cgarison

I will send you the link if I find any GBC video from PBF2015.

Lots of really nice detail. The interior looks like a couple Asian restaurants that we frequent in this area. Great Job!

That is a lovely shunter and the use of the 9V is very innovative. As far as the speed being in the "acceptable" category, I am always reminded by Cale that trains are not supposed to be fast.

The nose was and cab was designed to have the feel similar to the streamlined Union Pacific trains of the 1930's. Many children see that nose as one that looks like that of a space ship like the shuttle. The trucks are brick built using technic bricks and gears with L Motors for power. I tried tried to using the rounded bottom, round 2X2 boat studs to support the botton of the gear train on the trucks so I could operate the locomotive using an unmodified Power Functions train wheel, but that did not work and I am in the process of changing the wheels to #35 O-Rings (from Lowes) for grip and going back to standard plates to support the gears. I plan to take pictures of the setup of the inside of the locomotive late and post to Flickr. When you see these, you will notice that I have an allotment of space on both ends to accommodate a gear setup very similar to that used by Nate Brill on his AEM-7 Amtrak model. Due to the weight of this build I discovered that this setup had some issues and modified it again using M-Motors and another type of gear package. This too had problems in its first test run due to excessive friction with the elaborate gears so I resorted to direct drive with L motors. This opened up a tremendous amount of space where I could go back and shorten the locomotive, but time was short and PBF was less than two weeks out when I finalized the driveline just in time for the April PennLUG meeting. As far as making the trucks taller, this design has been modified from those on the original Space Train by Peter Morris and are a couple of plates taller than those typically used by my fellow builders at PennLUG. This modification was recommended by Robin W. at GFLUG because the Space Trains use a fixed motor and a rotating truck compared to many of the PennLUG trains where the motor is mounted to the truck and both motor and truck turn as a single unit. The extra Technic plates in this design support the axle running from the motor to the truck and has greatly reduced the number of motor failures in the last MOC that I built. Other than using the Lego PF train motor, this is as robust of a setup and you can get for overall longevity. (My Ghost Train MOC now has over 40 hours of runtime with this design and has not had a single motor failure and only one worn out axle needed to be replaced in this time.) Yes, there was a small GBC setup at PBF this year. It would be really nice to have many more people join in the fun at the AFOL convention next year (in April) or even make an arrangement to demonstrate these wonderful MOCs at the BrickFest Live event in September. BFL this fall will not be an AFOL convention, but I think a few of us that are very local to that event will try to set up a small public display this fall to advertise our presence in the community.

In the Flickr video, you can see the forklift is moved by a thin Technic liftarm. Very cool build indeed. [/hijack] Now back to your regularly scheduled thread.

Fabulous work! It is really nice to see micromotors being used to power a train.

Thanks for the compliments. I really wanted to unleash this beast a couple of times on Saturday, but Amazon was late with the delivery of Neodymium magnets and the standard Lego magnets were not strong enough to hold the tender to the locomotive in the turns. It did run for about 30 minutes on Saturday pushing the Ghost Train around the loop while I had to rebuild a truck that lost a gear. On Sunday after I got the magnets Saturday evening in the mail, I ran the train for 45 minutes, but the stress of the the uneven tables that contributed to the Ghost Train losing a gear on the trucks also blew the bricks holding the main drive line for both of the trucks out from under the train. This means the train still needs some tweaks and adjustments to get it right for the next event, probably BrickFair Virginia but it may make another "Yard Queen" type appearance at Scouting for Bricks in Leesburg at the end of May. "Space Slug" might be a name that may stick considering the train is 55 studs long with another 42 studs for the tender. This was my first 8 wide build and I must admit that it took me a few months staring at the frame plate for this train to figure out how to get things built at that scale.

After 5 months of planning, 7 weeks of building and 3 weeks of testing, my latest creation is finally done. Well, all the major work is complete and much of the minor tweaks that need to be made as a result of continued tests will have to occur, but for the most part, this is the final model. Detailed, high resolution pictures can be found here:

Very nice work and amazing use of multiple cameras!

I love the use of that bubble canopy for the front windscreen. And the lime and azure colors work well together. Great build and a wonderful source of inspiration for 6 wide space themed train.

Very nice work.

Oh, I bricklinked a bunch of the old odd length black axles as well as bought long black axles and then cut them down to have a square end to hold spur gears on the trains that I build. I have a set os small slip joint pliers to save my fingers when disassembling technic models. They work wonders to save your fingers.

For the prices that I am seeing on our side of the pond (USA) I think I will continue to use loaded AAA battery boxes for weights.

But the plastic for grey axles is slightly softer than the plastic for the black axles which means for a few of my MOCs I have needed to cut black axles to make them less prone to twisting the axle pieces.

I just visited another store in my area today and the staff was very nice about people picking PAM pieces for their PAB cups. One guy counted out at least four of each models into his cup and then topped it off with other parts for his two children. I personally grabbed handfuls of parts not available at my local Lego store which really makes me wonder if this is going to work if a Lego store does not have all the parts on the wall for the customer to purchase??? Time will tell, but for me, I am really glad to have picked up a two handfuls of 1X2 blue plates and a handful of the 1X4 round inverted tiles for the bottom of the plane today.

On both of my LUGs, we have developed a couple of method to reinforce baseplates to make them more durable for displays. First and foremost, we have a foundation of custom built tables that provide us with the stability to set up our large displays. Next, we have built up baseplates to be 5 plates high and that is the new level for the majority of our layouts. By being 5 plates high, we have the ability to to lock the plates together on the dispays using Technic bricks and pins to hold the baseplate to one another. On the moonbase layout, our hanging monorail supports are built into the moonbase plate modules that makes the moonbase core rigid enough to withstand a person stumbling across the stanchions and falling into our tables. Our DelVaLUG standard is described in the moonbase wiki: http://www.brickwiki.info/wiki/Moonbase For the town section of the PennLUG display it is a baseplate plus 5 plates. Both of these modular designs help us to quickly assemble displays for exhibit and then tear them down even more quickly and efficiently at the end of the show.

TBRR has another fabulous layout! You guys really kick it with all the trees and scenery decoration that you use. And the cut in the curve is absolutely amazing. It seems like that LUG in PA will have to up their game yet again.

We have a guy in our lug that uses his inkjet printer to print for us many types of decals for our layout including Pennsylvania license plates for many of our auto MOCs. I am not sure about the equipment that he uses, but I can say that the results that he gets are pretty amazing and very nice on our display. As for bigger stickers for the side of a locomotive where logo detail is critical, I am not sure if this technology could expand to fill that need, but I am sure that it could be done.

The scuffs around the front of the lens shows this might be light duty for this little camera. I love the rig and will have to try to get one of these ready to run by BFVA at the latest. It would be fun if we could get one of these on the tracks at the display in BrickWorld in June. Great work and thanks for sharing.

Very nice work and great job squeezing that XL motor into a 7 wide MOC.

Nice work. I agree on shrinking the size of the firebox on the 4-6-0 locomotive or extending out the bows to go down the whole length of the boiler.

Nice detail on the locomotive and cars and the diorama is stunning!

Very nice design and a wonderful fusion of styling with the traditional monorail.

Nice work.

We mix space into some of our city layouts when we have the Alien Invasion theme. Everything works from spacey Lego themes.