LordsofMedieval

Reminds me just a teensy bit of this:

Okay, this time there is no prototype - just lifting some SNCF practices (valve chamber location; triangular cab; firebox design; 'flapper' stack cap) and producing an Orient Express locomotive that could slot in with the provided tender and won't break the bank (565 pieces total). It's powered by a single medium PU motor, but that's the same thing I expect to see in the OE set, so I don't think there will be any issue (I anticipate that the battery pack will be in the tender). Other highlights: There are no custom pieces. Everything is stock. The valve gear isn't designed to 'work' - just simulate function via motion and gravity. If the color is wrong, it could easily be changed in stud.io (there seems to be a debate on which blue the set will be released in). HERE IS THE DOWNLOAD LINK.

Yes, and this definitely was a black engine. But I went with color simply because I assumed people wouldn't want a match. The file is there for folks to toy with as they see fit. It wasn't intended as an end-all, be-all, but rather just a guide. I'm actually going to do another engine tonight using the stock Lego wheels.

That video glosses over one very dramatic and simple point: people are able to get locomotives built with XXL wheels to run smoothly around Lego's smallest curves. There is nothing technical precluding Lego from designing a satisfactory passenger locomotive with big wheels. The "if it had large drivers, it HAD to be a display piece" argument is a red herring.

I'll look into it. I was really having a hard time coming up with a prototype with drivers that small that was also pleasing to the eye. The other issue is this: I'm probably never going to replicate Lego's driver spacing to the degree that the provided rods would be of any use. The vast, vast, vast majority of steam engines had a wider gap between the big wheels than Lego allows for in a stock configuration (due to many factors including the fitting of brakes). One way or another, anyone building a MOCed steam engine is likely to be greatly assisted by the use of some kind of custom part, even if they aren't wheels.

1) Critiquing a design is not whining. We're all, supposedly, bakers here - we can comment on their cake. 2) Wrong continent and era.

I wanted to throw something together for people who were looking for an alternative to the OE locomotive without breaking the bank on some $400 adventure. My prevailing goals with this design were thus: Simplicity Robustness Low part count. Reuse of the tender (and yes, I know the tender from the stock engine doesn't match the prototype. But we're trying to be budget conscious here and waste as little of the core model as possible). This isn't fancy, and it isn't intended to be. It's designed to be used with #12 (XLL) drivers which, unfortunately, my add-on to stud.io lacks (not sure if this has been rectified in a modern version of the add-on?). This is why the rearmost pair of 'gear' wheels are missing from the engine - an XLL driver would fit there; a gear won't. The wheel arrangement is flange-blind-flange-blind to bring the trailing bogie as close to the trailing wheelset as is possible. This isn't intended as some kind of award-winning build - I just wanted something somewhat respectable looking, era appropriate... and that didn't involve a lot of work and would fit with the rest of the train. HERE IS THE DOWNLOAD LINK.

The cars are intended to represent the pending refurbishment of the train. I agree with you: the entire focus was on the coaches. Sadly, in making this the modern train, it's really kind of pointless trying to imagine it as the 'glory days' OE from a century ago.

It has no firebox. They're industrial engines filled with pressurized steam at a stationary source (generally a factory boiler), and then work yards until they run low. Just one other modding option I thought of before falling asleep: to people who are going to buy 2, you could combine the locos into a 2-6-6-2 or 2-6-6-0. This would require a fair amount of work, but Europe did have some articulated locomotives (not in numbers like the U.S., but it did have them).

I don't know about the first part, but I get a strong sense that they don't sell nearly as well, outside a few standouts. I have this feeling that Lego has a whole warehouse full of Pianos and Globes. Some of the things they choose to produce are really bizarre. You have to assume that even AFOLs have limited shelf-space - we can only accumulate so many big objects over the course of a lifetime. I know I myself have boxes and boxes of sets I 'needed' but will never (and probably can never) build.

*Edit* I would suggest 3 changes to this locomotive for modders to make it look more prototypical (or at least help the situation): 1) If there is any free space at the front of the boiler (re: not occupied by a motor), narrow the smoke box (the black part) to either 5x5 or even 4x4. You did occasionally see a stepped-down smoke box (mostly on narrow gauge, but whatever helps), and this will diminish the overall 'giant boiler effect.' 2) Find a different smoke stack. A tall, 1x1 incorporating some minor flaring at the base and top will similarly 'narrow' the appearance of the engine by making it an overall more vertical vehicle (a chonky spark arrestor could also help, and you saw these a fair amount on Austrian steam from about 1900-1920). 3) Lift the entire engine frame 1-2 plates higher beneath the running board. Even if you aren't going make the wheels larger, allotting more space for the wheels will ease some proportional issues (This will also make the locomotive taller than the cars, which is desirable). If you look at freight locomotives (which, despite being a 4-6-0, we have to pretend it is), their boilers really weren't set any lower than passenger engines, even though the wheels were much smaller. Yes, lengthening the engine is the overall best plan, but that gets expensive fast. Bricklinking, you could easily drop $75-100 fixing this depending on part count and availability.

Yes they did. I am certain that none of them looked like this because, outside narrow gauge, I've never seen a steam engine that looks like this (its proportions remind me way too much of a fireless cooker):

Honest question: are people who plan to seriously model the Orient Express (as opposed to just having this set on a shelf, or do loops around a circle of track [which is fine]) satisfied with these cars? At first glance their proportions look good (and they are certainly longer than normal Lego coaches). But squinting at the photos, I think a lot of that is achieved by having rather small bogies, and a very stumpy locomotive. Like, would you just roll with the shorter-than-prototypical (unless you back-date to about 1900, when rolling stock got much longer) carriages, or would you try to buy multiple-multiple sets and combine cars? Are these 'close enough' for you, or do they need to be modded, too? I couldn't find one either. Very strange. The best I could come up with was maps of the route and the look up passenger/fast freight engines that served in the host countries. It's actually really odd how puny the Wikipedia Orient Express article is.

I am almost certain it can be motorized. It would explain why the boiler is so large. That's where your motor or battery pack is going, and then the opposing part will be in the tender. This is also why the front bogie is so compact - ease of negotiating tight curves when running. The funny thing is, the tender is fine. You could whip up a decent locomotive and that tender would slot right in.

You called someone 'vile' because they had the audacity to demand better from a company. Vile. The individual here who is in desperate need of perspective? It's you, chum. Calm yourself.

Heaven forbid that people ask the big company to do better with the product they are selling. You are acting like this set was some charitable gift to us from the hands of a kindly philanthropist. Get outraged about it. You're being absurd. It's extremely easy - even lazy - to defend the status quo.

"Nobody can critique the chef/film maker/architect/painter/author/etc. because you don't understand their struggle." That's the internet's oldest logical fallacy. I know *I* can do better. I know dozens of people on this forum can do better - I've seen them. There are better efforts posted here practically twice a week. Lego's employees are supposed experts (their own literature has described them as 'master builders'). They're being paid - in many cases - big, big bucks to produce this stuff. Their company is worth billions. The set is being marketed towards adults. All of the above are reasons we should be seeing a pro-level build. The notion here is that we should praise everything because someone's feelings might get hurt. I reject that outright. If you put work out there TO BE SOLD and it's lousy, criticism is earned and deserved (this is very different from posting something to these forums and hearing crickets because nobody has anything nice to say; politeness is the rule for amateurs, not professionals). The free market isn't about shielding egos - isn't about demanding better when better is infinitely achievable.

They're plastic wheels, Murdoch. I'm not trying to be patronizing, but consider that model railroading manufacturers can do runs of less than 1,000 steam engines with metal wheels and can still turn a profit. Not to mention home hobbyists, who can knock out dozens of wheel variants from their den, ship them, and stay in business. So why can a global company worth billions not release 2 variants of a plastic driver? We're talking about TWO pieces. This is greed. And it's also despising your customers - assuming that they're just ill-informed consumers who will gobble up anything so long as it is generically 'train;' 'boat'; 'bus;' 'car.' I've never felt worse about Lego as a company than I do today.

I just wanted to add something: the whole point of Lego Ideas is supposedly to take a FAN-DESIGNED set, vette it through the community, and then see it come to life in retail. It's intended to be a vehicle by which creators possessing an at-or-greater-than skill level to TLG's own staff are able to gift their talents to the wider fandom. I allow that TLG should be able to tweak said designs to make them more saleable and profitable. But that is not an invitation for them to abandon the original wholesale. And this? This locomotive is Lego riffing. This is 100 percent THEIR work. It bears none of the hallmarks of the original engine, and in every way resembles pretty much every lazy steam loco they've ever released in playscale. I'm not saying people can't like this design. I'm saying that it is in no way even REMOTELY similar to what was voted on. We've waited over a decade to see Lego take another serious crack at a 'grown up' steam engine; we know that there are dozens of MOCers worldwide who can produce excellent, functional Lego locomotives that bear a strong resemblance to their real-life counterparts. Yet in this most crucial release, Lego defaults to "whatever a non-train person thinks a train looks like"...? To "who cares, it's a steam engine. That's all that matters"...? I'm disgusted. No, that's not strong enough - I'm revolted. I'm angry on behalf of people who take this hobby seriously, who do their absolute best to produce bleeding edge designs (including the fellow who submitted the original), and are let down by the source. If the original submission had been a model of the Empire State Building and Lego released images of a cartoon house, would people have applauded then? I'd like to think not. And they shouldn't be cheering here.

Okay, that's pathetic. I wanted them to clean up the original locomotive design - not devolve it into Lone Ranger version 2. What we see here are 8/10-level cars, and a 2/10 locomotive - significantly behind Emerald Night or even the Disney 8-wide in terms of complexity. I mean, I guess I'm glad I don't have to spend money. But why are we the only subtheme where TLG takes a serious design submission intended for adults and turns it into a caricature? They didn't do that with the stupid Piano, or the Lighthouse, or the Pirate Ship. So why this? Why can't we get real passenger locomotive-scale wheels? This is Europe's - hell, THE WORLD'S - most iconic express train. Why is it being hauled by an engine that might look appropriate on a sugar cane plantation?

Thanks. I'm working on a 2.0 version with a lifted skylining, slightly slimmer silver banding, and reworked front end. I'll try to remember to do some renders after I'm done.

Jeez, this forum has been cracking out winner after winner lately. This is yet another superb ship - albeit a bit more manageable.

There's no point in creating a model in colors it can't be built in. And this one is already stretching that notion to its absolute limits, what with the necessary dying, and heavy use of a lighter blue color. When you're talking about a color like, say, bright light blue, you've got a few hundred pieces to work with (many of which are obscure... or DUPLO... or Bionicle, etc.). I don't think there is a really good Lego color to match the lightest shade on the real locomotive. Plus the iteration I am modeling is at the very end of the 3460's career, when most of the side-skirting had been removed, and the paint would have naturally faded in the western sun. So LBG might not be a good fit, but it's what I would go with because otherwise I'd have nothing but a digital model.

I almost feel like that Razorcrest is play-scale, in that - given their efforts to lower the overall size of Star Wars play-scale - Lego would try to squish a modern release to something about that big (albeit far less crisp).

Some chroming and stickers would be necessary (the white would need to be chromed/stickered). There’s no piping (as usual) because stud.io is the most user-unfriendly program imaginable and I am simply unwilling to mess with pipe-bending therein. Please, for the love of God, Lego: revive Lego Digital Designer. It was fun, functional, and simple enough that a child could master it. Stud.io is a cluttered, buggy mess. The lower portion of the front fender is part of the lead bogie, rather than the frame… so there is no limitation to the bogie’s play. There is no good answer to the tender’s bogies, however. They have about 6 degrees of play either way (so roughly 12° total). This likely isn’t enough for running except at some show layouts. Honestly… I kind of don’t care. Like with NYC tenders on their Mercury and 20th Century Limited (the early incarnations of the latter), the frame of the real tender overlapped the top of the bogies. So I could either a) replicate the design accurately, b) introduce frame gaps so that portions of the frame could rotate with the bogies, or c) lift the frame so much that the bogies had more play… and I chose a). None of the solutions were strong. It’s a limitation of the hobby. The model sports 2x XL PF motors and 2x battery packs. The rear-4 drivers are powered; the lead two would be moved via the rods. Interestingly enough, these engines (the streamlined one and the other 3460s) wandered the entire ATSF system, including into California [both on east-west service with the Chief, and north-south through the Central Valley up to San Francisco]). There was never a Blue Goose trainset – just the locomotive (and it was the only streamlined engine the ATSF ever owned [it also retained its streamlining until it was scrapped in the early 50s]). One engine of the class survives and is (hopefully) in the process of being restored to service.