Locomotive Annie

Yes I think going with the red-dark red colour scheme would be the answer Zephyr. I tried a few experiments to see if I could improve the railbus's appearance and none of them really worked. With railbus type vehicles on the timber tramways here in New Zealand it was common to build a simple turntable arrangement into the chassis at the balance point and the turntable could be jacked down to lift the flanged wheels clear of the rails so the railbus could be turned around for its return journey. On my railbus I hinted at this with projecting pieces either side of the chassis to represent the built in turntable. I wouldn't have a clue where to begin with actually building a working turntable on the chassis, so if there are any visitors to my layout when I'm running the railbus I'll have to do a, 'Gosh look at that!' - and while they're looking away quickly turn the railbus around by hand. I did actually start to modify a pair of Lego goggles for Olivia so she would have safety glasses, only the Friends minidoll heads are narrower than minifig heads so I haven't had much success just yet. Fortunately the spacing for the eyes is the same which does help to make the conversion a little easier. Eventually I'll take up an 000 brush and use my old military modelling skills to give Olivia a pair of overalls as well. She should be a proper Health & Safety poster girl then

Thanks Spitfire I think those side steps are a mounting piece for the landing gear on some variety of helicopter or another. I'm afraid I don't remember the brand, but they make very nice side steps and I wish I had more of them. That's my custom Olivia from the 'Friends' series. I modified her to have a hard hat and safety boots after a friend teased me that Olivia should be given the sack for her lack of Health & Safety compliance. Glad to provide the inspiration Hrw-Amen My railbus started out as a simple exercise to see what I could do with a Lego clockwork motor, but as I became more drawn into the project I guess I took inspiration from timber tramway railbuses used here in New Zealand as well as some of the railbuses that were used on the narrow gauge railways in Ireland. I'm still fiddling around with some of the details at the moment as I'm not entirely happy with the look and fit of the engine cover, but what started out as a bit of fun might well end up as a permanent member of the Kotanga Tramway's rolling stock roster. I've got one of those radiator and headlamp pieces in yellow as well and I've just purchased a yellow clockwork motor on ebay so I was thinking I'll build myself a railtruck for the permanent way dept guys to scoot about in. http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=fabaj3 Thanks Dan the great thing about this forum is seeing other members MOCs and being inspired by their approach to loco building. I hope I give as good as I get because some of the ideas I've picked up have been absolutely amazing. I didn't know that the wheels could be removed on these clockwork motors which is why I used the road wheels that were attached to it when I got the motor. The last thing I wanted to do was break such a nice mech by trying to pull the wheels off if they weren't supposed to come off.

Two new locomotive crews arrived in Kotanga this morning all the way from Holland via PostNL. While having a bit of an explore about the Kotanga yard they found the preservation society's vintage railbus parked outside the loco shed so they thought they'd have a got at seeing if they could start it. They tried and they tried all of them taking their turn with the odd oversized starting handle, but the old railbus just wouldn't go. When Olivia found them she was very amused, 'Of course it won't go if I've got one of the pistons for the engine here in my hand,' she laughed. Yes that's a Lego clockwork motor The railbus does run at a nice steady speed, though not terribly far and it only travels in one direction and can't run in reverse. The rubber tyre grips the track nicely and the small guide wheels keep it on the track. In the last photo the front bogie has been moved back one stud which looks much better. I've only got that car body part in tan and I don't know if it's available in red or not. If I can't get it in red I might just make some stickers to cover the sides up so it blends in better. I deliberately used a mix of old and new and faded and not faded red bricks because I wanted the railbus to look as if it's had patch repairs to its paintwork, but hasn't had a complete repaint yet. The railbus seats four passengers which wasn't too bad I thought as it's not that big. I fitted a pin type trailer hitch on the back of the railbus, but I don't think it can haul very much. Possibly a small luggage trolley, but that would be about it. Edit: Apparently that vehicle base is available in Dark Red and not ordinary Red. Dark Red would look as much out of place as Tan does already so i think I'll make up some stickers.

I'm going to enter my Hi-speed steam electric for the Wacky and Weird Locomotive Challenge http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=80022 I had thought about building something else, only I don't think I'm going to be able to find the time, or get the necessary bricks for it delivered in time.

Banbao Hi-speed Passenger Trainset No:8221. After having the unopened set box hanging around for some months I decided it was well time to check out the set's contents and make a start on putting everything together. The currents sets seem to have the 'Toobee' figures in them, but my set had the hybrid minifig type figures that made use of the Toobee torso and pivoting waist which makes them look very heavy set. Not so bad for the males, but the ladies look like they're keen bodybuilders or wrestling champoins. There are six figures in all in the set so it has good play value. When I purchased this set I was given an extra passenger coach for free and it must've been an old stock set because it had two of the older clone minifigs in it. So it's actually possible to find set #8221 with potentially three different kinds of figures depending on how long it's been on the shelf. Otherwise the sets are the same. The set box contains a powered loco, a centre coach and an unpowered loco, a small station with three signs, 6 people figures, 18 curved pieces of track, 8 straight pieces of track, a left hand point and a right hand point. All the parts necessary to make the powered loco operate are in the set box except for batteries. All in all it's a big sized box with not much free space inside it when I came to unpack it all. As I said with the Banbao Freight set I reviewed earlier, you get a lot of trainset for your money. There are two trays inside the set box and one of them has two cardboard pockets built in which contain the motor bogie, the RC controller and the powered loco's battery box. The train base that contains the RC receiver is tied down to the bottom of the tray so it won't slide about in transit and get damaged. In addition to all the bricks and track the set box also contains a single sheet Banbao pamphlet showing the other sets they make, a very nicely printed sticker sheet, a small instruction booklet for the station and one larger instruction booklet for each of the main pieces, the powered loco, the centre coach and the unpowered loco. As for the Freight set the instructions booklets are clearly laid out and are easy to follow The sticker sheet for this set looks to be a lot more of a good match for the contents and nothing like so strange as the sticker sheet for the Freight set where I only used about a third of them and then only the ones that were essential. I've already reviewed the centre passenger coach and there were no real surprises with assembling this one, except that the white bricks to complete one corner of the passenger coach were missing. All the parts for the centre coach are sealed in their own bag so it was very easy to see that while the part count seemed to be right, some of the parts were extras and definitely not the particular white bricks I needed. Fortunately I do own quite a few Banbao bricks so I was able to find replacements, but for a casual purchaser who wasn't a 'brick nut' they would have been feeling very disappointed about then. This was the first Banbao train set box that I've found to have missing parts. Some years back when I was into brick wargaming it was common for Banbao military series sets to have missing bricks, but it looks like they are still having quality control issues despite there being some improvement in more recent times. As is usual with Banbao wagons and coaches though this coach rolled as smooth as silk on the track as Banbao's wheels and axles are highly finished and very accurate. Having already assembled the Banbao Freight set I was surprised to discover that the train base and its associated battery box for the passenger set is a completely different plastic molding with the RC receiver quite open and exposed once the battery box is removed. The motor bogie is different too with a lead with a small computer-type plug issuing from it that plugs into the RC receiver. The Freight set was completely the other way around with the lead issuing from the RC receiver and plugging into the motor bogie. I don't know if the more recent sets have the same motor bogie as the Freight set or not because I've only ever seen this older passenger set of mine up close, but it does seem daft to me to have two different motor bogies each with differences in their top body molding due to the electrical connection when you're a company that only makes two trainsets anyway. The two locos are of the 'duck-nosed' species of streamlined train and the plastic moldings for the nose are accurately shaped and fit together firmly and perfectly. My only moan is that the hinged windscreen won't fit into place without having the molded pin ends on the windscreen relieved back a little so that they will clip into place. Otherwise it's all good and the nose-piece fits well onto the front of the train base without any problems. As for the rest of the loco body it goes together in a very similar way to the passenger coach without any surprises.or difficulties. Passengers fit into their seats and stay there because the inside surface of the roof touches the tops of their heads. Other makes of minifigs will fit into Banbao coaches provided close attention is paid to hair styles and headgear because there is precious little room to be had in the way of clearance. Overall this is a set that has more pluses than minuses and I consider it to be good value for money.

That's a cool looking loco, I like the colour scheme.

Wonderfully retro. That trick with the cylinders and the front bogie is very clever.

No I haven't modified any conductor rails for use on Enlighten curves just yet as I want to finish this present piece of 12volt track laying first before I start in on properly laying any Enlighten track. I'm working on an idea for using umbrella spokes as conductor rails with Enlighten track at the moment which could prove to be interesting.

Finally at long last I stir myself to take a photo of brown Enlighten track with a 12volt conductor rail. I thought I'd better do something since I was in process of lifting it all and laying 12volt grey era track instead.

Thanks LT 12volts I thought that if i was going to undertake a big tracklaying project I really did need a crane to help out the permanent way dept guys with all the work they'd have to do The little droid belongs to Olivia from the Friends series, though I have modified it slightly so it can hold a spanner better.

Thanks Hrw-Amen I think the secret with varying the colour of the sleepers is not to over do it. That length of track the crane is standing on will most probably get about half of the different coloured sleepers replaced once I have more 8x2 plates to hand so it doesn't look quite so 'busy'. Yes the old blue track always looked inadequately supported to me and since Lego locomotives are often heavy beasts they do need to have enough sleepers under the rails they are standing on in order to avoid any problems. I must say that I like laying track with a system that uses individual sleepers and rails that need to be assembled on site as it were. It was fun last night building up the track sections and using the crane to put them into place; - almost like being a kid again

Thank you spzero, - I'll send you a PM to sort out the details.

The brown Enlighten track fitted with conductor rails is still going to be used, but more out on the main line where I don't have to worry about trying to convert points to conductor rail pickup. Laying the loco depot and goods yard completely in 12volt track and points is the best option really as I do enjoy shunting the yard and having to deal with possibly troublesome converted points is likely to be just plain annoying and no fun. Yes I modified that 12volt point to fit that particular location as I soon discovered that 8-9 wide steam locos don't get on at all with the standard 12volt track spacing. The point I cut was a broken one I purchased especially for this location and I like the nice smooth transition i was able to get with such a simple mod.

Big tracklaying job at the loco depot and the new crane works just fine. Those stability struts hold the crane in position really well, - almost too well because I had quite a job prying the crane free of the track when I wanted to move it. The loco depot is being completely relaid in 12volt grey era track with some blue era track being used to fill in the gaps until I can find more grey era track. I'm using extra sleepers for better appearance and while at first I intended to use some placeholder 8x2 plates until I could get more I've decided that I like the effect of using grey brown and black sleepers. The black sleepers look like new sleeper replacements as the sleepers used here in New Zealand are treated with a black oily wood preservative that makes them .... well,.... black all over (and pongy too!). Btw anybody got any 12volt grey sleepers with busted clips they want to sell; - or busted 12volt points for that matter?

Thanks LGB At least now we have BBB wheels available so it's possible to put decent steam loco wheels on these locos.

"I don't think you're supposed to drill holes in those Olivia," said Malcolm with a sigh. Malcolm arrived from Britain this morning by Royal Mail and he is the newest member of staff on the Kotanga Tramway. He will be working to help keep the locos repaired and maintained and it's just as well he's arrived as the workshop had been getting snowed under with jobs that need doing. No:317's PF receiver has arrived so that will be installed soon and all going well I will have another really useful engine on the roster.

Thanks guys I wanted the colour scheme to match what is an older piece of working machinery so yellow definitely wasn't in the running. Greys, browns and black worked out pretty well and I deliberately used several shades of brown and grey to reflect patch and mend type maintenance work. Ha ha Zephyr, yes I'd just completed the steam crane and was checking to see how it looked with the depressed centre flatcar that belongs to the permanent way dept when it struck me that I was going to need to build a boom car. While I'm at it I might as well build a tool van too and then that will be the permanet way dept train complete. I'm trying to build a layout and I keep getting distracted by the rolling stock. Still I suppose that means I will actually be able to run a timetable after golden spike day.

I love the way the three children rush around the layout to follow the train.

With all the tracklaying and building work going on around the Kotanga Tramway at the moment a crane was becoming a very necessary item. I already had the RC Freight set with its crane, only that crane is just a wee bit too darn modern to be seen in the station yard at Kotanga so it was time to get the bricks and Technic out and see what we could come up with. Those four adjustable stability legs line up with the studs on the sleepers to hold the crane safely in place when it's working. Not my idea, I saw it used on a crane on Flickr and decided it was just perfect for my own crane. Steam power! I based my crane on my childhood memory of a steam crane I saw while on a train journey with my Mum when I was only small so I'm not going to try and claim that it's any kind of accurate model.

My word that's a fine looking locomotive. I love big tank engines

Cool, - I can see those as being very useful Zephyr.

Absolutely wonderful. I had only just finished looking at your pictures of your Blue Pullman on Flickr before logging on here at Eurobricks and I must say I'm very deeply impressed with the way you've built a MOC of this difficult prototype.

When I built my 317 locomotive MOD I went to a lot of effort to not use clone bricks and to only use genuine Lego bricks. Despite this my loco still ended up being a patchwork of black bricks that had variable colour shading and lustre. Most of the old original set bricks were almost a semi-matt dark charcoal and the much newer Lego bricks from my storage containers varied between being full gloss to semi-gloss and were pure black in colour. I could have obtained a better colour match by using clone bricks truth be told, so I find myself wondering why I bothered.

RC trains run just fine on the new plastic track, but the 9volt trains won't as they need their own kind of track with the conductive metal cap clipped over the plastic railhead. RC trains will run on any of the Lego track systems without any problems.

The more I use the old RC system the more I like it. Needing nine 'AA' batteries is not so bad if rechargeable batteries are used and I like the fact that a screwdriver is needed to remove the battery cover on the controller, In the past I've had problems with ill fitting battery lids or fragile clipping systems on remote control devices by other makers and it's a pain to have batteries dropping out during an operating session. Despite the RC motor bogie being higher geared and the weakest of all the train motors they are Ok so long as they're used appropriately and kept away from drag freight haulage tasks.