Aaron

Have you tried spacing the railroad ties 1 stud apart? It would look more realistic that way.

With body-mounted couplers, it requires spacing between each curved rail. However, if the situation calls for tight 90 degree turns consisting of only curved rails, my bogies have attachment points for androgynous technic couplers. This allows even an 80 stud long passenger car such as mine to be used on any layout.

I was thinking about waiting until I finish a sleeping car, baggage car, and engine before I post a thread, but I suppose I could do one just for the lounge car in the meantime. Just give it about a week for the rest of its parts to arrive. The new couplers will make a huge difference. ;) As far as the door goes, I originally tried a 3-wide brick-built door, but it was too flimsy and eventually couldn't be attached properly when I made some changes to that section. The LEGO train door is literally the only thing I can think of that works in this situation. I had all five of the original Santa Fe passenger car sets, so I salvaged the doors from them. Inside, it uses white doors in dark bluish gray 1 x 4 x 6 frames. I wish they made train doors in this fashion, but sadly they do not.

All of my trains are built to scale, so that one stud equals one foot. At this scale, LEGO track is scaled almost perfectly to standard gauge track, and the wheel diameter of basic LEGO train wheels at 3 studs works great for 3 foot diameter wheels. I am currently constructing several Budd stainless steel passenger cars, as well as an EMD E2 diesel locomotive for my 10-wide Super Chief. I am still awaiting Kadee O scale couplers, several BrickLink orders, and custom decals in order to complete them, but in the meantime I will give a preview of what one of them looks like. Here is the Acoma lounge car, which has the most progress so far. It still needs more underbody detail and Kadee couplers to replace my crude Technic couplers. The dimensions are consistent with the real thing. My version of the Acoma lounge car measures 10 studs wide, 80 studs long, and just under 14 studs total height, with 55 studs between the centers of each truck. Each truck has a 9 stud wheelbase, and can move freely, with a 360 degree rotation, so that the car can handle sharp curves. The base of the train car is built using 13 6 x 10 plates, with the trucks attached by turntables. These techniques allow for more constructive freedom compared to using typical train plates and bogies, and allow for the construction of larger and more accurate train cars. Thanks to its width, the doors (although I'd love to use smaller ones to move the bathroom window over by a stud) are also able to open inward, as they do on the real trains. Once you go 10-wide, you never go back.

I really like how you do the rounded roof with the grille tiles. Is it done mostly with hinged bricks? Although I don't think doing that would quite work as much as I hope it would for my Budd coaches due to the corrugation density, it's still incredible, and I want to try it out and see what it would look like on a 10-wide passenger car roof. It's just ingenious how you came up with all of this. I've been digging through your flickr for hours.

What we really need is more track, with different options. They should release packs of just straight track, and nothing else bundled with it if they want people to be satisfied. The flex track just isn't attractive to me at all. I'd honestly love if they could just sell the rail segments of the track as individual components, similar to what ME Models was doing, although with plastic instead of metal. Since many AFOLs build their own railroad ties anyway, it would benefit them being able to get the important parts cheaper. As far as the new sets go, I'd never buy any of them. They look almost like a downgrade compared to the Emerald Night and Maersk sets, which were the high water marks. At this point it doesn't matter to me, since everything I build is custom, and I don't see these sets as being good part fodder either. It's still a bit interesting to note that the blue diesel bears a striking resemblance to the ones I see where I live. The passenger train just seems rushed, though. Neither of the sets have my interest, so I'm hoping there's more to come.

I've always been wondering if those Avery sticker sheets would be any good as LEGO decals. Now I know.

Here's another way to do it.

There's nothing even remotely close to where I live in central Pennsylvania. The Internet is basically my store for everything.

Old grey era lightsaber blades/bars can remove the pins with relative ease. They're rigid and thick enough to grab onto the pins, but then you run into the problem of the pins getting stuck on the bars. LEGO apparently switched to a softer plastic mould when they changed to the newer colours, which is why the newer bars just slip out.

I'm 23. It seems like the older I get, the more I get criticized. I actually do need to somehow come up with $10000 to pay off my student loan debt, so I've been selling off Star Wars sets and other themed sets. I kind of want to start a clean slate, although I'm keeping all of my train parts and other useful things. Thankfully my boss where I work builds LEGO with his son, so I've been giving him some of my large boat hulls and other various parts that I'll never use. He's one of the few people that's actually eager to see how my trains and Mir space station turn out. I calculated that I have around 70,000 parts, so I at least feel the need to cut down on the clutter. I spent a good portion of my summer sorting them, and it was a nightmare. I found parts that I didn't even know I had. Anyway, it's funny, because another guy I work with told me "Back when I was a kid, they didn't have all of the fancy parts they have now. It was just the basic blocks, and you had to actually be creative." I've heard that one fairly often...

I've never been to a LEGO convention before, but I have a feeling this will be my first one. I feel like I'd be cheating myself if I didn't display my trains at it. ;)

The only thing that every plays in my car is Led Zeppelin. I have listened through an entire Led Zeppelin album almost every day of my life, and it has influenced my drumming and songwriting tremendously. I can cover almost every Led Zeppelin song on drums, and a few songs with my 6 string electric guitar, 12 string acoustic guitar, and mandolin. The band that I'm forming soon will just have to deal with my open, big drum drum sound. It always freaks people out when I play live. :P

I recall that the 8376 Hot Flame RC Car set had a connection that was all but impossible to undo. In fact, I may still have the parts buried somewhere. I'll upload a photo if I can find it.

I always get criticized by my family and acquaintances from school and work. One of the most common things I'm told, and something that my dad especially told me every time I'd show him one of my creations is "You need to grow up." Several times in the past girls I liked lectured me and said that I'll never get a girlfriend unless I grow up, stop playing with "kiddy toys", and act like a "real man". Most of the time the guys they like are into drugs, alcohol, football, hunting, and clubbing--all stuff that I find boring and uncreative, and just simply avoid. This has made me feel at times that I should sell every LEGO related thing that I own. The words still burn inside of me, and I still get the occasional urge to just sell everything. 一_一

I've lurked these forums for many, many years, but for some reason only decided to post now. My birth name is Aaron, and stage name is Naora, but you can call me whatever you want. I'm 23 years old, I play drums as my career, hope to become famous someday, I love anime, manga, and the art style in general, I love acting, and of course LEGO. I have been playing drums and with LEGO since I was less than a year old. I have ADD, ADHD, Aspberger's, and OCD, which is probably why I've never experienced "The Dark Ages" as a teenager. Some of the stuff I've built ranges from planes, trains, space, and Star Wars. I've always been obsessed with trains, so expect to see me post a lot of my train creations. Have a nice day. ^w^