DaCheese

Great work, very realistic. Am I right in thinking I've seen this and other European high speed train MOCs of yours on YouTube?

[rant]The way I see it, it's very difficult to back up your claims that a product line doesn't sell if you don't advertise it. In the UK, the standard response to a child saying they want a train set is to head for the nearest catalogue shop/department store/model shop and buy an expensive and fragile Hornby 12V set. Lovely if it's treated with respect and cared for, but with a bit of rough treatment (and we're talking about kids here) it gets broken in any number of ways and stuck in the loft. I love full-on model railways to bits but the way they're seen by the general public is shameful. If Lego produced and advertised a reasonable-size Trains range, they'd be able to aim it at the same people. If something falls off a Lego train, you just reattach the bricks. The 9V range was never pushed. It was in the shops; I remember seeing 4559 in Toys R Us for example, but they could have done so much more to let peopleknow existed. Then they pushed it neatly over to Shop@Home and left it to die. It was never what I wanted from a Lego train because there was no way you could have a proper steam loco with a motor driving several coupled axles, but there were probably kids all over the world that would have been quite happy with diesel or electric power. Well, PF has given me the steam loco I always wanted, but if Lego want to make money from Trains now, they still need to do exactly the same thing they needed to do with 9V. Make a bigger range, and make sure people know about it! Bring out cheaper sets with diesel or electric power using the standard RC/PF train motor and make other products on top of just track to expand a child's railway network. Seperate coaches and wagons (particularly some coaches for the Emerald), train-specific buildings, that kind of thing. PF is fine, it'll grow to be accepted. Just don't tell us Trains aren't profitable, get on and MAKE them profitable. That's enough dreaming for one night.[/rant]

Thanks Brickster. I'm not sure if it'd be better to have the oval windows at just one end because there's not much room for windows in the middle at the moment. The 1x2 in the middle with the hole is for inserting the round studs in a similar way to the 1x1 studded plates on the dining coach you get with 10194. I was thinking along the lines of the BR crest which is usually prominent half way along the length of a UK mark 1 coach.

If we're getting any extra coaches for our new Emerald Nights to pull, we're probably in for quite a wait. With this in mind I thought I'd have a go at building a few of my own. The thing is though, my brick collection is very limited, so I had to resort to the more long-winded way of building; LDD. I was inspired by talltim's comment posted about Andrew Harvey's Pullmans on MOCpages showing a possible method for creating the distinctive oval-shaped windows that many UK Pullmans had (I believe they're for the toilets). Two of those arch bricks and a 2x2 turntable base for the frame. Simple surely? It looks it, but having the arches back to back makes them tricky to secure to the rest of a coach, with the result that I've spent quite a long time messing about with various angled bricks. Tonight I finally found out how to do it, and here's the result: A real Pullman coach should have completely brown doors set back slightly into the body with oval-shaped windows for most of their length, but that would mean more messing about with SNOT! Smaller windows aside you'll notice that it looks much like the dining car you get with 10194 and that's no coincidence as I've "borrowed" some aspects of the design. There's no interior and no lift-off roof but the doors still open. The limited number of tan bricks in LDD resulted in the cream upper section being represented by white, and even then a few parts are the wrong colour (the technic 1x2 near the chassis and the black hinge part on the doors I had to build up from plates for example). Out of interest I did a price check and there's no way I'd pay the £55 or so that LDD decided it would want for one of these unless I could get the colours I wanted. Even then I'd still have second thoughts! It's not turned out badly though and if anyone wants to take things a step further with their enormous brick collection (I hate you all! ) I'm quite happy to email the .lxf file for instructions.

Excellent, looks better being slightly lower. What with living in the UK I built mine as per instructions, but mirrored for right hand drive. It took a bit of working out to say the least...

Fantastic work CB, I thought it looked like an old UK signal box! The basis for your model could well be the Hornby model of the signal box from Dunster (now at Minehead) in Somerset, or maybe the Dapol model of the one at Oakham in Leicestershire. The page I've linked to for the Dunster box shows a typical interior; usually a box has one side with a solid back or a few windows to get some light in and a side covered in large windows side by side to give a good view of what's happening outside. Often the big windows wrap around the sides to about half the width of the box. Inside, the most prominent feature of a steam-era signal box is the lever frame that you can see to the right of the second image. Above will be a schematic diagram of the track layout controlled by that box and other stuff inside might include devices used for communication by bell codes between neighbouring boxes or to control block working and a stove. I hope that helps anyone who's working on a signal box MOC.

9V track is most like today's "proper" model trains using the two rails for supplying power. RC and PF trains like the Cargo Train and EN should run with no problems on it, but I'll leave it to guys like TheBrickster to confirm this as I don't have any RC or 9V. All Lego trains use the same gauge so couplings aside pre-9V rolling stock should be fine on 9V track. If you want to use locos with 12V motors, you have several options: 1. An issue of the online Lego Trains magazine RailBricks features a layout named "The Royal Train" that has gutted 9V motors wired up to supply power to 12V motors. Could prove tricky, and as both are discontinued and getting rarer perhaps not a wise move. 2. Convert 12V models to 9V using the 9V motor. This isn't going to look right for all models as the 9V motor is obviously in bogie form and doesn't allow coupling rods on small steam and diesel models. The 9V conversion of a six wheeled 12V diesel shunter that was posted here recently did look quite good however because the result looked a lot like four wheeled shunters that actually exist. 3. Unlikely to work but you never know! As far as I know the 12V range used a grey version of the original blue track with added power rails in the centre. I'm guessing that old three rail model railways use the centre rail as a common connection and swap between the two others to change direction, but 12V trains use plastic outer rails so in theory the power rails would have to do both connections. Getting to the point here, it might be that the curve radii for 12V and 9V are the same; if so, you could try fitting the power rails to 9V track (points will be tricky at best and impossible to use with both at worst). If not, I'm afraid you'll need seperate 12V track. Hopefully Mark B or Panda or someone else who knows about both systems will come along and say if this would work.

Based on the sticker sheet included with 10194, it looks likely, but if they are going to make some coach kits it's anyone's guess when they're coming. Next year probably. Personally I'd like to see a kitchen coach, sleeping coach, brake end coach and maybe even a Devon Belle style observation car. Lego could make less different kits than the number of various coaches that could be built by sticking instructions and enough parts for a couple of different coaches in each kit like I seem to recall them doing for the Super Chief. Another option would be one kit with a hefty price tag but parts and instructions for all coaches inside.

Remember that on real railways that the colour of the sleepers used can vary due to different types, age, weather exposure and more. Personally I'd be inclined to not worry too much about track colour as provided you put together track in reasonable lengths of one colour it's not unrealistic and is perhaps more realistic. This is Lego though, not real life, so the choice is yours! Having only just started with Lego trains a month or two ago all of my track is RC or flexible. Due to the rough riding you get on flexi, I try to use as little as possible.

The motor's internal resistance and gearing is going to make a 9V train stop very quickly if they're anything like a "proper" model train. Also bear in mind that even if the motor gets over the flexible track and back onto 9V track, it'll stop unless you connect the track on either side of the flexi with seperate wires.

Here's my predictions, probably way out but never mind. The driving wheels were new parts for 10194, and as others on Eurobricks have said creating new moulds/toolings/whatever is expensive so Lego are going to want to get a lot of use out of them yet. More steam in the future looks fairly likely. On the other hand, I'd say that having to put PF parts into a loco means it's pretty unlikely that we'll see tank engines (or diesel shunters that don't use the 8866 train motor). If we do see these they'll be based on bigger prototypes. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing; BR Standard 4 tank anyone? There's a very impressive 9V model of one of these that you can see here. Check out the fantastic MOCs on the rest of bricktrix's Flickr; For UK-based EB members, this may be a tad overwhelming. Back on topic. Small PF tank engines can be done though as shown here. Lego trains have to have international appeal, so don't expect train products that are styled specifically to appeal to or are based on prototypes from a specific country unless you live in the US, where there's probably a big enough market as shown by the Super Chief and BNSF GP38. RC trains have a horn sound and the Grand Carousel has a sound brick. How about one that has a rotation sensor or similar so that your Emerald Night can, for want of a better word, CHUFF! Here's how it might work. You build the brick into your model and put one of the driving axles through the brick, set the model up so that the quartering of the driving wheels matches two marks placed 90 degrees apart on the bit of the sensor that turns with the axle and it's ready to go. As the engine picks up speed the sensor increases the chuff rate until the sound finally changes to a faster beat when the loco is approaching top speed. Connect the lights directly to the battery box and run a second sound brick with a shrill whistle (like the has) off the second channel. No need for the sensor this time, turn the wheel one notch on your controller and the whistle sounds. Getting incredibly optimistic here, have a short whistle if you turn it one way and a long whistle the other!Am I getting carried away? Probably, but if this is what you want too, tell Lego. If the demand is there, they might satisfy it.

The post with the PF shunter can be found here. Other than the cranks to get around the lack of a crankpin hole on the wheels used it looks fantastic.

Interesting, at least they give reasons for the stuff being late. I'll forgive them. Do you think there's any possibility though of the newer transmitters being better in some way than the batch mine must have come from?

My transformer arrived a week or two ago so I've had my EN running a fair bit recently. The running quality's certainly not too bad. Just waiting for Lego to do a coach kit or two for not much money now, another dining car from a split set weighs in at about £35!

Exactly. The Lego one is a somewhat odd rating, 10V DC at 600mA.

I can't help but think that Lego have handled this whole Power Functions Trains introduction pretty badly. It's a month or so since 10194 and its PF gubbins were released and as far as I can see the stocks of these components that Lego had ready were woefully inadequate. I'm waiting until July for my transformer so I can actually enjoy playing with the damn thing, Holodoc's got to wait until August for a variable speed controller, presumably these are not unusual cases. It's easy to complain as a customer of course, but surely this is unacceptable?

Hi soc399. Since I posted in this thread I've changed my EN's rods based on what Mark said, but using 1 x 8 tile pieces with those Technic connectors that have a stud on one end and a normal connector on the other to put together some replacement rods. You can see the result in this thread. I'll admit that I haven't used the engine since testing them out straight after fitting them but it seemed to run much more nicely at slow speeds. I'd say go for it.

Fantastic stuff Mark. Sadly I don't have the skill, money or space to model in 8mm/ft Lego! If I get hooked on Lego modelling I'm probably going to be cutting some corners, combining bricks and traditional scenic modelling techniques to create something inspired by the many hours I spent on Lego LOCO as a child and the environments of more recent Lego video games such as Star Wars, Indy and Batman. I realise that there has to be a boundary between modelling with Lego and modelling with plastikard and a craft knife, but I can't personally justify ballasting track with 1 x 1 studs when it's expensive and not as realistic as ballast scatter. In another topic you mention the difficulty of producing a shunter with PF. I have a few ideas in mind for making a model that looks fairly accurate (although not to scale) and fits in with the size of most lego trains. First of all, obviously to take the PF gubbins the prototypes will need to be larger shunters, perhaps Austerity saddle tanks, 08s, that sort of size. The LiPo battery could go in the cab and form the front of the firebox of the J94, or be integrated into the bonnet of a Railfreight grey 08. The M-size motor could be put deep in the bowels of the chassis driving a single axle and geared down for super-slow running and to offset the reduction in power compared to the XL motor; 10194 demonstrates that a single axle with traction tyres is enough. I had some kind of worm drive in mind based on this being a common arrangement in model railway chassis. I use XP 64 bit so I don't know if LDraw or similar would work on my PC. The website isn't very user friendly, so I don't know how it's used, but ideally I'd like to make a virtual Lego J94 to see how feasible it is.

Thanks for your replies. I think I've read somewhere that the new transformer is to conform to some new safety standard and the old one isn't compatible. It's a bit galling to know that your EN arrived in time for your 18th birthday at the start of May but you're not getting to play with it properly for at least another two months...

Is there anyone else in the UK who ordered the Emerald Night collection and hasn't had all their PF parts yet? I'm waiting for the transformer. Not long after the release of the collection the website changed to say it was due to ship on the 2nd of June. Since then it's been repeatedly getting further away, so it's going to be a long time before I can recharge my EN's LiPo (the ratings given for the transformer in the battery literature give non-standard ratings of 10V DC and 600mA, so I can't get a non-official transformer to do the job instead).

Well, it's a ridiculously early time in the morning to be up and about at, but there is at least a good reason for it. The Lego Railway Travel Society has been running railtours for many years using steam locomotives owned by other groups and individuals, but just over a year ago it bought its own loco, the idea being that a more modern machine would be able to operate on the main line at speeds more in keeping with timetabled services and with increased reliability. The result was the arrival in the UK of Denmark-built "Emerald" class 4-6-2 no. 10194 Emerald Night. This was an unexpected move and was the subject of much discussion on the many websites frequented by UK steam nuts. The "Emeralds" were large Pacific locomotives built in small numbers relatively late in the 20th Century. They were a mixture of established steam technology and newer ideas, incorporating many labour-saving and efficiency improving devices into what was otherwise a machine spookily similar to the British A3 class in terms of shape. I won't bore you with performance figures but it has been frequently said that these locomotives could at times outperform many of the diesel and electric locomotives that replaced them. 10194 was therefore ideally suited for the LRTS' needs. So why have I sneaked through the gap in the fence at the back of Brick Lane sheds, the LRTS' base of operations, at such an early hour? 10194 has been in a dismantled state for most of her time on UK soil. The society wanted to make sure that she was fit for the job and set to work on a no-holds barred heavy overhaul, taking the opportunity to add some modifications in preparation for UK use. She spent the weekend in the paint shop, and today she's on her first running-in turn. Until she goes into regular use on LRTS tours she'll be in action at night. Less trains run at this time of day, minimising disruption to services, and the society wants their baby seen by as few as possible until her unveiling. Well, I have a camera, so sorry folks... When seen in the flesh, I mean steel, even under the shed's fairly poor lighting system, this really is an imposing machine. In general the changes to the original design are hard to spot, as most are under the surface. Lamp irons must have gone on though as the headcode lamps above the front bufferbeam must be attached to something. The lamps' position implies that she'll be on some kind of express today, although it seems a tad unlikely when she's only just been put back together. Easily seen however is the nameplate's new position, now on the running plate as is common on UK locos instead of the side of the firebox as originally built. The connecting rods have been replaced with longer ones that join the coupling rods behind the centre axle, presumably to smoothen out the engine's original rough movement at low speeds; this was a fault with the design as built. The tender seems to have been modified and resembles an eight wheeled version of one of the BR standard designs, increasing the coal capacity and making the tank filler easily accessible (the original design had this hidden; not popular with crews!). Note the tender cab, the portion of cab attached to the front of the tender to give the crew more protection and allow them to look ahead more easily when running tender first. Right, enough fiction/nonsense. These changes were made a few weeks ago one by one. I've only just got around to posting the images. I might do some more alterations at some stage, and I'll post images of the City Corner bus built in right hand drive if anyone's interested.

Not bad looking, but I think this is going to be way too expensive for me to buy. I also think the drive system could have been done differently. Surely the motor and battery box could have been hidden inside the carousel? I don't see a Savage steam engine on board either, which would have increased the appeal for me. Now then Lego, how about that sound brick with a steam loco soundset? Sound is the thing missing from 10194...

This article and its responses show what I feel has always been the problem with the Trains range. During my life at least there's not been enough of it, and having picked up those small Lego catalogues all the way through my pre-teen years I realise in retrospect that they always pushed Trains into a corner of the catalogues, as if they were ashamed of it. It's a bit difficult to argue that something isn't selling if you don't make the people who would buy it aware that it exists and ask a lot of money for the little you produce. I was tempted by Trains several times as possible birthday or Christmas presents, but a) I'm not keen on diesel and electric locos, just steam b) steam engines with the 9V motor underneath or tender drive are plain wrong and c) it was too damn expensive. Hopefully the introduction of PF trains will start a new age of the train. Take the Emerald Night; I reach 18 years old and finally the kind of train kit I've always wanted! It's still horribly expensive, but it's worth it for me because it's loco drive and looks like a proper model locomotive, just made from Lego. Actually, from a distance it doesn't look like Lego. Come on Lego, at the very least give us coach kits to give our Emerald Nights something to pull!

Is anyone finding 10194 is a bit jerky running at low speed? It's possibly to do with what Mark was saying about the loco's cylinders being out of line with the centre "axle". It might just be that my EN's LiPo is getting a bit low (damn you present lack of transformer!) but I was running mine today and it doesn't move at a smooth and consistent speed forwards until you open the regulator a bit more. What's strange is that other than the locking I experienced a week or two ago running tender first with the coach supplied it seems to run fine in reverse. Having gone through most of my life so far with what most people would call real model trains I appreciate a model with slow running capabilities. Any thoughts?

I'm struggling to work out how the original gun would've gone around corners on parallel tracks, because the outside line on a curve will always be slightly longer than the inside one. With your design surely there's not just a problem with varying loco or motor unit speeds causing the whole thing to go out of alignment, if you're not going to use flexible track for outer bends there'll be a pretty big difference between both tracks. This will also cause the whole thing to go pear shaped... Anyway, good luck.