Legotom

They're really nice. Look,quite like some super cars you can buy at the moment. Brick on!

That's cool. Looks really good. And the little boat is really cool.

That is amazing. I am seriously impressed. More pictures of everything please.

£7.70 for post, plus 50p for packing materials I guess. And maybe an extra 50p handling fee as your order was under £10. I've had that a few times. I guess Royal Mail is probably cheapest for international packages. The discussion I saw on another forum was about domestic UK packages. People like UK Mail, and MyHermes are now much cheaper than Royal Mail, partly because they're not so obsessed with size. But also because they can pick and choose business, whereas the Royla Mail has a universal carrier obligation and must deliver a parcel from Shetland to the Sciliy Isles for the same cost as one from North to South London. People like Amazon can post things cheap because a) they don't use Royal Mail much (over here anyway), and b) they are sending HUGE volumes so can negotiate a very good discount. In fact Amazon now have their own logistics service for delivering some parcels in the UK that even delivers on a Sunday. There's been a massive explosion of this with big firms sub contracting to individuals who use theirs own cars or vans and are paid per parcel they deliver. But I digress as that's not going to work for the UK- Australia market. Some large bits of water in the way to start with. If you're ever over in the UK bring an empty suitcase, go to one of the large Lego stores in London and fill it up from the PAB wall.

Royal Mail does have very high charges now for parcels. In the UK other shippers are often cheaper now. And some even collect from you. Next time you order from the UK you could try and see if there is a cheaper shipper to you (such as DHL, or FedEx etc.) and then ask the seller to use them. Although I must say that, having sent quite a lot of parcels to my Australian niece, £8.20 doesn't seem that high. I know it's a lot when your parts are only £7.50 though. Also look at the sellers splash page on Bricklink before you place the order. It should have a rough idea of postage costs and additional fees they might charge.

That's really good. You've got me eyeing up my sons Duplo now. He loves his ice cream set though, I'd be very mean to steal it.

Just caught up with all these. They are fantastic. I'd buy nearly all of them. Wish Lego did more of these sort of things, small impulse purchases and little vignettes. Some of them I'd buy several copies of. Brick on!

That's really good. Very good technique for the PAB wall. If it was me I would extend the shop backwards to take up more of the baseboard. The interior feels rather cramped, whereas my local Lego shop is quite open inside. The current train station has a good technique for building shelves, you could have a look and maybe 'borrow' that.

I agree, 2012/13/14 all rock, but the 2015 one is disappointing. The 2011 one is pretty good, I do like big manufacturing machines. But I think this one is the best of them, closely followed by the 2014 train.

Very nice. It's giving me an overwhelming urge to strap on the scuba gear and jump of a pier.

That's a very clever technique to make a little vignette. It looks great. Brick on!

Fantastic. We have a show in the UK called Grand Designs about people building their dream houses, and this looks like it could come straight out of that. Would love to see it 'in the brick'.

That is simply gorgeous. I want one, or possibly three. The crates of nice new kits are especially good.

Lovely MOC for a great day. Like the Village People policeman in the background, he's funny.

Lovely little engine. I think red wheels would look great, very German ( if that's what you want). A version in dark green would be lovely, would look like a GWR tank engine then I think.

I'd try first what we in the UK call Pritt Stick (I think Americans would call it a glue stick). It's what children use for paper crafts. Not too aggressive, so it won't wreck the plastic the train is made from. I'd be very careful with stronger glues. Anything that has petrochemical based solvents in it might melt the plastic, so if try a bit on a plain brick before risking rare and valuable parts like trains.

Looks fantastic. I do love to see a long train in a great livery. How is it powered? Looks like it'll need quite a lot of pulling power to move all those coaches.

Love the little trains, especially the Class 40 and the Eurostar. Amazing work. The Dutch diorama is fantastic. I'm tempted to try something in this scale myself. It's a great size to get the rolling hills of the Scottish highlands made, without needing a second mortgage for bricks.

Bear in mind that moulds wear out after a time. I've heard that the ones used to make 'basic' bricks like a 2x4 only last six months. So when the mould wears out it wouldn't be strange to slightly tweak a piece, to save on plastic or make moulds easier to make and/or use.

If you're running wheels on both tracks you'll need to pivot them correctly. If you have one bogie on each track they'll need connecting with a beam or plate, then the carriage or wagon will need to be pivoted from the centre of that. Pulling it could be tricky. Are you thinking one engine on one track, which might pull it to one side, or two engines, which would be difficult to coordinate. One real life application for this would be to launch rockets. The Soyuz rockets that Rosmocos launch are assembled lying down then pushed to the launch pad on massive wagons running on parallel tracks, before being pushed upright and blasted to space.

As far as I remember the monorail curves are R32, so a complete half circle is 64 studs wide.

i know the concept of Black Friday is quite a recent import from the U.S. over here in the UK. So I was wondering if it's worth a trip to the Lego store. I see they're advertising some sort of sale. Is there anything else? And do we think the sale will be good, or anymore than was available at the VIP shopping day just gone? I'm tempted to go but I will have a toddler in tow and hate going into town when it's crowded. Did anyone go last year, was it good?

How do you do that? Do you have a special machine, or use templates? Or do you get a company to do it? If you do it yourself, tutorial please! I read once that the last water trough was quite a long way from Edinburgh, as there was no flat track nearer. So if the engine got a poor water pickup from it they would sometimes run out of water a few miles short and have to be rescued.

When 4472 and its A3 class mates, and the A4s, ran non-stop from London to Edinburgh in the 30s and 40s there were a series of water troughs they picked up water from. These were just long troughs filled with water between the track, and the engine lowered a scoop from its tender, whilst travelling at speed, and that forced the water up into its tanks. Now these are all gone, hence the need for a second tender for extra water. Only one of these tenders was built and nowadays it runs with a different engine. Some other preserved steam engines in the UK tow converted luggage vans fitted with water tanks. Otherwise they have to stop in a siding somewhere and be filled from a road tanker, or sometimes a fire engine. Amazing model. I'm am very jealous. Although I model in 6 wide, so it wouldn't fit my layout. BTW as an aside Flying Scotsman actually refers to two things. There is the engine, 4472 Flying Scotsman, and the named train which runs non-stop from London to Edinburgh. This still runs to this day, albeit with electric trains.

I was at the Lego VIP event today in Glasgow and Horizion Express is 15% off. So I would think that's a sure sign it's retiring at the end of the year. Similarly both the Duplo trains were 15% off so I guess they're retiring too. Does anyone know of any new ones in the works? I have a TFOD (Toddler Fan of Duplo) who loves his train and would love another train. One thing I'd love Lego to do is a box of train wheels, like they do car wheels. Just a box with four wheel sets, two couplings and two bogie swivel plates would be great. Maybe even put in a train base plate in dark bley or black. I think it'd be great for kids to build their own wagons and carriages up, and great for us AFOLs too. I know you can get that from S@H, but I think this would be far more accessible for the majority. Especially kids. I could see kids buying a fire engine and a wagon base to make a fire train, or police train or whatever.