted from somewhere like Rebrickable [the plans which are certified available parts only] and at the click of a button, for a price that is the same as a Lego set would have been, or just a little bit higher, they are delivered to your door? Or upload your own plans? Suddenly you have total freedom and control of your building bricks world. I'm not saying that these problems are solvable, but Lego trying and failing is not evidence that it cannot be done. If someone else tries it and gets it to work, then that is another source of pressure for Lego [and the end of Bricklink except for rare/secondhand/out of production parts]. Consumer-driven flexibility is the way the world is going, like it or not.

Thanks for the kind words, all the suggestions were really helpful. I do need to put all the pieces together, my grand idea has main line EMUs at the station and the tube trains in tunnels underneath. I might even give the Tube Station it's own entrance, I was really sad when this one expired, it was clever and original: https://ideas.lego.com/projects/2c3772a1-ddff-45fd-90ef-8196c894dcaf#&gid=1&pid=1 Until the grand scheme is built, I'll have a go st some combined photos soon!

Thanks, yes, I was meaning to reply to your o/p but I got sucked into the build! There are lots of coupling solutions for me to experiment with but it's a bit moot because thanks to those wretched tram wheels I don't think it is ever going to run.

There do seem to be device issues, works with some but not others. Bricklink won't let you upload a dud link, it tests them all before accepting them. No chance of me going to a third party web page I'm afraid, too many issues. Tubemapcentral is my own professionally hosted web domain that I use for my business activities. I'm not going to elsewhere when I have my own server. Eurobricks is the only website which generates these issues. The links are with the images, so if you can get to the links, copy them and paste them into your browser.

This new train came about as a result of my combining some parts and suddenly getting a flash of inspiration, that aircraft pieces might make a rather nice Tube Train. The basis for this is London Underground Gate Stock, the first generation of EMU trains used on the earliest tube lines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_1906_StockBecause of the small tunnels (just 12 feet diameter) not only were the trains reduced in size, but early electric motors were too large to fit under the passenger saloons. The solution was to have large powerful motors plus all electrical and air equipment together on a motor coach in a big compartment behind the cab. Long trains could have a motor coach at each end but motor coaches were forbidden in the middle of trains because of the safety requirement that passengers should be able to walk from end to end of a train in case of emergency without encountering electrical equipment.Air doors were not introduced on the London Underground until the 1920s. Until then, cars had gates at their ends, opened and closed by gate operators. A six coach train would require a rear guard, four gate operators and a driver. Initial passenger loads on the new Underground lines were disappointing and labour costs were ruinous, plus boarding/unloading, and departures were slow.But back to Lego City, where the year is still 1905 and a new tube line has opened to Botanical Gardens.https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/182622-moc-botanical-gardens-station/ Hmmmm, the track in the yard is somewhat uneven! The rear car is a control trailer, with no motor but controls for operating the motor coach remotely. You can see, posed next to the main line EMU trains, just how much I have shrunk down the tube trains. I could have gone even further, but I wanted a top-hatted figure to be able to sit down in the saloon. You can also see the size of the motor bogie compared with the trailer bogie. The tram wheels are awful but in the end they were not a bad size relative to the standard wheels for showing the effect. Here is a gateman, signalling to the rear guard that all is clear for his section of the train. More details of the gate end, and lots of illegal build techniques in evidence, but the gate top was so perfect I had to adapt it. The large round central buffers are prototypical, so the coupling distance is not too awful. Not many seats, one per window. Minifugures are too wide but these new 1x3x3 windows are perfect. This is how I joined the cars together. There is just enough clearance for a thin liftarm. Annoyingly it is not quite long enough: the corners of the rear platforms just catch each other on curves. If I motorise this, I will either file off the corners or else stick to R56 track. Motorisation is unlikely because of the drag caused by five bogies of those wretched tram wheels. Spot more illegal build techniques. Once you have killed your first Lego brick, it becomes easier to do it again.Final thoughts: I am not quite happy with the fronts, I think that the problem is the windows, which should really be dark red. Lego produces a terrible range of windows in a lamentable range of colours. I could have used clear panels, but they would have looked too modern for a train this age I wish I had sorted the dark red pieces before using them. The two shades are noticeably different. I am currently investigating flexible hoses for air and electrical connections between cars. I am also investigating self-adhesive printable vinyl to depict opening side windows. These coaches are slightly longer than the main line EMU prototypes I showed before, so now these will definitely have to be lengthened.https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/183244-moc-prototype-electric-multiple-units-for-botanical-gardens-station/I really need a tube station to go with these, a wonderful one was posted here years ago, but it looks as though it would eat up bricks for a full length train.https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/49533-moc-london-underground-tube-station-and-train/

Agreed, I have just completed a train using those tram wheels and that pin connection is hopeless. It would be nice to have a fix for these wheels too, although Lego should really be doing this, those horrible things are preventing them from designing good tram models. When I was very young and playing with toy cars, the big new thing was low friction wheels, so you could push the car a little bit and it would go a long way, or go round a race track at high speed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Wheels I might conclude from that that the Lego wheel pin connection is not fit for purpose and causing disappointment for all Lego wheeled toys.

Ideas has become a simple invitation for piracy. The length of time some builds need to get 10,000 votes gives plenty of opportunity for this. The support that a build gets gives free market research to enable the likely best sellers to be targeted. The moral: don't submit to Ideas unless your build incorporates really robust IP and the set doesn't make much sense without the IP? TLG are not showing much sign of pursuing pirated Ideas, but an organisation like Disney will be more robust.

We all know it happens, nothing new there, but this one has a train theme and this time it is not a Chinese company doing it. From this ... https://ideas.lego.com/projects/2854271f-9432-4193-ad74-305e7105ebc4 to this ... https://lozshop.com/product/loz-diamond-blocks-mini-street/loz-1031-city-european-style-subway-station-mini-street/ I would guess from the rebranding/reworking that they fear the IP lawyers of London Transport more than the IP lawyers of TLG. That is probably a fair assessment. ******* OK, I found it new, boxed, UK supplier on eBay for £37 including delivery. I know that it uses smaller blocks but I had to buy it at that price. I supported the original on Ideas and will still buy the real set if released. Let me know if you want a review.

In my experience with secondhand bricks, you can get anything. As new, faded, bite marks, heavily scratched, home of heavy smokers, unpleasant organic-looking material attached. I've had it all and it is too much a lottery. Sellers are too variable in their descriptions. I now buy new only, except for rare/no longer available parts. Why 36 bricks? It is a figure I plucked out of the sky that reflects the fact that the cheapest parts come from suppliers with the lowest stock levels. Spread an order around multiple small suppliers and the effective cost per brick increases considerably. Why did I make the comparison with the retail price of a set? Because that is a good benchmark for the Bricklink premium.

I just did a quick search for 36 new light bley 1x2 bricks, and the cheapest I could get from a UK supplier was 11p per brick so, um, no. Tan is almost as expensive, reddish brown slightly cheaper, dark bley slightly more expensive. Plus UK suppliers tend to be medium-sized, so orders have to be spread about, leading to extra postage costs, and the larger suppliers tend to be much more expensive. Off the top of my head, if you were to part out a Lego set on Bricklink, you would be looking at around three times the price to buy the parts compared with buying the whole set retail. YES!!!!!

I'm not wanting anything at all, just observing what sorts of events might lead to the undoing of TLG. When I say cheap for a brick service, I really just mean cheaper than Bricklink, which wouldn't be difficult. Lego might have failed to get it to work, but that is not the be-all and end-all of everything forever more. Times change and so does technology. When you buy a Lego set, you pay for design costs, a brick service would not carry this overhead. If any manufacturer can crack this cost-effectively, then TLG are in trouble, because the consumer takes control of design, and Lego are just another brick manufacturer. With regard for trains, it's not about losing sales, it is about Lego losing its status amongst a significant chunk of fans - trains got 4th place on the recent anniversary vote. These people are not necessarily only building trains. Look at the posts on the trains theme, you will find builders openly discussing non-Lego track, non-Lego wheels, non-Lego couplings, non-Lego batteries, non-Lego rods, and even (thanks to the cost of withdrawn components) non-Lego windows. The fanatical loyalty is diminished in this context, and eroding. Again, if Lego becomes just another Brick manufacturer, then TLG is finished.

You would think, but history is littered with debris from deceased toy companies. The problem is that companies that get into trouble are the ones who are least well qualified to extricate themselves from the trouble. Bricklink exists because it is such a pain getting parts from Lego, and there are alternatives in the clone world. BlueBrixx for example. I don't use them, or clone bricks, but they are there, gathering strength. If a manufacturer was to offer a single-source parts service, upload a list and get a delivery of all the parts, good quality, cheap, Lego would take a huge huge hit. We are paying for good quality bricks plus design, but what if the design aspect became generic? If there was genuinely no demand for trains, that would be fine, but the clone manufacturers are not releasing massive ranges of trains because they want to lose money. Once they up their game, and they will, with good designs, plentiful choice, and good quality parts, then TLG is in trouble.

Agreed, but will there be enough of them to sustain TLG in its current form? Will genuine Lego become a niche pastime? My 'habitat' is trains and Lego treats its train fans with disdain. We might be a weird minority, but as a group we have to look beyond TLG to get essential parts, such as wheels and track. It is creating the beginnings of a subversive culture. We notice that clone manufacturers are offering huge ranges of trains, ten times as many designs as the scraps TLG throws out to its supporters once in a blue moon. They do look rather tempting. Try this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=ausini+train&i=toys&ref=nb_sb_noss_2 What puts us off? Errors in instructions, poor designs, poor quality parts, missing parts, damaged parts, dirty parts. These are all fixable, what then? This is a source of infection to Lego culture that TLG really shouldn't be ignoring. Hacked-off train fans might start an exodus.

This will be unpopular on a Lego discussion board. Within the next 20 years Lego will be bust, driven out of business by the clone manufacturers, who will up their design, range and part quality to the point at which TLG won't be able to sustain their business model. Won't be the first time that a massive toy company collapses, it's the toughest market to operate in.

Having had IP stolen myself, I can only sympathise with this. It is an utterly unpleasant experience. BUT it was my IP and therefore I was able to sort it out. Signing away all rights to Lego for the (long) Ideas slog would lead to some expectation of attempts at protection by Lego, or at least sympathetic communication with the designer. This is very much firmly in the 'no rights without responsibility' department as far as I'm concerned. I was contemplating ideas submissions, but I don't think it is worth the hassle for a 95% rejection rate for the winners. The whole concept is utterly broken in every way.

All these barbed oblique comments are somewhat bemusing to someone not aware of the history of all this. Trixbrix seems to be a fully reputable business amongst certain quarters, and I know from my own business that there are different shades of IP abuse. So, less innuendo please and more facts.