Paperballpark

Thanks! I designed and built it myself, so there's no instructions I'm afraid. If you're thinking "I couldn't do that!", bear in mind I only started with Lego trains two years ago, and have only been back into Lego for three years. The first train I built that was my design was very simple, and the second got dismantled ages ago, I was that unimpressed with it after a while. So you definitely get better with practice! Everyone has different aspects of the hobby that they prefer. Personally, I'm utterly useless at designing something off the top of my head, completely from my imagination. But if I had plans and photos of something, I like to think I could have a decent bash at building it out of Lego. Others are the exact opposite, and some just prefer to build sets. There's even those who don't even build many sets, and prefer to collect them instead. There's room for everyone! Anyway, the large wheels are the XL Driver wheels from Big Ben Bricks in America. They're the black ones, and I got the green colour printed onto them (along with the other decals on the train) by Minifigforlife down near Leicester. Any other questions, just ask.

Welcome Steve! Good to see another UK person getting into Lego again. There is a recognised Lego User Group (rLUG) in the north of England, called Northern Brickworks, which has members from Chester to Grimsby, Middlesborough to Manchester, and most places inbetween. There's a couple of small shows that some members organise up your way, including at Stockton on 20-21 August 2016. We're a fairly new club, but a nicely growing one (our year-on-year membership increased by 70% this year), and most of our members display at or help out at lots of different shows up and down the country. I'm a Lego 'train' person too, and my flickr account is here.

Regarding the reason for the different designs on the inner bags, I think that the white stripe is the new version, with the non-stripe version being old. I suspect the reason some sets have both versions is simply that they're still using up some of their supply of older bags. Good review. I didn't realise there were quite as many changes as you highlighted (tree, roof etc).

I have all three, and my personal favourite is 60052 (despite being in the UK). I extended mine so that it's the same length as the Maersk train, as it looked a bit short otherwise. The other thing to consider is that it's possible that 60052 may not be around much longer, with 60098 having been released this year. Other than that though, go with the one you prefer.

That is very nice! You've set the bar very high!

No, it's exactly the same length as before.

The signal actually goes to both receivers very well - but then they are right next to each other! I've used two battery boxes to enable longer running at shows. @ecmo47 I don't really see the point in having one set in a second engine, given i've managed to fit it all into one. Also, sbrick is expensive, especially as the IR receivers work fine as it is. And as for making the train less heavy, well, heavy is good in this one, as it'll help a lot with traction.

Yeah, it's certainly pretty heavy now! I've been thinking of BLing a couple of extra carriages anyway. My train station dwarfs it, even though it's double length.

Thanks, I might do that for the rear cab.

I've never ran it with one motor. I have two of the HEs, and I've heard that one motor really struggles to pull a double-length train, so I thought I'd just put two in and be done with it. No other changes spotted?

Tonight I've modified my Horizon Express, to fit two rechargable battery boxes, two IR receivers, and two motors into one cab. It's rather heavy now... I do still need to put a #8869 Polarity Switch in there though, to get the motors running in the same direction. (I don't have one yet). It'll be a tight fit, but I'm pretty confident it'll go in. I had to pretty much gut the interior of the train in order to fit everything in. Although the outside looks superficially similar, it's actually quite different in places. Can you spot the changes?

Oh dear, it appears people were taking me seriously...

If we're talking about making Lego City a more 'connected' - i.e. realistic - theme, why not have the following: Sewage Works - There has to be somewhere for all the effluent produced in Lego City to go. Or do they just dump raw sewage directly into the nearest river? Butcher Shop - There's a distinct lack of shops in Lego City, and whilst I can see Lego's reluctance to do a boxy supermarket, they could maybe do a range of small shops, such as a Baker, Fishmonger or Butcher. And of course, if you have a butcher, you'll need... Abattoir - Cows go in one end, meat comes out the other. They could make a new 'meat cleaver' utensil. Moooo! Also deals with Pigs and Chickens. Maybe even the Goat element could make a comeback? I have no idea what all this has to do with Trains, but hey, it's all good fun :)

What I like about the rechargeable box is that you can recharge it! You don't have to take the train apart to get the box out, or unscrew anything. I tend to build the boxes into the train, so it's impossible to get them out without dismantling half the train.

I bought a PF extension cable today, and there's no way to use it to connect two battery boxes, so it looks like I'll either build an identical loco with another battery box etc, to swap over, or use two IR receivers and run two motors on separate systems.

Oh yes, I could do a small loop at home just to test that it actually works. I just wanted to ask in advance, in case connecting two battery boxes ruined them both - the rechargeable ones are too expensive to ruin by doing that!

^ I hate Lego's r44 curved track, and will be getting the ME models track sometime soon so that I don't have the exact problem you describe, of having to find the right balance of speed. One of my trains in particular is a right pain to do that with. Also, my trains tend to be so tightly packaged that it'd be difficult to design it to easily remove the battery box. I'm also looking at doing the same thing with my Horizon Express, although I'm aware there may not be space for two boxes in the one car. One final thing to note, I don't have a layout at home, because my house is too small. My layouts are at shows, so I'd rather decide beforehand how to run them, rather than playing around rebuilding stuff at shows :)

Hi all, thanks for all your answers. So if I'm reading everything right, all that connecting two battery boxes would do is increase available power? Rather than prolong battery life. Plus there's the possibility that one box would try to charge the other if they drained slightly differently. Is that correct? A couple of comments on other solutions proposed: Regarding the AA battery box, extra battery life sounds good, but the real draw of the rechargeable box is that I van build it into my trains, and only need to leave a small opening for the plug, rather than needing to take it out completely every couple of hours. For the XL motor, pulling a large train would be good, but it'll be a 'high speed' passenger train, so it running slow wouldn't be good. I don't want to use two IR receivers for the precise reason that one might not pick up the signal, even if I arranged them 'back to back'. Equally, I don't want to use sbrick because it seems like a lot of hassle, and it's pretty expensive! I think what I'll probably end up doing is running one rechargeable battery box with two train motors, and just built another identical driving train to swap over when the first dies after a couple of hours.

I'm guessing it wouldn't work for them financially. If they thought it would, I'm absolutely certain they'd do it...

Hi all, I'm wondering if anyone knows whether this is possible? I need to power a long train, which will need two train motors to pull it. The only problem with this is that it'll probably drain the battery box in about half the normal time, so I'm wondering if it's possible to connect both motors to an IR Receiver, then connect that to one battery box, and connect that battery box to a second one (using an extension cable mounted between the first battery box and the cable from the IR Receiver)? I assume it would work, as it would then be drawing power from both battery boxes, but I'm not an electrical engineer, so can't be certain. Thanks!

According to this, there's only the 1x2 with side studs in the Doctor Who set: http://www.newelementary.com/2015/10/doctor-who-and-toy-of-doom.html

I've built a couple of logging trucks, but they were a bit of a sod to keep together. The best photo I have of them is here. I ended up almost rebuilding them because the sides fell off as soon as you even touched them. They're a lot sturdier now, although they look almost exactly the same.

The arches got changed a year or so back, so the two are probably slightly different. The main difference is that the newer one has a higher curve. I used a lot of them on my recent train station, and have some of both types. I don't remember them being anywhere near that expensive on BL though. Do you have a link?

Interesting choice of engine! You might want to have a read of the site guidelines though, specifically the first paragraph. Or get someone to read it for you...

I'm going to finish the back of the station so that it's like the front, with the towers etc. That will be it though, as it's already large enough! The scenery was simply because I happened to have 42 green baseplates - I'm not intending to buy even more. What I do have a lack of though, is passenger trains. I intend to rectify that, and am already working on one to add to the station next year. I'm also going to get the HE motorised, because I'm sick of the main question from kids being "can you run the orange train?" I might even BL a couple of extra coaches for it, given that the station makes it look pretty small.