The_Cook

The battery box might fit better in the front of the first truck/carriage rather than trying to squeeze it into the cab/engine.

Same part then. No reason why it should be retired given that they're still producing it for a set. They will have spare stock for Customer Support purposes, maybe they're holding onto that stock for Customer Support rather than adding it to PAB. As is often discussed each time there is a new product release, the cryptic messages that emanate from TLGs ordering systems may or may not reflect the reality of what is actually going on on the inside

As metioned in earlier posts it is likely to be batching issues rather than supplier issues. They'll order a batch from the supplier, most of which ends up in production sets, any spares are for customer support (i.e. replacing broken parts) and PAB. It would be interesting to know if the Train motor in the Polar set has a different part numbers from earlier motors? Component changes internally might mean a new Part Number is allocated, even if the external appearance and behaviour hasn't changed.

Yes, MOCPages has gone meaning the links have all gone with it. [url=https://flic.kr/p/2obt8Wh][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52627001120_1021f40fbc_z.jpg[/img][/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/2obt8Wh]IMG_9468[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/189196158@N06/]Brian Tucker[/url], on Flickr I've had to shift to Flickr for Photo distribution; follow the link through to the stream if you want more images. I've not found a useful free file distribution site, best I can do is through my Personal OneDrive: https://1drv.ms/u/c/702cebef99614fb5/EbVPYZnv6ywggHBdDAAAAAAB3k_mqij8ZWeyrBU57Ik5hQ?e=JzXXZK That should allow you read-only access to a zip file of all my 80's style Castle builds, which should be enough to download the zip. Let me know if it doesn't work.

The only other factor that I can think of that may affect production is component availability. Again, unlike standard bricks where TLG is fully in control, the electronics are source from 3rd party suppliers. If the suppliers end production of a component being used then that necessitates a redesign or abandonment of the product. Industrial components tend to be in production for longer time periods but even they eventually go out of production. I still suspect that the intermittent availability is that the manufacturing of the PUP components is done in more sporadic batches compared with the standard bricks that TLG can replenish more easily and frequently.

Bricklink is a marketplace driven by supply and demand; there is no direct linkage to manufacturing costs. It’s perceived desirability by the suppliers and consumers, PAB prices are a more direct linkage to manufacturing costs as Lego is the primary producer and is likely to price them in line with manufacturing costs.

The PuP shortages could just be rather mundane manufacturing challenges. unlike standard bricks that are fully manufactured in house by TLG and can be produced as needed; I suspect the circuit boards are outsourced. Obtaining the components to go on the circuit boards can be time consuming and there may be delays, producing a batch of boards takes time. Suffice to say if stocks get low it could take some time to replenish; the PaB stock probably gets replenished each time they do another batch of the currently active boxed train sets. They don’t produce set continuously they produce a batch, stock up the warehouse and then the production machinery is reprogrammed to pack a batch of the next set.

Everything looks a little out because it's an 8wide coach on a 6wide train. One has to grow, or one has to shrink. Lovely carriage design though. I used to watch 35028 Clan Line pulling the Pullman coaches through Clapham Junction first thing in the morning after it had left Victoria.

Is there a reason that you're using black friction pins as the pivots for the beams that the shocks are attached to? If you're using black friction pins for pivots then that's going to make it a lot harder to drive the mechanisms. Of course there may be valid reasons that I don't immediately see why the friction is important, feel free to educate me if that's the case ;-)

Short answer: yes Long answer: they don’t have a moulding machine for each element. A moulding machine will make a batch of elements that go into storage; then either the feedstock is changed so that the machine creates the same element in another colour, or the dies are changed to allow the machine to make a different element, TLG only have a finite amount of warehouse space so there’s only ever so many element/colour combinations that can be produced before the warehousing system is full. When the designers want a new element/colour combination that’s not being manufactured then they will stop producing something else. Parts then get pulled from the warehousing system and sent to the packing machines which count by weighing, then drop the parts into bags.

The AFOL community refers to Medium Stone Grey as Bluish Grey because compared to the grey from the 1980s it’s bluer. Bluish Grey often gets concatenated to Bley. Dark Bluish Grey is Dark Stone Grey, shortened to Dark Bley. Modern RC track is Dark Stone Grey.

I've had this built for about 6 months then I saw this thread pop up and I thought; I should probably post but I was on vacation at the time. Then I got back and got distracted, and it was only whilst trying to tidy up after my son that that I realised I hadn't posted. If only 65734 Slope, Curved 4 x 1 x 2 2/3 with Stud came in trans brown then everything would be prefect. Sadly I think the likelihood of this ever happening given the seeming demise of trans brown.

I haven't expanded 10027 but I have doubled it and assembled them back to back. After sourcing 4 pairs of black doors at great expense, I realised that they weren't going to work. The modern 6wide locomotives all have clips and handles hanging off the sides which means that they weren't fitting through the 8 wide arch easily, i.e. my son trying to run them through the engine shed at full speed! Therefore I redesigned the doors to be 10wide giving ample wiggle room for an 6 plus a bit wide locomotive. The roof structure was also tweaked to avoid having to source the expensive 1x14 red bricks and the sliding doors aren't the unique black doors which were again prohibitively expensive to source. I source 4 16x32 baseplates but then promptly lost 2 when it came to building the 2nd half so reverted to 8 16x16 plates, having built it I finally located the 2 lost baseplates! The plates are more in keeping with the rest of the layout than the baseplates as the layout is mostly comprised of modern sets from the PF era along with a couple of PU sets that I've converted to PF. Interior is sparse because my son keeps stealing it to use elsewhere and then entropy takes over and everything is reduced to individual bricks.

A part number of 5565 feels like it was designed a long time ago, but perhaps never put into production. A quick scan on BrickLink shows that none of the other bricks with holes aligned on the studs have adjacent numbers. It's an obvious next step if they did design it as part of a family to 6541 and 32000.

There’s also not many people on the forums designing for play rather than display. I personally try to build with my children in mind and robustness and ease of access is key. It’s a different mentality to design for play compared to the detail that most AFOLs desire.