Laura Beinbrech

@greg3 Funny that you should post this, because I am planning on ordering some 4DBrix narrow-gauge straight track sections tonight when I get home from work. I'll be more than happy to let you know what I think of them once I get them & mess around with combining them with my official LEGO narrow-gauge curved track pieces. ;)

I was thinking that as well... I mean it was fairly common for RRs to have a stripe with a 3rd color on these types of locomotives.

Oh my goodness, this is so accurate, and I must admit that the following bit had me laughing harder than I should have, because I think I was one of the few people defending the addition of another minidoll based theme at the time: But yeah, the above, highly-accurate summary of the over-hyped expectations from the AFOL community over early leaks, followed by the collective groans of disappointment when the actual sets & themes were revealed is why I try to not get too excited about early leaked/vague promotional stuff one way or the other anymore. They may not be exact quotes, but they do nicely summarize the general theme of what people were saying, both during the initial leak & speculation phase, as well as the actual press release/disappointment phase for those themes. I've been around EuroBricks long enough to have seen pretty much all the early speculation threads for every single one of those (except Atlantis, since that was released 2 years before I joined) when they happened, and Aanchir pretty much nails exactly what went down in all those threads, only far more succinctly....

@jlassen I've been thinking about making a F-unit variant using one of those helicopter/cargo plane noses, after seeing Brick Musher's NOHAB MY trains (which were based on EMD E/F units & built under license from EMD) that used that same technique... Unfortunately the only Friends colors they make those parts in are White & Lime Green... I was going to buy that one fairly current City Police set that has the police helicopter in standard blue for making one in colors for this custom railroad I have in mind.

Lovely EMD F unit you have there. I think it looks great (considering the relatively limited number of parts you have to work with due to the color selection), and would fit right in pulling commuter trains in Heartlake City. There's actually a few short-line railroads around where I live (the Gettysburg &Northern Railroad, for example) that actually still run EMD F units for pulling trains.

I could believe it! Captain Redbeard was one of the 4 or so minifigs I kept when I gave away most of my LEGO during my only real dark age during high school, and I still have that very minifig: As a matter of fact, he's the current President of the Federal Republic of America (the main good-aligned faction in my setting... It's a long story).

Really nice train, Lego Train 12v! I don't know why, but I've always like these Danish double-ended locomotives ever since I first saw one in this old book I got for Christmas in the mid-1980's called "Railways of the World"... I guess it's just a really sleek, unique look that you've managed to capture well. I also rather like your solution for making a PF-capable 3-axle bogey, even if you did have to cut some perfectly good parts to get it to work.

Excellent job with modeling this big ol' mainline freight locomotive. I'm actually planning on trying to make one of the EMD 4-axle locomotives (Specifically a GP-60 variant) in the near future & was actually thinking about using some of the exact same build techniques you used on your model. Of course part of the reason I'm wanting to do the 4-axle ones versus the 6-axle is because I can use one of my spare 24-stud long train bases & a standard PF/PU motor for the front and/or rear bogies. ;) Also nice to see you did some versions with the Comfort Cab as well as the standard cab... Since the one I'm planning on making soon is going to be in Federal Republic of America Army Logistics Command colors (Blue with white accents), I'll probably be doing the Canadian cab version, since it's going to be in my setting that's 100 years in the future. I'll probably also be doing one of the versions with the wide rear radiator as well, for a bit of a unique look.

Really nice work, Holger! I rather like the sleek design, and really nice use of parts throughout the entire build. (Which reminds me, I need to see about buying your book in the near future).

Well, since the set seems to be based on the EMD GP-60 Locomotives that were made in large quantities during the 1980's & 1990's & are still in wide use today, doing an image search for that particular locomotive, then trying to see what bricks would work to get some of the shapes you want would be a good start. One thing is that borrowing the techniques for making the nose of the Maersk Train (10219), which is a better fit for the actual nose shape of the EMD GP-series locomotives, and using tiles for the top of the rest of the hood for a smoother look. Also, again if you desire to make it look more like a GP-series locomotive, move the two lower "ditch" lights towards the front railing (2 studs forward), and possibly, if you have the parts & inclination, replace the 1x6 railing pieces on the long hood side (back part) with the semi-rigid technic hoses & battle droid arms, again, like on the Maersk Train set. I hope that this helps a bit, but do remember that ultimately, this is your train, and you should go for the final look you like or what works for your budget/available parts, even if it's not 100% accurate to the real-life version.

What kind of lube would you recommend? Silicone-based? @Dragunov2 No, not N-scale, narrow-gauge (smalspoor/Voie étroite, depending on which part of Belgium you're in). Basically, standard LEGO train track, the rails are 6-studs apart (4 studs between the rails), but I'm building trains for the smaller track that is 4 studs apart (2 studs between the rails) to stand in for 3-foot (913mm) gauge that was commonly used for mining & logging railroads in back-woods areas, as well as industrial railroads traveling between different parts of large manufacturing complexes (like the Algoma Steel plant in Saul Ste Marie, Michigan). Hope that clears things up a bit.

Nope! I can get past the activation code screen, but when I click on the "I agree" button, it keeps telling me that my email address is already associated with a LEGO account, but when I try to log in with my Lego.com account & password, it makes me go through the activation like I'm setting up an account... I'm just going to have to try wrangling with customer service again tomorrow & see if they can't pull their headquarters out of their hindquarters....

Yess! Then all you need to do is get someone who has a 3-d animation program to import your model, then use it to re-create the opening sequence from the 1981 cult-classic film, "Heavy Metal", complete with a LEGO spaceman rocking out to "Radar Rider" by Riggs on the way down to the planet's surface. I guarantee you'd get 10K votes in less than a week that way! Well I'd guarantee you'd get my vote at least, providing I'm ever able to actually log in to the gosh-darn LEGO Ideas site, that is....

Me too! I mean they are perfect for officer uniforms for one of my factions. Said minifig torsos + the load of bricks in dark red & other useful parts are the main reason why I'll be seeing about picking up one or two (depending on price) of these sets in a month or two, and I'll probably be grabbing more of the fireman torsos on BL down the road, whenever I find them.

Why, thank you! As for lubrication, I do not, but then again, I only have, at most, 2 axles per bogie, and they seem to spin about as freely as the standard LEGO train wheelsets. Of course, I also haven't really given much thought to motorization, due to how big PF/PU motors are (and the need to use said bulky motors due to lack of any kind of PF/PU motorized train bogie for narrow-gauge track). I am considering trying to build a replica of one of East Broad Top RR's 2-8-2 "Mikado" narrow-gauge steam locomotives, which I do want to try motorizing with a small PF motor & Big Ben Bricks M locomotive wheels, so I guess I'll find out how smoothly these wheels work then...

Well, they do have that Hogwarts Express/Platform 9 3/4 set that's just came out, but I'm not sure if that counts or if they'll be releasing a City train station like the one that came with a bus & a tram several years back...

As someone who has a bit of a soft spot for WWI history (possibly because it's the closest RL has come to Steampunk), and an avid Battlefield 1 player, I really like what you've done with this model so far. (As a matter of fact, the MKV Landship is my best vehicle in Battlefield 1, with almost 300 kills). I'm really looking forward to seeing you finish this beast. :)

Being a huge Hayao Miyazaki fan, as well as a sucker for steampunk & dieselpunk in general, I gotta say that I absolutely love this thing! I also like how yo managed to build the envelope entirely out of plates & curved slope pieces and how you were able to integrate working landing gear in the galleon-inspired gondola.

Oh, I saw this on Flickr the other day, and I really liked it, but then again, I am a bit of a sucker for small diesel switchers. I also like how you made it using the classic Legoland colors as well, a "LEGO" Lego train, as it were. Also, good job fitting all that PF stuff in something this small.

Thanks for this review, and I can say that seeing as how much more compact the new Powered Up system is over PF, I'm definitely going to be getting this set either during the After Christmas sale period or early next year at the LEGO store during one of their AFOL days. Like I said, I've been meaning to take a stab at motorizing a train for almost 7 years now, but various budget constraints & RL issues have forced me to put it on the back burner... Also, considering that Powered-Up uses Bluetooth, do you think it would be possible to automate a train layout using some sort of controller based on a Raspberry Pi? Because I've recently gotten into messing around with Raspberry Pi 3b+ & have been really impressed with the capabilities of those little computers.

I think you're referring to the LEGO minifig binoculars, which I've seen used as a double-airhorn many times: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=30162#T=C

I'm with Pdaitabird on this one: I would definitely be interested in a model of the types of engines that the characters in Thomas & friends are based on, especially in LEGO green & bright red colors. (BTW, Hi, Glenn! Nice to see other people from PennLUG here ) As for BMR, I think that a tank engine of the type that Thomas himself is based on in dark green would be a nice companion for the Emerald Night.

Ever since I've finally managed to get a pile of the small train wheels, I've been building, or at least designing not only new narrow-gauge locomotives, but also narrow-gauge rolling stock, and I figured I'd just make a single thread for all of it (both completed & LDD images of planned builds), and update it whenever I get new designs finished or complete actual builds & post pics of them in the original post. EDIT: I have decided to just start new threads for additional narrow-gauge train stuff, and then link those topics in this thread, which will be linked in my signature, rather than bumping this thread every time I finish a new narrow-gauge MOC. Therefore, from here on out, this is basically a library of all my narrow-gauge stuff, including locomotives, so enjoy! So without further ado, first up is the Balin & Sons Mining Co Heisler locomotive & ore carts I made back in 2011 & posted about early 2012: NG Loco by Ben/Laura Bonebrake, on Flickr Next on the locomotive roster is the Balin & Sons Mining Co RR 8-ton Plymouth biofuel switcher: Plymouth 8-Ton Right-Side by Ben/Laura Bonebrake, on Flickr Next up is an Inter-Modal/Flatcar (it's used as a flatcar when it's not hauling shipping containers). I've included a pic of the Inter-Modal Car with one of my "standard" shipping containers & an updated version of the Heisler Locomotive I made almost 7 years ago to show how it compares with the more or less standard sized locomotives I use for my narrow-gauge stuff: Empty Intermodal Front Quarter View by Ben/Laura Bonebrake, on Flickr Here's a design for a narrow-gauge hopper car, which is a 6-wide modification of a 4-wide version I had designed in LDD 6 years ago, then just kinda shelved. It's based on the narrow-gauge coal hoppers that are on the East Broad Top Railroad, although I could only make these 2-bay hoppers instead of 3-bay due to space constraints. EDIT: Thanks to discovering that LEGO made 1x1 black letter & number tiles with white print, my 2-bay hopper is no longer inspired by the East Broad Top Railroad's 2-bay hoppers, but it now IS an East Broad Top RR 2-bay hopper, complete with EBT reporting mark & typical hopper car numbering scheme: EBT Narrow Gauge Hopper Side by Ben/Laura Bonebrake, on Flickr This is a narrow-gauge tank car I came up with last night (after pulling my hair out repeatedly trying to come up with something that looked reasonably decent & wasn't too flimsy). While the ladder attachments on the current build are pretty flimsy, I'm planning to use BrickArms U-Clips to clip the 3rd rung up from the bottom to the railing in order to stabilize it. Of course the nice thing about this here design is that the main tank body is made entirely from really common parts which are available in many different colors, so I could easily make a small train entirely of white, black, yellow, green, etc tank cars: Narrow Gauge Tank Car WIP by Ben/Laura Bonebrake, on Flickr And Last for now (but not least) is a workable narrow-gauge train car I came up with earlier this week (and modified 2 times since then) in the Balin & Sons Mining Co RR livery (of course it is entirely possible to make this in different colors, but part of the reason I went with mostly black with red highlights is that black train doors are the easiest type to acquire on BrickLink, especially thanks to the new Grindlewald's Escape set having a matched pair in it). The slightly elongated bogie is one I'll be using for all my narrow-gauge passenger stock & I'm planning on using a variation of it for when I try to model the East Broad Top RR's 55-ton GE Center-Cab Diesel that they got about 15 years ago from the Algoma Steel Works in Saul Ste Marie. Also of an interesting side note is that for standard gauge trains, for the most part, I use the 26L train base plates for passenger cars/coaches, and the 24L train base plates for freight cars & medium diesel locomotives. EDIT: After messing around a bit, I found a way to make some workable 6-L narrow-gauge bogies that work with a standard 6x24 LEGO train car base plate & are held on by 2x2 turntable plates. I already tested it & it can handle any standard LEGO narrow-gauge curved track configuration, so here's the improved version: Narrow Gauge Coach WIP v2 by Ben/Laura Bonebrake, on Flickr Anyways, I hope you all like these narrow-gauge cars & are inspired by them. Like I said at the beginning, I'll update this post whenever I come up with or build more narrow-gauge rolling stock.

Funny you should mention this, because Mattel DOES, in fact own not just A Lego-style brand, but THE Lego-style brand that is well enough known to be used as a substitute swear-word on these here forums.... That's right, Mattel owns Megabloks outright (hence why they have all the Barbie & Monster High sets), and have since they bought them up in 2014.... So, as you said, Mattel IS most likely to outright refuse any license deal with LEGO in regards to Thomas the Tank Engine products, unfortunately....

I have more or less 4 grades of storage, depending on quantities of certain colors. For colors that I have large quantities of & large quantities of large bricks & plates for, I use 1-gallon plastic pretzel/snack jars. For colors that I have smaller quantities of (or the smaller parts from the ones that I have large quantities of), I use empty half-gallon (more or less) cat treat containers with screw-on lids (I have 4 cats, so I go through one of those every 6 weeks or so, and thus have a ton of the empty ones laying around the house). For minifigs, I use Stanley Fat Max storage boxes with individual, removable bins (they usually have like 2-3 4"x6" bins and the rest are 3"x6") and sort the figs by faction (or in the case of factions that I have a lot of figs for, by service branch). Finally, for things like minifig weapons & accessories & minifig body parts (heads, legs, torsos, etc), I use these Keter storage boxes that have two sets of removable bins: In the top half, there are small bins that are like 1.5" x 3" and the bottom has ones similar in size to the Stanley Fat Max small bins. Of course, things like Plano tackle boxes work as well, but these are the ones that generally work best for me.