Ropefish

some rolling stock i have planned for my Yellowstone AC9 project, although SP did not employ this type of flatcar during the time of the AC9 Yellowstone's life its still something I found rather unique with its articulated ends. I can't find much more info on these flatcars besides being used to transport locomotives and heavy duty equipment, More commonly used by the TTX Company who sustains a sizeable fleet.

That step design is really nice, I'm going to have to yoink it for a caboose it think hah. Overall very cute build with very unique techniques going on throughout!

( the "coal" in this photo is just floating above some tiling, it will be loose in the physical model ) oh man thanks, im a huge fan of your work and a few others here. Don't think id be able to actually build any of this without the plethora of reference material and techniques ya'll have mastered here.

Quick render, this is 99% the completed digital model. there will be a lot more tweaking to do on the drive train and fiddling with the core for stability.

haha thanks, i still have the tender to go then i need to go through and solidify a lot of connections. I got a long ways yet till its Physicalized.

Well its been almost but not quiet a year yet, I just recently picked the project back up and there have been a lot of design changes but the model is now much closer to its real world counterpart. but as I've gone through building this, Ive slowly been inching towards redoing the entire wheel drive system.... Im happy with how it is now but i feel that redoing it in a more classic way via Technic bricks/bars on a forward articulated drive then having the rear powered from a motor inside the locomotive body or just making the tender powered and having the both drives be dummies. The only thing stopping me is i really do like the idea of the locomotive drivers being powered... in all likelihood ill probably end up making another separate drive to interchange. Regardless getting close to begin building this as a physical model, making extra sure to get extra pieces for the inevitable. ( and lots of backups of my locomotives file )

From the ashes! Well, i found myself redesigning the driving unit and adding some suspension ( though one of them will have to be modified ) this is an older-ish version but it now has a stop axle to help guide it to stop wibble wobby effects. I just need to remmember how i built the forward one, despite it being a based on the Morningstrummer BigBoy it was more heavily changed...

Yea unfortunately its the best alternative, I should be mostly alright as the bulk of the model is a hollow core ( besides some supports ) and the drives are based around Morningstrummer's 4-8-8-4 drives which i purchased the instructions of.

Sadly uh i just lost the file to Studio overwriting the entire thing with 0 bricks! ( but i had uploaded the final version's parts to bricklink ) I used some wedge plates and a technic brick, then inverted slopes on the inside of the cab front to trick the eye when looking at it from outside angles. There are two versions, one requires the modification of the plates and retains a better visual from the front while the other has a bit of that detracted with no modification

Both these points really bring up my dilemma! I think in the end ill go with lego as i've already saved and sourced a lot of info for it all. Oh yea that's the other thing haha, Price will be similar to O with what i want to build, but i can at least budget out groups of parts over time unlike with a whole fully built O scale locomotive.

Hey all, I've been lurking in the forums for a month or so after i saw a lego big boy some time ago by morningstrummer, Ive long wanted to get back into a model railroad hobby but never could very much due to living conditions or expense and now i find my self at an odd crossroads of sorts. The skinny is I've since made a WIP MOC of the Southern Pacific AC-9 based on morningstrummer's big boy in Stud.IO ( I have a thing for articulated locomotives ) but find myself after having just nearly finished the whole loco and its tender thinking of going with an O Scale set instead as both layouts, add-ons, rolling stock, etc. etc. will end up costing me the same but both lack things i enjoy of both hobbies. One is building with lego's, stepping back and seeing the creation ( move and make sound even! ) then two being the wider availability and setup of O Scale and to stretch even HO for that matter. At this point i just really don't know what direction i should take the dive, as i wont be able to do both by a monetary standpoint, and y'all seem to have the wealth of information. Oh and here is my wip, Spoilered for convenience.