idlemarvel

I have built the first car. Nice solid build. They have reverted back to wheels with metal axles. Despite the long wheel base (11 studs) it goes around R40 curves just fine. It looks good on track embedded in pavement. Not sure why they have used a 4L Technic lever arm for the coupling, I would have thought 3L would be more than enough like on the Harry Potter train. I've also built the second car. The gap looks a bit ridiculous. With a 3L coupling it goes around R40 curves even S bends with plenty of room. With a 2L coupling the sides of the cars just about touch on R40 but not enough to interfere with running I would have thought. UPDATE: 2L connector is okay on straights and R40 curves but not R40 points where is causes derailment.

https://www.amazon.pl/dp/B0CYQ6DKM1 (My Lego book on Amazon Poland) Link to Kindle Direct Publishing https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/bookshelf

If you want to have your work printed I can recommend Amazon (Kindle Direct Publishing). All you need is a PDF but you may need to tinker with it to fit in the printed area of the page size you choose. It's free to you and you can price it just to cover their printing and marketing costs or you can add a margin for yourself. They print on demand so no wasted print copies. You can make it available worldwide except for Australia and Japan for some reason. I have published a couple of books this way including one about Lego. You just need to invest a few hours in learning printers terminology (gutters, bleeds, etc!) and that's it.

Nicely done especially in 6-wide (I think?). I travelled on something similar on my trip to Vienna recently. The "rounded" top deck passenger windows are clever, they look rounded at a distance, only in the closeup do you see they are made from angular slopes! Can you not fit a hinge brick somewhere behind the scenes to hold the front window in place at an angle?

My 60423 City Downtown Streetcar set arrived today. Looking forward to building it tomorrow!

Neat model, love the "flexible" hose.

I often use the headlight brick (Brick, Modified 1 x 1 with Headlight) in my micro builds to act as a small window frame, for example. It's okay but you can see the round hole on the other side, like a ship's portal, with whatever coloured brick is behind it. I have designed a simple 3D printed filler that will fill the window frame (or the "portal") with the colour of your choice. It is just a simple rectangular block, 3.2 mm x 4.6 mm x 6.8 mm. It doesn't interfere with the anti-stud at the bottom or back of the brick. It is designed to be a snug fit so it won't drop out by accident but not too tight so it doesn't stress the brick and can be easily removed. To remove them I use a pin or other small pointed object to prise the filler out. I print three at a time with sprue in between, you could obviously do more, only limited by your 3D printer print-bed. Here's what the 3D printed output looks like (with one filler removed from the sprue) with red filler in a white headlight and black filler in a tan headlight. I hope this sort of thing doesn't offend the purists but it doesn't seem much different to using stickers IMO.

I wrote a book about Powered Up! See the pinned topics at the top of this forum to get a free download copy or a link to buy a hardcopy on amazon.

Flashing orange light is low battery, and flashing red is overload IIRC.

Again, fine result and your reasoning for design choices is interesting and useful. Thanks!

Thanks for your comments I'm glad you find it useful.

I know you are in the US but FYI the train motor #88011 is available on lego.com/en-gb (UK) with an order limit of 20! Have you tried looking for the part on Bricklink for example? https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=bb0896c01&idColor=11

I have taken your idea David (@djm) and modified it to represent a tramway. The straight and the 90 degree bend are on 8 x 8 plates so I can build them into 16 x 16 MILS boards. The bend is not symmetrical so I will have to build a mirror image - no matter. I've ordered a ton of technic bits so I hope to build a prototype soon-ish. I've also had a go at a Lokschuppen (train shed) for the railway section.

Thanks both. Global sales of the paperback version have hit a massive 10 units. Watch out Tom Clancy!

Hi David, Thanks for documenting all this. On another thread I expressed an interest in this technique to drive a small scale tram through a city scape. When you were prototyping the chain driver did you ever consider having two drive wheels each side of the chain rather than drive one side and tensioner on the other? It might make for a simpler mechanism, but I'm a Technic noob. You would need more depth underneath to allow for gears to transmit the power to the other side, or perhaps use two motors?

Okay got it, thanks. I'll see what I can do next time! That's a brilliant idea, thanks, perfect for moving street level trams. Not sure trams could handle the very tight curves and especially the tensioner section but I was thinking along the lines of a straight shuttle line anyway. It's going to require a lot of Technic bits I don't have though so it'll take a while to build a prototype.

Thank you. I do like the tram. I have actually built it and am working a trailer car and on some kind of cable system to make it move. Thank you. I am enjoying the scale. Half minifig scale means a quarter of the real estate required! Thank you. Thanks Duq for your comments and advice concerning Flickr. I do copy the BB code but I edit it to only show the picture between the IMG tags. I only use Flickr for putting pictures on here, there's nothing else to see on my Flickr account. What are you missing by me not making the pictures clickable please?

Thanks for your comments. FYI there is an "official" 1:100 scale a.k.a 3mm to the foot which was an early UK version of TT. There are no ready to run models in that scale any more but there is a UK group who do finescale modelling of British outline, see here: https://sites.google.com/site/3mmpublic/40-years-of-3mm-modelling

I’ve been dabbling with this small scale, based on using track one stud apart (narrower than TLG “narrow gauge” track) which gives a model track gauge of about 14.2 mm. When compared with real life standard gauge 1435 mm this gives us a scale of about 1:100. This is very convenient for scaling down models from real life, but of course gives some challenges in Lego. Here’s what the track looks like, with a station and passenger car waiting for a loco to appear. The station is based on Stammersdorf, a now disused station in Austria, and the passenger car is an OBB livery 2 axle car. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Bahnhof_Stammersdorf#/media/File:Bahnhof_Stammersdorf_Aufnahmegebaeude.jpg Not sure if this scale has a name in Lego-land. It’s a bit like midi-scale. People are reduced to 5 to 6 plates high. Using the European loading gauge of 3.15 m width gives us about 32 mm or 4 studs width, so I guess these are a variety of “4-studs wide” models but with a rail width to scale. The passenger car above is 4 studs wide and 13 studs long. The only wheels available are the “tiny” wheel for diesels and passenger cars, or “standard” wheels for steam loco drivers. Here’s an OBB class 77 4-6-2 tank engine. I also had a go at a type L tram from Vienna using 1 x 8 tiles on their side for rails. This is just over 3 studs wide (trams have to be narrower than trains even if they run on standard gauge tracks). Not sure these scale trains can be motorised even with Circuit Cubes and are probably more suited to a diorama, but I have thought about some kind of San Francisco cable-car type system to move the tram. Anyway, a bit of harmless fun.

I have updated the free to download PDF version of the book to include SPIKE Education motors and sensors, and have moved the advanced topics to the appendix, otherwise the content is more or less the same. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Nk-d_0VggsBx8QXqB_JbU1QHrYM1M_Ea/view

I have updated the free to download PDF version of the book to include SPIKE Education motors and sensors, and have moved the advanced topics to the appendix, otherwise the content is more or less the same. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Nk-d_0VggsBx8QXqB_JbU1QHrYM1M_Ea/view

On lego.com/en-gb neither Medium Linear Motor #88008 or Technic Hub #88012 are shown as retired, although the motor is marked as temporarily out of stock, so it may be as you say TLG playing games. The XL Motor #88014 has been retired for ages.

This Rebrickable link may help: https://rebrickable.com/parts/1927/hinge-plate-1-x-4-swivel-top-base-hollow-clip-complete-assembly/ There seem to be a few alternative part numbers which may help you locate the slotted version.

Wondergul 6 wide model. You can get the front railings in yellow if that helps.

Another excellent model Sérgio. You are becoming a bit of a master at this!