Paperballpark

Excellent, glad to hear this. I've stopped hoping to get my track for the next show I'm displaying at (on 5/6 March), but hopefully I'll get it soon after.

12 hours later... nothing. I guess that's why people use Flickr instead...

I don't think Lego officially say anything about the sales of trains. What is heard is often what is gleaned from speaking to designers about how well different ranges are doing. This is obviously completely off the record and unofficial, and some designers might know more than others, but it gives us a rough ballpark.

I just wish they varied the colours.

My Flying Scotsman was 1300 pieces just for the locomotive, without any carriages, but that is quite a large loco. I think this would be doable, probably quite easily doable. Consider that the Constitution train chase set only had about 700 pieces. I'm not going to be entering though. I already have at least 3 or 4 projects on the go for this year (not all of them trains), which will consume my time and money.

See, I'd use it to describe a situation which was completely messed up, but where that was actually normal. Like in a massively disorganised company, for example. "What's the situation like here?" "SNAFU. Situation Normal - All F***ed Up."

It's a slang term, possibly only used in the UK - SNAFU.

I've posted in there now. It seems there's already a small discussion started about it, so I've added things as I see them (politely and calmly ).

Ok then, as the original creator of the topic (see here), I will. I posted a topic a few days ago in 'Train Tech'. There's a story about a ton of narrow gauge track for sale cheaply somewhere in the UK (proper train track - 20 miles of it!), and as there is a continuing thing about the old 9V metal Lego track being hard to find, I posted a jokey topic about it, under the title: I've found lots and lots of metal track for sale. I also thought that some people on there, being train fans in general, would find it interesting. A mod immediately questioned it (slightly bluntly, IMHO, but it's no big deal), basically asking why I'd posted it. Now, to me, it's no big deal. Sure, it's not really about Lego, but I considered that most people reading that forum (being train fans) would be interested in it anyway, because it's about something that doesn't come along every day - namely, 20 miles of narrow-gauge track for sale! So I posted the following response: Now, note that I did answer his question about why I'd posted it. Yes, I said 'lighten up', but to me, that's not too bad at all. Anyway, nothing more was said in the topic, and people contributed to the topic as normal, with most people chatting about it, saying things like 'What MOCs can we come up with to run on narrow gauge?' A full 30 hours later, I got the following email: I won't name the admin who gave me the warning, because that probably wouldn't be fair, as it wasn't the admin who responded on the forum, and it was probably a group decision after discussions with other admins. Now, I've been an admin myself (for a few years) on another forum, so I know what things are like, I know how people are, how rude they can be, etc. etc. However, I was very surprised to see the phrase 'lighten up' classed as abusive behaviour. I don't know what others think, but I would not have expected a warning for saying that to anyone, even an admin. Anyway, there y'go. That's the context as I see it. Others may take a different view.

Well I got an email late last night, from Eurobricks: Now isn't that nice? Apparently, not only is it apparently not ok to post things 'obviously meant as fun', but it also seems that saying 'lighten up' is now classed as abusive behaviour. In addition, I did give an answer to the question, after my 'lighten up' response. I'm going to word this very carefully (I don't want another warning!). It appears that my comments were not taken in the spirit in which they were meant. So, in an attempt to show greater 'courtesy and respect towards other members of this community', I will no longer use the phrase 'lighten up' on this forum. :thumbdown:

I assumed the same thing, and a later post says about the MOD (Ministry of Defence), so it's pretty safe to assume it's on their land.

Put them in the washing machine on a hot wash. Everything shrinks on a hot wash.

Oh jeez, lighten up! I thought it was interesting, and could be a nice little joke about 'metal track'. Plus, someone might actually find it interesting...

Twenty miles of it, in fact. (May not be LEGO-compatible. Sorry!) Only £100 per tonne! If anyone here has a lot of land though, it might be something to consider...!

Just had to google that. It's not my thing tbh. Looks like a cross between the Toy Story train and the Constitution.

Yep, I'd second the Great Western Brick Show at STEAM. It's the 1st and 2nd Oct this year. Other large UK shows include Bricktastic in Manchester on 2nd and 3rd of July, and BRICK 2016 (dates TBA). There's usually a good few train layouts at all of these, especially BRICK, as it's such a large show. However, as they're not train-specific shows (there's none of those in the UK), it obviously can't be guaranteed that there will be train layouts there.

If it's going to be a christmas train, it's not going to be a monster. It's going to be a smallish train, and I think the largest we can hope for will be something akin to the constitution.

Why not? It was, in my opinion, one of the best steam trains Lego have ever done. Plus, it just works - perfectly!

Yes but my point is that the designer was talking as though there were no uses planned for those molds, and that was barely two months ago. Sure, it's possible that they might not have known about this, or that this has just emerged in the last two months, but I dunno...

If this is true, I'd suggest that something similar to the Constitution Train Chase could be a reasonable option. If you don't include PF and just make it push-along, £60 or £70 would be realistic. Include PF, and you're looking at £100, which is probably too high for the 'winter village' market. That said, I was speaking to a designer in December about trains (as well as other things), and I got the strong impression that the large driver wheel molds were sat gathering dust, and that there was nothing in the pipeline that would cause them to be dusted off. So bearing that in mind, I wonder if the train would just use the normal train wheels? One thing I am thankful of though, and that's that it doesn't look like being a re-release of the original. That loco was pretty rubbish by current standards.

Sadly, I suspect the OP may have purchased some of these:

Just nail them to it. Seriously. There's screw/nail holes in all the PR track, so just screw them down. It doesn't have to be every one, but that'll stop them moving,

Especially non-existant sets ;)

I agree. I suspect a lot of people these days are trying to use kickstarter in place of a proper business plan. I'm not saying all do, just some of them. This is definitely true for this one. You're basically asking people to fund the setting up of your own business. Not just a project that you can't quite afford to finance, but an actual whole business. You're even wanting to use the funds to pay your taxes! Still, we'll see. $40k is a lot to get in a month. It'd be interesting to see if it gets anywhere near that. I suspect not, and probably rightly so. EDIT: Other things have occurred to me. Things such as: - You're offering the straights in different colours. As LEGO only produced curves in one colour, why would people buy the straights in yellow, if they can't get curves in yellow? Sure, you have it a s 'further goal', but I suspect you're getting ahead of yourself. - Although you mention that it will pay for the costs of setting up your whole business, as well as paying your taxes and shipping. Oh and paying for the mould. But what about buying the actual material to make them? You don't mention that at all. What material would you use? The kickstarter says you could have trans wheels, but as far as I know, you'd need to use a different material for that.

Well done to the winners! And wooo, I got 7 points with my Sewage Works, which took a whole 20 minutes to build and photograph!