idlemarvel

Thanks @Feuer Zug Thanks @LEGO Train 12 Volts I'm not sure MOCs are ever final! The general appearance is okay to me so it will do for now. I have to remind myself to actually run trains occasionally not just start building the next one! The number of ventilation grills / windows along the side is not right, but there are lots of variations in the prototype class - some have grills below the white band as well like the one on the picture. But I've never been a fine-scale modeller so the compromises you have to make with Lego suit me fine.

Thanks @Brickwolf pity the cups (item number 3899) don't come in black, or rather they do but very rare and expensive :-( Thanks @zephyr1934 I think I've got one of those in black, I'll give it a go. The connection is a bit weak but I can lift the loco off the track without the motor block dropping off.

This is my first attempt at a MOC modelling a real loco. The prototype is an Austrian railways OBB class 1245 standard gauge Bo-Bo e-lok, some of which are still running today on preservation lines. There are plenty of pictures on Wikipedia and I managed to find a dimensioned drawing on the Internet, although it is a photo of a drawing taken at an angle, which skews the drawing. This model is 6-wide, so to keep the width, height and length in proportion I have built this to a scale of approximately 1:55. Although it looks a bit "top-heavy" the driving wheels on these ancient e-loks were 1.3m diameter, much bigger than modern locos, which means that the height of the loco below the bodywork is proportionally larger. http:// Construction was fairly straightforward. I used a loco cab piece to get the angled windows (part 2924a), unfortunately because that piece is 5 bricks high, it does fix the height of the body rather too tall, but it seems to me this piece was almost made for this loco. The doors are set back by half a brick. I have made the unpowered bogie look as similar to the powered bogie as possible. The steps are attached to the bogies because in the model world track curvature means it would be impossible to fix to the body as they would clash with the need for the bogies to rotate. The trickiest bit was moving the powered bogie half a stud forwards, so that the steps on the bogie aligned with the door. I built a recess so I could offset the bogie supports half a stud. I think the resulting model is recognisable as the prototype, at least within the confines of 6 studs wide and R40 curves.

Thanks @M2m fortunately I had already done that and the true 4.3.11 has been installed successfully.

Thanks for the tip @Calabar, I'll reinstall the true .11

I'm new to all this but FYI I just installed LDD from the official Lego site and it is version 4.3.11 (and Brick version 777 whatever that means). The page had links to the BrickLinks offering. LDD installed with no problems on my Windows 10 laptop, with some message about not having access to some online resource, but it didn't seem to matter, When I started it, it said it couldn't find the Flex licence so you have to manually navigate to the install directory to find the .LIC file. Once that was done I could load an .LXF file i had downloaded from Rebrickable and run through the build steps, which was the reason I wanted to install LDD in the first place. I haven't tried to do any design work with it.

Thanks all especially @CastleRail. That explains why the parts are hard to find. You need 16 of 2880 for 2 x scissor pantographs. I've managed to find 8 from 2 sellers on Bricklink but no-one (in UK) has more than 4. Ah well, all part of the joy of Lego modelling!

Often the least satisfactory part of Lego models of electric locos is the pantograph, because the real life items are thin and spindly. I found this model on a recent search which seems to have by far the best pantograph I have seem, by a builder called JM Barre, see pictures below: https://img.over-blog-kiwi.com/0/51/11/00/20200820/ob_e5e6f5_locomotive-obb-1020-018-6-002.jpg I am having trouble identifying the parts used, though, can anybody suggest what they might be? I am assuming they are Lego parts! Here's another picture side on which may help: https://img.over-blog-kiwi.com/0/51/11/00/20200820/ob_e46eec_locomotive-obb-1020-018-6-004.jpg Thanks for any suggestions. EDIT: I think I may have partly answered my own question, I think the rods are part number 2880 https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=2880#T=S&O={"iconly":0}

Thanks for tip on Circuit Cubes @ColletArrow I'll look into it/them.

Thanks for the feedback @zephyr1934 and @ColletArrow. No rolling stock yet I'm just starting. I have the Crocodile set which I have built and powered, and the Hobby Train set. I'm learning some of the basic tricks of snot building and trying to get to grips with Powered Up. I have limited space for a layout so I have been pondering whether to stay with 4 wide "standard gauge" track or go with 2 wide "narrow gauge" track. This is a well versed dilemma, trying to get some reasonable compromise of loco size and track width which is close to scale. Narrow gauge track locos say 6 studs wide are easier to build but harder to power for a beginner. Standard gauge locos should really be 8 or 10 studs wide but they then become large and expensive. I'll probably stick with 6 stud wide on standard gauge track for now.

I'm a beginner with Lego trains. I've learned a lot from this forum so thank you all. This is my first attempt at some "give-back" so I hope I don't mess things up. I want to show you how I motorized this loco with PoweredUp but as I can't get the preview to work I will start out with one picture of the completed model prior to modification before I post the rest. More to follow.... Okay that worked so here is the rest. First thing to note is that the motor block has a longer wheelbase than the bogies on the model, see below: So I modified the non-powered bogie to have 3 studs between the wheel pieces rather than two, and added a small embellishment to fill the gap, see below: Then of course the block between the bogies is too wide, because the bogies are now each one stud longer. So I needed to reduce the block to two wide, see below: I fitted the two bogies, one powered one not, and threaded the motor block cable into the cab. You can perhaps see that the hub (battery box / receiver) will fit in the cab, but one set of inset doors will have to be modified, and some of the bracing struts will have to go. This is the cab stripped down. The excess cable has been treaded under the bonnet of the loco. These are the modified cab sides, retaining the building style but making room for the hub. The rebuilt cab with some modifications to the right hand side to make it easier to remove the roof to get to the on/off switch. The doors on the right are not recessed but I reversed the transparent brick so the window part is recessed. That all seemed to work so as I was on a roll I decided to add some lights into port B on the hub and modified the front of the loco to add some light bricks. It was hard to find room for all the excess cable but it just fitted into the cab driver space. Here is the finished model with lights blazing. If you use the hand controller pressing + makes the lights brighter. Hope this is helpful to someone. I have short video clip of the loco running but I haven't figured out how to imbed a video clip yet. It would perhaps have been better to extend the loco cab by two studs so that the PoweredUp hub is hidden and I could still have both sets of doors recessed, but this is my first attempt so I'm happy for now that it all worked. We all have to start somewhere!

If I create a test posting with an image using BBcode from Flickr, when I am on the practice forum I can preview the image, if I try the same thing on another forum (train tech) with exactly the same input when I press preview I just get a blank preview window. Any ideas what I am doing wrong? This is what I am posting:

Third attempt http://20211222_145836 by David Miller, on Flickr Video http://20211222_143708 by David Miller, on Flickr

Just testing how to post a picture: https://www.flickr.com/photos/194726814@N08/shares/ve9NB3 Did that work I wonder Trying again with picture https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51765925749_88242eee34_w.jpg

Hi my name is Dave Miller, tag idlemarvel which is an anagram of my name. I am neither idle nor a marvel! I am 66 years old and have recently taken up Lego again, partly due to my grandson who is a Lego fan but also because I found about six archive boxes of Lego in the loft which were used by my children (who are now in their late 30s or early 40s), and some pieces which were mine from when I was a kid. I spent a few happy months sorting out the thousands of bricks and rebuilding the original sets, some of which still had the instructions, others downloaded from ToysPeriod. Amazingly nearly all the pieces were still there! They are mostly pirates, knights or woodsmen sets, but quite a few space sets as well, although I haven't built those yet. At some point I will probably sell these as my Lego theme interest lies elsewhere. My other main hobby is model trains. I have quite a large G scale (45mm gauge track) collection which originally was intended for use outdoors but the UK weather is not always conducive to playing outdoors so it is now in my shed. My other outdoor railway is a 5 inch gauge ride on railway, which is great fun and simple enough for the grandchildren to ride and even drive (under strict supervision!). I am also learning German (Duolingo) and to play the piano, or at least a Yamaha piano keyboard, using Flowkey. Both Duolingo and Flowkey are highly recommended. So no prizes for guessing my Lego theme is Trains and in particular my interest is in narrow gauge trains of the German speaking countries, Austria, Switzerland and Germany. Naturally I want to motorize them and I am currently getting to grips with Powered Up. My first train build is the 10183 Crocodile which I know is standard gauge, but I am using this to learn some snot techniques which are all new to me. Enough for now, I look forward to learning from and eventually contributing to this forum.