Legotom

Would really love a TV sub theme, that's always good. I've been dreaming of a zoo or safari theme for years. I think it might be great. But they do have a lot of that in the friends line, so it may not get into City. Fire and police are almost certain. There won't be any new trains as we've had a new one this year.

There are a LOT of vehicles. But regrettably the users of this four are NOT the target audience of Lego City. U.S. Buying these sets is a nice bonus as far as TLG is concerned. The main audience is boys age 5-10 or so, and they want lots of vehicles, and lots of fire and police. It has changed a lot since the early 90s when I was that age and there were loads of civilan buildings. But as has been said the creator line now sells houses, several different ones a year. And these are minifigure size and can fit in with the city theme. It is interesting though to compare City to Friends. Heart lake city has loads of cool buildings and things. Different target audience. I know people argue that city should have this, and friends is unnecessary or sexist, but TLG is now the most successful toy company in the world, and have very very good market research. And that seems to be what people (or at least the people who buy the most Lego, kids) want.

I've bought a few Enlighten trains. They were pretty good. All original designs, not copies of Lego. Some of the wagons I got actually matched a Lego engine I had perfectly. The bricks were good. The tyres and wheels were not, and the mini figures were no where near as good as Lego. The train wheels were okay, but a little stiff compared to modern Lego. Could be fixed with a few strokes from a file though, just not as good tolerances as Lego. I was hoping to buy so more a year or so ago, but they'd been discontinued :(

Those are all fantastic. I especially love the 07, it looks really lovely. Brick on, can't wait to see more!

Where to start? Remortgage your house ;) Monorail is great, certainly worth it. But as you know rather pricey. Set up a saved search on eBay and just keep looking. Be patient and wait for bargains to come up. Don't go for complete sets unless you really really want one. Try Bricklink for the basic parts as outlined above. I see you're in Australia, so unfortunately I think you're going to spending a fair bit on postage as you might not find that much in Australia, you'll have to rely on international sellers.

Usually motorail trains (that's what services that carry cars and their passengers are called in the UK) would have the car carrying wagons in a siding with an end loading dock. Each wagon had doors and ramps at both ends which would all be opened and the cars would drive in from the ramp and through the wagons to fill them up. Then these wagons would be shunted onto either the back or front of the passenger coaches. At the end of the journey the process would be reversed with the wagons put in a siding with the ramp at the other end so the cars could drive out forward. If you can make an arrangement like that, that's the best way. On the channel tunnel they have special wagons at each end of the train with fold down sides so the cars can drive through the train and off onto the the platforms. I'd certainly make your car carrying wagons flat all over and have the cars face the same way as the train. You should get 4 on that way, or even 6 if the cars aren't too wide. For the couplings maybe have a look at the mechanisms that OO and HO trains use for what's called close coupling. They use cams and springs to keep the couplings close in on straights, but allow them to swing out to go around tight curves. It's looking good so far, love the light blue colour.

That looks really good now. Very like my local store. Can't wait to see it built!

That's brilliant. Really looks the part. Next thing you need is a support ship for it ;)

What about Metroliner? It's one of the all time classic trains, and you can squeeze power functions. Parts are easy to obtain to make more coaches, or you could really blow the budget and get a club car for it.

Great designs Murdoch. Love the steam engines. Some of those American types are huge! Do they all go around regular Lego curves?

Bricklink is your answer. Use a program such as Brickstore To make a wish list, and then Brickficency to find the cheapest store or combination of stores to get the parts you need. That will work for hats and weapons, and probably legs but might not for torsos as there are many blue and grey ones with different prints, which you'll be covering over anyways so the exact print doesn't matter too much. You can use something like Brasso to remove the printing from a minifigs torso, or you might not bother if you're just using stickers. If you're planning on making hundreds are you going to print your own stickers? If you have access to a good quality printer I'd do that. Buy some high quality glossy sticky labels and then cut them out carefully. Another thought. How many variants of soldiers uniforms are there, and in how many colours? If it's not many you could setup your own tampo printing process. Get some custom rubber stamps made (or make them yourself if you have the skills), and make a jig out of wood to hold the torso and align the stamp, then use paint on the stamp. It's a DIY version of what Lego do on a massive scale. If you are wanting to make 1800 figures then this might be your easiest route. Will give a nicer finish than stickers too. It will be a bit complicated to setup and will take a bit of practice, but once you've got the skill you can pump out figs at a fairly high rate.

As said in the opening post its at least partly down to customs laws imposing large import duties. And of course Argentina has a fairly weak currency, so any import in Euros or Dollars will be expensive in Pesos (at least I think Argentina use Pesos). Both of these things are outside of Lego's control. You may be interested that in real terms, adjusted for inflation, Lego is now cheaper than it has ever been.

I don't know Starcraft, but that is a really nice MOC. Great colours in it, and I love all the tiny ships. Brick On!

What are you moving? I'd take of any small parts that are likely to fall off and put them in a ziplock bag. Run your hand fairly hard over the model and see what comes off. If it's largely hollow (like a building) fill the insides with some sort of padding. The double boxing as above sounds like a very good idea. Take it hand baggage (carry on) if at all possible. DON'T put fragile stickers on it! That just makes the baggage handlers throw it harder. Have you considered sending it overnight with UPS/Fed Ex/ whatever. Might be cheaper than baggage charges on the flight.

Nice. Love the dark red colour scheme. I would say yes to a third level, although that would depend on your city. Most European cities are quite crowded, so buildings go up at least three floors.

Wow, just wow. I would even say this is better than any of the official Lego modular buildings. Can't wait to see the rest of the display!

That's great Rodiola. Lovely idea. Really great little vignettes. To those further up the thread giving away the answer, can't you use the spoiler tag?

That's a really nice shelf layout you've got. I really like it. Brick on!

That is amazing! So much detail in each room. Love the loaf of bread in the kitchen.

That's really nice. I love aquariums and you've captured one well. Brick on!

love the raised motorway, very good idea. It does have a lot of traffic, but what can you do when Lego make so many vehicles and so few buildings?

Those are really good. Especially the A4. Such a pretty engine. Good to show out cousins across the pond what proper trains look like ;) That long custom point at the bottom is amazing. I assume it's designed to be taken at high speeds by HE and such. Brick on! And more photos!

That looks great. I absolutely love the Lego monorail stuff. The tram really does look like it's designed for it.

If your wanting to MOC buildings then getting a modular building, or one of the Simpsons sets. They're a good start, and will show you some interesting building techniques.

Brickficiency is very good for this. You give it a parts list and it will search for possible combinations of stores. You can add filters to sit search in certain countries as well. Getting a parts list into it can be a bit fiddly, but it certainly makes life a lot easier, especially hunting for combinations of rare parts.