Steinkopf

It's sad to see that the goodwill of the community has been abused by the unscrupulous behaviour of these online maggots, may I suggest that everyone who has been affected by this problem be it the unwitting buyers or those members who have had their designs stolen lodge formal complaints with EBay and have this parasites account terminated.

EDIT: Split from this thread. Hello Locomotive Annie Can you please send a complaint to EBay regarding the person who sold you the instructions for this locomotive also see if you can stop your payment for them, the original instructions were made by Michael Irvine who goes by the name of Pickyourownbogies on Flickr and Brickshelf. When I saw the render of the locomotive I knew straight away it was Michael's design and I sent him a message on Flickr to see if he was selling instructions to his designs, Michael has contacted me and informed me that he is not selling his instructions, this is just another case of some unscrupulous individual ripping of the hard work of members of the AFOL community and turning a profit from it. Michael is pretty unhappy about this person doing this as he has put his instructions on Brickshelf for free so he can share his work with other members of the Lego Train community to use and enjoy. Can you please provide the name of the individual or the store so we can name and shame them so that no other members of the community fall victim too such lazy parasitic scum who take credit from other peoples work and make a profit from it.

Thanks everyone for the compliments I am thinking about pulling out my locomotive depot module soon so I can fid a nice position to locate the water tower, but even then I am thinking about rebuilding the whole section to incorporate a new centrepiece that I have been thinking about building .

Hello Everyone Around about 4 years ago I made a number of water cranes for servicing the steam locomotives on my LBB network, back then I wanted to build a water tower to supply the water cranes but I wasn't happy with the type of designs I could build with the parts that were available at the time. The designs I could have built then would have either been too big or too small for my needs or would not be able to fit in with the Germanic styling of my LBB theme, there was no happy medium to be found that is until recently. A few months back for some reason when the Star Wars Planet series of pods became available and I started mulling over the possibilities of using the sphere for a water tank, I started to look around at a variety of models and I became drawn to a model kit made by Faller of the Haltingen water tower http://www.faller.de...125/120143.html . Initially I was thinking of using 2 bottom halves of the Deathstar pod and I picked up 2 of them on clearance, I then grabbed some parts and started playing around with some ideas on how to tackle the build. I then came to the conclusion that I wanted to build it all in the one colour as I thought it looked a bit odd with using a variety of colours as these structures were generally painted in one main colour, this was only a minor setback as one of the Series 3 pods that was due for release base colour was Dark Bley. Luckily for me on Thursday night after work I went to the nearest Kmart and found a brand new shipping box of set #75007 before they had even been opened and put on the shelves, I opened the box grabbed a set and then ran to the register. After that I had to race to the supermarket before it shut to buy a can of Brasso to remove the paint. I finally got home at 12:30am and then started to strip the paint off, then finally after 1 hour of my time and a 3rd of a can of Brasso stripping off the paint I was ready to add the final piece to my MOC, then at 2:00am I went to bed very tired but also very happy as I had finally completed my model. Time for some paint removal. The finished product With LBB 19Class 2-4-0 to give an idea of scale. Top View LBB Water Crane

Regarding the piece count system that you are referring to this already exists, all you have to do is make a store on Bricklink and register every set you own as part of the stores inventory, you can also load quantities of parts that you have bought that were not in sets, keep the store set on CLOSED as this will ensure that no one else other than yourself can gain access to your inventory. As far as advertising to adults is concerned this is a rather grey area, given that it is a construction toy that has a wide range of themes to cover its core target group (children) it is very difficult to gear that to a much broader adult audience, in many respects TLG already caters to an adult audience with mature sets such as the Architecture Series and the Cafe Corner/Creator Expert range. Trying to develop a theme that is aimed purely at an adult market is highly prone to failure due to broad ranging interests that adults have there is no one size fits all solution to this, trying to dovetail adults into the themes that are currently available is the best option. Probably the greatest opportunity for this is through licensed sets, like it or not themes such as STAR WARS, LOTR and the HOBBIT are some of the best ways to lure adults into the hobby due to the general interest generated by the movies and books. With the idea of putting on official LEGO shows this is a very expensive exercise, the amount of money that goes into funding such events is quite large when you factor in all the costs such as advertising, display models, event staff, insurance, transport and storage as well as finding a suitable venue. The costs of holding such events has an impact on the marketing expenses, this in turn would have to be offset by increasing the prices of the product to absorb these extra costs, what would you prefer more expensive sets to cover the cost of shows you may not get a chance to see or cheaper sets. The current position of where TLG gives a certain amount of assistance to fan based events is a far more effective option, especially when it comes to the models on displays as fans have a wide range of genres that they build in, whilst a company event would be more geared towards official products. Seeing creations that are made by AFOLs and the wide diversity of them is far more inspiring for a potential convert to the hobby compared to just seeing a ton of official sets on display.

Agreed looking at the cockpit of the Cargo Tiltrotor it does look very much like a new mould, it reminds me in some ways of a Sea King cockpit. In many respects Playmobil is one of LEGOs largest competitors especially when it comes to the toy market in Germany, this why you will see a lot of similarities with themes that the two companies run. Regarding the Cargo Jet one thing a lot of people are not taking into consideration is the fact a Playmobil plane is a complete item when it is pulled out of the box, LEGO planes on the other hand have to be constructed using a decent number of parts, hence the Playmobil item is far more robust when it comes to play compared to a LEGO one. This also gives Playmobil the ability to incorporate features that if they were translated into LEGO would make a set that would break or fall apart easily. When designing sets the LEGO design team has to ensure that their builds are durable enough to withstand the rigours of play of their core market, having a highly detailed yet fragile build is something that us AFOLs crave for but in the hands of an 8 year old boy who is crying to his parents that his Cargo Plane keeps falling apart does not give a good impression to the general consumer and could put them off purchasing products in the future.

True I will give you that in that it would nicer if there was more colour variety, but at least it's a far sight better than the Trans Green and Trans Dark Blue that I had to contend with in City sets when I came out of my Dark Ages in 2001, oh the horror of it all.

Very nice work there Sven, it reminds me a lot of the Brill Gas Electric Railmotors used for branchline passenger services on a number of US Railroads such as the Maryland & Pennsylvania or the East Broad Top Railroad which your model is based on, I think you have done an excellent job in replicating the look of this vehicle.

This is probably one of the most refreshing comments I have heard on this forum in a while, it would be nice if a certain element in the community (collectors) garnered the ability to conceptualise that LEGO is a highly adaptable creative medium that can used to build a wide variety of creations. That way if LEGO doesn't make what they want then they can make it themselves, alas though some people find it hard to grasp the concept of using their imagination and a bit of creativity.

Welcome aboard English Electric, it's great to see someone who actually works in the field join the group as there are a number of us who have a passion for Permanent Way machines as well as the more typical railway modelling subjects.

There are quite a number of new sets this year that offer a refreshing change to the usual run of Police, Fire and Construction sets, I like the fact that they have gone back in time in a manner of speak with the Transport and Coast Guard subthemes this gives a lot of people who missed out on those themes back then to get a new/revised version of them. Personally speaking I probably wont purchase any of the new sets as I have a heap of them from 2008, plus when it comes to the Coast Guard the LCGS (Legodtenstein Coast Guard Service) has already invested in a sizeable fleet of vessels as well as having a couple more awaiting completion to join the fleet .

Great work there Danthaman11, I really like this vehicle as it looks very much like a US style Hi-Rail Pickup Truck, the colour scheme works really well with this MOC and you have a good level of detail in it.

Nice work LT12V it's great to see someone look at a real life prototype and produce their own rendition, you have in many ways captured the look and feel of the SBB version so well with this MOC. It is also nice to see someone else take up the challenge and see how compact they can make what is in real life a relatively small vehicle, I think this is one of the greatest challenges as builders we can meet, the ability to build such small vehicles yet at the same time compress in as much detail as we can in them.

Thanks everyone for the comments. Thank you Captain K, I am very familiar with your work as I have seen them on Brickshelf quite a few years back and I have always admired your models and the detail you put into them, in many ways your work inspired me to start building Permanent Way machines. They are an interesting topic to model and offer some more variety compared to just building normal trains, also they are an essential element that makes it possible for railways to run, unfortunately they tend to be rather neglected when it comes to modelling.

Indexed by Moderator Hello Everyone I would like to share my latest addition to the LBB Permanent Way department fleet the Xm 2/2 Tamping Machine. In 1995 the LBB purchased 2 Xm 2/2 Unimat Compact Tamping Machines for use on the LBB network, these small but highly capable machines have a split head design for single sleeper tamping operations on points and plain sections of track. The 2 tamping heads are fitted with 4 tines each and can be operated independently of each other, they are also fitted with a lifting and lining unit as well as lining rollers to ensure that the track is bedded into position perfectly. These machines are the largest, most modern and capable tamping machines used by the LBB, due to the relatively small size of the LBB network as well as the tight curvature of track larger tamping machines such as the Plasser & Thuerer 09 series are either unsuitable or not needed. This model has been one of my trickiest builds as I have had to intermingle 7 wide and 6 wide construction to get the right look of the frames as well as being able to fit in all of the tamping equipment whilst at the same time keeping it all within the 9 stud loading gauge of the LBB. This machine was inspired by the smaller mainline tamping machines such as the Matisa B 20 C-75 , Plasser and Thuerer 08-16 3S and Unimat Junior units, I also wanted to retain some of the look and style of a tamping machine that I had built 6 years ago and ended up scrapping a couple of years back due to being unhappy with it.

With the overhead wiring I decided not to add it to my catenary masts for a number of reasons, the main one being that it is extremely hard to replicate the look of the whole construction accurately which includes the catenary wire, contact wire, droppers and feeders, also in real life you don't really notice the wiring at a distance. Another issue is the structural integrity of such a system the masts need to be strong enough to be able to support the catenary wiring, the biggest problem is if one mast was to be knocked down by a derailed train or a clumsy club member you would end up with the rest of the catenary being knocked down by a Domino Effect.

With the placement of Catenary Masts think of where the actual wires would be placed over the track if you did have them in place, I normally have a mast placed at every second length of track on a curved section and on straight section I have them placed at 5 lengths of track apart, that placement in many respects mimics what I have seen in real life as the masts are about 2 to 3 coach lengths apart on straight sections of track. Having them grouped any tighter makes it look overly cluttered especially when you are doing an area with a lot of curves in it as shown in the first 2 photos, I had placed the masts at the distances I had mentioned before and as you can see it's already a forest of catenary masts any closer and you would not be able to see anything else but catenaery masts. The bottom photo is of an older exhibition layout and gives you a good idea on what a more rural section of railway line looks like with masts spread out over a reasonable distance and does not look cluttered compared to the scenes around the locomotive depot.

Personally speaking my use of pantographs has been an evolutionary cycle, my very first pantos were the 2881Click variety that came in 4511 and I used some with the click hinge plates and others I modded by using technic axles with the click hinge cylinder pieces, I was generally dissatisfied with them due to their chunky proportions and unrealistic looks. I then decided to change to the original 2881 pantograph shoes with the hinge bars for use on my trains as they had a thinner and more realistic look to them, even then I was not totally satisfied due to the fact that they were not suited to some of the locomotives designs I have. I was also unhappy with the overall width of the 2881 pantograph shoe, in many respects I saw them as not being wide enough especially when you factor in the ratio of the contact surface and curved sections of the shoe as it was too small even for 6 wide trains. Then one day by chance when I was looking for something I dropped a container which my daughters had some of their Belville stored in, as I was picking up the parts I came across an Ice Skate and looked at it and thought hey this part looks like it has some potential, I then quickly scurried around looking for another one and when I paired them up to see what they looked like. As soon as I put them together I knew I had found the solution I had been waiting for, I then looked around at a number of Pantograph designs such as Namo Dens beautiful Diamond Pattern design, I then went about tying to figure out how to incorporate them and created my own hybrid designs such as this one.

I can understand your frustration here as I think a central thread would be much more suited to this subject rather than members spreading them throughout the forum. Sure there is an issue at times with having to wade through a number of posts to get an answer but at least it's in a central location, as opposed to if the topics were posted in the main forum where you would have to wade through page upon page of general train topics to find the post you are after. Maybe an alternative would be to have subsections to deal with specific systems, it could be broken up into 4.5v, 12v, 9v and IR + PF sections, it would make it easier for members to search for information on a particular system and hopefully encourage them to utilise it more often rather than posting in the main forum.

Thanks everyone for the comments. Yes, the model is powered by a 9v Train Motor so it can haul a wide variety of Permanent Way wagons that I have built such as the 20ton Construction Crane or a rake of Ballast Hoppers. The only downside with using the train motor is that I have had to limit the body length to 16 studs long, I would have liked to have built her a bit more longer to emulate vehicles such as the Plasser & Thuerer OBW 10 or the Windhoff built Tm 2/2s, luckily though this type of vehicle comes in all shapes and sizes and there are quite a number of smaller designs available such as the OBW Junior and the RACO Tm 2/2s.

Like this one http://www.flickr.co...nen/3613129135/ .

Indexed by Moderator Hello Everyone With the latest addition to the LBB fleet I thought I would like to do something different instead of a standard locomotive, for a while I have wanted to build a Permanent Way Shunter & Multipurpose Vehicle, I have a soft spot for these colourful and somewhat odd looking vehicles and in many respects they are the ugly ducklings of the locomotive world. Despite their rather quirky appearance these little locomotives are an extremely versatile piece of equipment and are regulary used by railways around the world for hauling track construction and repair trains as well as travelling on their own carrying a work crew in them. The Tm 2/2 Baudiensttraktor was introduced to service on the LBB in 1987 and a total of 4 vehicles were purchased for the Permanent Way department for use on repair and construction trains, the Tm 2/2 are fitted with a pallet crane with a 1500kg capacity that can be used for lifting a variety of material and equipment. The Tm 2/2 units have a top speed of 50km/h and are rated at 280hp, they are capable of hauling a short rake of ballast hoppers or a variety of other wagons and equipment used by the Permanent Way department. This vehicle is inspired by the Tm2/2 Class units 81-84 produced by Raco in 1985 for use on the RhB

Hello everyone Thanks for all the comments, this loco was a fun build and it was great to try some different techniques with her especially with the side skirting and the buffers, I also enjoyed the challenge of fitting in a good level of detail in such a compact design and mixing in the features I like of the real life prototypes to make a convincing looking freelance shunter. Thanks to JopieK for the links to some of the locos that inspired me, here is another link to the RhB Tm 2/2

Rather than providing different coloured battery boxes I would like to see a whole new design of battery box, I floated an idea several years ago when Gambort was asking for feedback and ideas during the developmental stages of PF Trains. The battery boxes would be a plate thinner in thickness on each side, the sides would be studded to allow for tiles or other elements to be attached to them giving the builder a wide range of options as far as details are concerned whilst still maintaining a 4 stud wide size, it could be black in colour so that if you used grille tiles it would give a nice effect of vents for the engine bay. Having a battery box like that would provide a more flexible building platform, especially if building the narrow hood sections of US style diesels or European branchline locomotives or shunters. A good example is imagine if a battery box like that was available to use on the locomotive in the 3667 Red Cargo Train set which is inspired by the MaK/Vossloh G series locomotives, the level of detail that could be achieved would be much higher, to me the current battery box in 3667 limits the detailing potential of that train due to it's chunky proportion and sheer size.

Hello JopieK Thanks , the locomotive is a freelance design which was inspired by a number of actual locomotives which I named a few examples of just above the photos.