Diamondback

Another idea, for MOC'ing: Relocate the battery-box to an unpowered 'dummy' unit behind the powered one, running cables between the two like a real multiple-unit diesel lashup, or in the tender of a steamer. Better still would be if the battery-box could pull double-duty as a recharger so that while running on old 9V track it'd recharge the batteries for the next stretch "off-grid"...

The other thing to do would be, if you can get 9V track and motors, use the 9V for continuous running on the mainline and the IR for switching and trains that have to stop and take sidings. Personally, I think it'd be really cool if that PF+9v solution ends up being the tack LEGO takes, mainly because having a fixed IR chassis really cuts down on flexibility for MOCing or retrofitting the Super Chief and other older engines. Better still would be if they could either use IrDA (computer's infrared-port) or Bluetooth, and ship a software-package to control your trains from your computer...maybe even something like DCC, where you can set an 'address' for each piece of equipment and control the whole taco using a 'dashboard' styled after a real locomotive cab or CTC center?

That black T-65 could almost pass for the EU StealthX's in some of the later SW novels... if I were flying an X-wing, I'd probably have it painted similar to that. Nice work!

Don't forget, Tax Day may be April 15th, but for tax-purposes they have to take inventory once a year, usually right about now... and you want as little on-hand at inventory-time as possible. If I were running a business, I'd want to do whatever necessary to get rid of everything, close for a few days or a week before Inventory, then have a full top-to-bottom restock the day after so I'd have no inventory taxes at all... This message brought to you by a former Business major, who threw it all away in favor of WWII Studies, less politics and a clearer conscience.

I'm not going to cast a vote--I'd say as a whole they balance each other with strengths and weaknesses, although FotFW coulda been done better--other than to offer an aviation-expert's eye view that the DC-3 in PiP (yes, it's the first case of a LEGO Minifig bird being identifiable as something real-world) is quite possibly (and IMNSH personal O definitely) the best aircraft in all of Minifig history, beating out even the big floatplane from the old Adventurers: Dino Island line.

As far as I can see, we're talking mixes all around. The Armada is clearly Spanish, with the morion helmet and their distinctive armor, the flag of the old soldiers looks vaguely French, and the "Imperial Guards" Lobsterbacks and new Soldiers look similar to Revolution-era English Royal Army to my eye. Old-school soldiers look French or American Continental Army to me... One of my other hats is a military historian, but the Age of Sail is a bit outside my expertise as a WWII (Southwest Pacific, to be precise--"MacArthur's War") specialist, so take this with a grain.

Off-Topic: Come to think of it, we built 'em right here in Seattle, and I think the Museum of Flight still has some (reprinted) blueprints on the original Boeing drafting tables upstairs in the Red Barn (Boeing Airplane Co. Plant #1, a converted boatyard now integrated into the museum complex)--I'll see what I can figure out to come up with notes for designing a minifig version, rendered about like the DC-3 in Peril in Peru. (The actual design is gonna be somebody else's department, but I might be able to figure out relative floor-heights and lengths for the various compartments. You're talking ~$150 at that 80-Euro price-point, right? Might work... then again, IIRC 10177 had more pieces than that.

Oh, another problem, doing any real or "stand-in" Pan Am clipper justice will take way more than 800 pieces. That's even at the selctively-compressed and caricaturized "Official LEGO" level, to say nothing of the 1/40 scale I refer to as "Accurate Minifig"...

Nice! Interesting techniques for some of the details--may I lift some of those for my 10-wides?

Another complication: unless LEGO is willing to mold, pull and package a custom part-mix not found in any of Digital Designer's products, this is confined to an LDraw project. (Between certain colors some parts aren't made in, and no-longer-made parts like the old M:Tron magnet holders and the illustrated 4.5V Technic motor...)

Thanks, I'll have to look at that part--I was trying to keep it as narrow as possible to allow a 'walkway' on either side. (Historically, E- and F-units were a tight squeeze trying to get around the prime-mover--E's were double the fun 'cause you had to dodge two V-12s instead of a single V-16--and the 567 made passage near-impossible when retrofitted into Fairbanks-Morse locomotives.) Basically, you're suggesting I turn this into a four-extra-cylinders version of 10077 from 2003 where one one piston hits Top Dead Center all the others are also at either TDC or Bottom Dead Center, right? Sounds possible, since a diesel's only a 2-stroke motor... In some ways, I'm thinking a working FM 38D8-1/8 would be easier than a V--top and bottom pistons around a common combustion-chamber, but the downside is it'd be a lot more difficult to show the pistons without sacrificing realism with a transparent set of upper blocks... On the upside, it looks like I can also convincingly fake ALCo blocks with a "generic V". Muchas gracias!

Y'all, as part of my passenger-train project I'm trying to design "working" (well, pistons moving, they're powered rather than powering) prime-movers for the locomotives. First up, GM 12- and 16-567 blocks (first number in a GM engine is cylinders, second is cubic-inches per cylinder displacement). And now we meet the problem: Green pieces will mate the cylinders to the rest of the block, white is the electric motor (creatively disguised as an attached generator). I've lifted an entire bank of cylinders off the rest of the submodel in order to show its interior; if you're interested in giving it a whack in LDraw PM me and I'll email you the .LDR file. Problem is, building up a frame to hold both banks of cylinders on this V-12 together, without getting any wider than it already is, and preferably with no length-gain while still allowing room for the crankshaft. (If someone can find a way to shorten the crank and still keep it all concentric, that'd help a lot too. Ideas, anyone?

Problem: While a minifig Boeing 314 would be cool (my favorite prop-airliner), that's not the plane in the movie--looked more like a Short Sunderland. Quick check: Short Solent--some family resemblance... The Solent didn't even fly 'til '46, and was derived from the Seaford long-range patrol bomber, itself a derivative of the Sunderland. They applied the Pan Am marking via matte-painting--alas, while they are the biggest icons of Pan AM the closest to a surviving 314 is a full-scale mockup, complete to the outer nacelles only, at the Flying Boat Museum in Foynes. ---------------- Now playing: John Williams - The Battle Of Endor I via FoxyTunes

Well, I'm starting to consider picking up a wooden "treasure chest" for my '09-on Pirates (and possibly another for "Classic Pirates", assuming I can find the sets I missed through Bricklink or somesuch...)

More passenger-train products like the three-set Super Chief, and maybe a book in a given theme's final year about "these are the sets we designed but didn't release, how to build them, and this is an item-number for a parts-set for it packed-to-order from Pick-a-Brick"... A companion book for each theme with designer's notes on each set and how-tos on related things from the website and publicity-photos (examples: the buildings in the Mars Mission game and shown in various '80s-'90s catalogs' "scene" pics for each theme) would be really cool, too.

Tony, nice design. Quick note, though: the headlight and fin on the '38 HUdsons actually were pretty close to the "shovel section". I'll see if I can either find you a diagram or scan one from my various NYC references--the fin/headlight is the biggest impact on boiler/bullet length from the '38 Great Steel Fleet (10 built) to '41 Empire State (2 built) versions, and I have a '41 partial-design in progress in my 10-wide thread. (I enlarged reprints of actual NYC elevation drawings to 1/40 scale and drew over them, so I know mine's pretty close.) EDIT: Have a look at this: Drawing's partially wrong, in that it shows NYC 5450 with drivers only used on 5445-5449 among the streamliners. (First 5 used Boxpok drivers as illustrated, 5450-5454 along with the streamline-retrofitted 5426 & 5429 used Scullin disc drivers). Scullin-drivered J3a streamliner for comparison: ---------------- Now playing: John Williams - The Emperor Arrives - The Death Of Yoda - Obi-Wan's Revelation via FoxyTunes

WizKids Pirates, I used to collect--and have cases of extras sitting around I'm trying to get rid of. Company just had the plug pulled on 'em by their corporate parent, too... you know, that ruleset would be interesting to adapt to Lego Pirates ships and bases.

Ahoy, y'all. New guy checkin' in from Seattle (northwestern corner of the Continental USA, a few hours south of Vancouver BC). Started with LEGO in the Classic Space/Town era (sorry, Castle folks, it just wasn't my bag), went over to Pirates when it launched, had a dark age through the '90s and was drawn back in by Adventurers, Star Wars, Studios and original Life on Mars. (BTW, to me Mars Mission seems more like a "continuation" than a "reboot"--I don't think our cute li'l triangle-headed green friends from LoM had those BFG's on their stuff just for looks, and the Jellies seem to fit the "antagonist" bill even though they do look similar if you squint just right.) Stayin' in through Star Wars, now Indy and MM--if I keep things focused to a few themes I'm more likely to complete 'em on my limited budget--and in for the ride on Pirates 2.0... Been working on a series of MOCs ever since the Super Chief released, trying to design it and other notable American passenger trains (although I also plan to do the '50s Canadian and '29 Trans-Canada Limited if I can find the blueprints) in 10-wide--if anyone is willing to suggest frame-design ideas I'd love the help in return for a "co-designer" credit. Personal quirk: I'm not a "Yank" or "Yankee"--my roots are South Texas, and thus for my background those are fightin' words. See y'all around the forum!

Nice work, sir. OTOH, if your Bone*'s the same scale, a Sentry wouldn't be that much bigger than it, and a companion Stratotanker would be slightly smaller than the Sentry. (E-3=707 airliner airframe, KC-135=Model 717, closer relation to the original Dash 80 demonstrator--big differences if you know what to look for, like fuselage diameter and wing trailing-edge.) Were you the guy who built the minifig-scale B-52, or was that somebody else? *Crewdog name for 'em: B-One="Bone" in crew-shorthand

Other--Privateer, the best of both worlds! (The original "Private Military Contractors", kinda like part government-approved Pirate/part freelance-Navy...)

Bear in mind, djo, I'm designing these to run at correct 13- to 17-car length--even three motors seems underpowered to my thinking, as each car is around 85 to 87 studs long. I don't expect to ever complete one physically or even have the space to lay it out or run it, but I'm trying to design it such that I could given the parts and LEGO making track with broad enough curves. Going's gonna be slow, between business (a salaryman may work from sun to sun, but a freelancer's work is never done!) and other things--this is about the third major redesign of my "standard passenger-car core", now with curved roofs. (The original designs used _x2 and 2x4 slope-bricks, looking like something out of a polygonized videogame; unfortunately, parts haven't changed enough to totally eliminate this on dome- and observation-cars, nor on my Amtrak Superliners and other cars with roof windows. J3a 4-6-4, as streamlined for NYC '41 Empire State: Note: when I use lime-green on one of these projects, it's a placeholder for either a custom-painted part or one that hasn't made it from LEGO to LDraw yet--in this case, the intended drivers are clear 6x6 dishes custom-printed with the design of a Scullin disc wheel. They're also "blind"--no flange between the rails, so the drivers are mainly along for the ride, letting the trailing-truck and the two under the tender (not rendered) do all the work. The "bullet nose" is also a custom-printed part, clear with silver-gray top and black bottom to allow for a working headlight. Boattail-observation partial end: Super Chief F7ABBA set and head-end cars: Union Pacific prewar E6A and Santa Fe F7A: Since the F-series were actually derived from the E's, I figured that reversing the process would give me a head-start on the design. You could say the F's were essentially designed as E's grown so big by the change from V12's to V16 engines that they had to mount each block in a separate carbody; in fact, the original F wasn't designed for cab and booster to ever be separated, but Santa Fe insisted on the redesign, produced as the model FS, which evolved into the FT, direct ancestor of the F3's and F7's so immortalized in Santa Fe Warbonnets, Southern Ry. "Tuxedos" and NYC Lightning Stripes. (Paranthetically, the descendant also evolved the ancestor--an F3/F7 "short" nose mated to an E6 carbody yielded the E7/8/9 models, the latter two being GM's most powerful single "Covered Wagon" units at 2250 and 2400 horsepower respectively. (Sorry, one of my other hats is as a railroad historian, you're probably gonna see a lot of "history" every time I post a design. Have I outed myself as "GEEK" yet?lol) And if you've ever wondered how those wonderful compound-curve noses were made? Lots of Bondo or other body-putty...

I also should note, most of the interior on that sleeper is "cutaway" until I have the data to finish, and those two minifigs are only in there as "measuring tools"--assuming the LDraw community cooperates on new minifig parts, these trains are definitely going to be populated by more "period" figures. The F7, I'm even designing a more detailed GM 567 prime-mover for, but here again, the catch is developing a light but strong floor and frame to support the required coupler-swing and truck lateral-motion. I'm also planning jumper-cables between cars (disguised as "brake lines") to distribute power for the lights, and if I could figure out a pickup-from-rails mechanism to tie that in with the locomotives so I can keep things running across the entire train.

Oh, this is probably more "Trains" than "Licensed", but since LEGO had to get BNSF approval on the Super Chief and GP38-2, and probably TTX's on the Double-Stack, why not a licensed line of relatively-accurate trains? (Kinda like expanding the Super Chief basic-concept to a 6-wide version of my 10-wide passenger trains...) ---------------- Now playing: John Williams - The Imperial March (Darth Vader's Theme) via FoxyTunes

Guys, I'm working on getting screencaps of some partials to post on Photobucket now--another catch is, I can't do much more than complete one side and mark off the interior walls until I have better "paint" references. (I'm using red as a "placeholder" for walls and green for floor.) Also still struggling a little with designing the underframes, particularly coming up with mechanisms to allow coupler-swing (if I could just get the old M:Tron magnet holders in a black or rusty-brown shade they'd be perfect for North American-type couplers) and truck (excuse me, in Europe they're called "bogies") rotation so as to allow a reasonable radius of curve for these monsters. (Of course, lateral-motion devices on them will be a must so the truck can move sideways under the car...) Further problem: enough power to move 13 to 17 of these "at speed"--my J3s for the 20th Century and the Empire State, I figure I can get 3 motors under, a tripleheader of GM E-series diesels or ALCo PA's is good for six and a Santa Fe or Great Northern-style quadruple-F-unit would take eight. Just so y'all know, I'm probably gonna ask you guys for ideas on interior details, but I should note the restrooms are rather cramped and sometimes not even minifig-rated... Okay, some work-in-progress teasers. I tried to keep the pics big enough to see detail, but small enough to accommodate dial-up or small-screen users. LEGO 6-wide Super Chief F7A Phase 1 versus mine: And, using the standard prewar Pullman plan 4068-series 17- or 18-roomette sleeper, an illustration of how New York Central paint schemes evolved (disregard the "17" tag, these are actually 18-roomettes--I had a brainfart and forgot to design in the open section repalcing one roomette on the early cars) 1938 version, Plan 4068-E (should be a 17-roomette as noted above) First streamlined 20th Century as-delivered--very high-maintenance, as Opex Blue was a paint meant for cars and not trains. (It looked great when new, but didn't wear well at all--soon overpainted with silver.) 1939 version, Plans 4068-H (1939) and -J (1940; both are 18-roomette versions) The first major change: blue edge-stripes on the windowband have been replaced with white (standing in for silver)--and I couldn't show this at this scale, but the two silver stripes at the middle of the windows changed to 3/4" pinstripes from original 2". 1945 version, limited-application paintjob (not all prewar cars were repainted before the '48 scheme was adopted) Final version of NYC's Henry Dreyfuss-designed paintjobs, sometimes called "Reverse Dreyfuss" by NYC students for its swapping of the light and dark grays. 1948 "final" version, after these cars were bumped from "premiere" varnish to second-string trains: This scheme was worn by all NYC streamlined cars except the stainless-steel ones and a few rebuilt coaches until the end in 1968.

+1 on BTTF--and maybe old-school Knight Rider? (UCS original Trans Am-based KITT for the WIN!) Heck, why not a UCS line of vehicles from pop-culture? (Imagining KITT and the General Lee side-by-side...) Kids wouldn't be nig on it, and it'd be almost all big sets, but a line based on Dale Brown's novels could be kinda cool too. (Minifig-scale hotrodded B-52s and B-1s, anyone?) ---------------- Now playing: John Williams - The Imperial March (Darth Vader's Theme) via FoxyTunes