Barduck

Very nice looking engine, my only issue with it is are all the bricks with studs on one side and blue pins that you've integrated, I don't think they add anything to the solidity of the build. You could eliminate more than half of those with a very small change to the side walls while still retaining the look. Most definitely an engine I'd buy the instructions of if you decide to release them

Unless used on R120's, that's not going to work. Your current set up is F-B-B-B-F, which makes it impossible to take R40's and switches (and frankly, as I said at the start of the comment, only R120 will be possible). Now if you'd change the set up to B-F-B-F-B then you're in business

As I pointed out in the OP, it was sheer luck that found that book. Stumbled on a page of someone building a livesteam version of it (one of those that you can actually sit in or on) and somewhere in there was mention of that book so I started looking. Found it on Amazon, wasn't cheap (and the added import taxes sure did hurt too) but it's more than worth it. And, nothing is keeping you from going 8 wide, or at least have one train in 8 wide. It's the best scale for trains, not to big to be bulky but big enough to add all the details you never knew you wanted to add. So go ahead, get my instructions, it'll make your day (and mine)

That nose sure gave me headaches, specially with wanting to integrate the grill at the front. The two studs that are showing (from the 1x4 plates) were a compromise, tried different looks (with a cheese slope on it, with a 1x1 tile on it) but in the end that was the best looking solution. The tapered roof from the cabin was something I found very early on in the designing, having it go half a plate down with every step was a great find to achieve the look I wanted. And, "master builder"? I wouldn't go that far, there's builders out there that have better builds or more complex builds. But I would agree that my attention to detail does set the MOCs I try to make to a high level. I'd rather not build it then have it not look the way I want it

Oh cool. This makes me wonder what your colleges have to say about her. And what can I say, ever since I saw a miniature model of this locomotive on Brass trains I wanted to build her, so now I have

From Teunis's Flickr:

It's finally time to present the MOC of the M10005 “City of Denver”, in all her glory. This MOC has been developed over several years (yes, YEARS) as I started her in October 2018 and very soon ran in to problems finding solutions to build her nose and windscreen. early development While I did not work on her every day, not even every month, I did return to her ever so often to try and see if I could make it work. The biggest problem that I ran in to was that there just isn't enough information about her on the internet. Size, power, etc etc, its nowhere to be found, whatever search pattern I tried. Even pictures of her are difficult to find as the prototypes of this locomotive have all been scrapped ages ago. For a while it seemed this train would remain a WIP for ever. Until September 2021 when, by sheer luck, I found a book called: “UNION PACIFICS M-10000 and the Early Streamliner Era 1934-1941” by Thos. R .Lee. In it was everything I would need; beautiful pictures, a complete history of not only the locomotives but also the consists, and more importantly all the stats and even rough blueprints with measurements. Finally I could design her and in the proper scale as well. From then it was a designing frenzy where I would find solution after solution to design her, it was almost like she wanted to be converted to LEGO and designed herself. Only the windscreen remained at the end. At first I was thinking of using the same method as Anthony Sava in his EMD F7 but I actually didn't like the look it was giving her, it was almost to modern. So after some tampering and test building I found a different way to do it and I'm pretty pleased how that turn out. Now with the design ready I could start getting the needed bricks, all 2250 of them. In between, my render of the A-unit won a price on the LEGO Rail Facebook page that was just running a monthly competition. That month it happened to be the theme “Streamlined” and what could be more streamlined than this City of Denver? After all, they are called “Streamliners” for a reason. The A and B-unit are not connected using the usual magnets but uses a rather nifty spring-loaded system that keeps them together while doing turns. That systems was developed by Teunis Davey and it's with his permission that I adapted it to go for my M10005 MOC. It does mean that this engine will not run on radii smaller then R104. It was all ready late December 2021 when I contacted Andy Mollman of OKBrickWorks to get the decals done and after some going back and forth we settled on a design that would work and he shipped the decals. Those decals are now also on OKBrickWork's site, for a very reasonable price, do check them out: https://www.okbrickworks.com/shop/vinyl-decals/lego-moc-decals/stickers-for-union-pacific-city-of-denver/ Instructions are now available on Rebrickable, you can find them in two versions. The first version is the full locomotive, so A & B-units together. https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-97195/Barduck/up-m10005-city-of-denver-a-b-units/#details The second version has the A and the B-unit listed apart: https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-97193/Barduck/up-m10005-city-of-denver-a-unit/#details https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-97194/Barduck/up-m10005-city-of-denver-b-unit/#details I've chosen to do it this way so that it's possible not having to buy all the bricks at once but still be able to build at least one of the units and see it run. Because, 2250 bricks, that's not cheap. Later on the coaches of the “City of Denver” consist (all 10!!) will also be added. I hope everyone likes this locomotive as much as I do, for me, it's the most mesmerizing and iconic diesel engine ever build and ever to run on UP's rail network. More pictures and renders, as well as some videos of her running R120's can be found here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/91060327@N07/albums/72157699792435012/with/30711903947/

I’d advice using Blender to make the render with the tubing added, there’s a tutorial online that explains how to import and render Lego models. I’ve used that to make renders of my Virginian Triplex: https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/183056-virginian-2-8-8-8-4-triplex-version-3-wip/&tab=comments#comment-3350734 It’s a steep learning curve for sure but once you get the hang of it it’s a walk in the park

As a rule I don't support anything anymore on ideas. Why? Well a tendency can be seen in where, of all the ideas that get to 10K, only the stupid ones get passed review. And then a few years later, when everyone has forgotten about it, a set appears that is so close to the rejected idea that its just to much of a coincidence. Funny thing is, on Legomasters, some Brickmasters go: "no, I don't see the story, nor the playability". And then LEGO approves an idea that lacks those very same things

I'm afraid 100 coal cars are a bit above budget. Could you spot the differences with V3 (and V2)? not inspiring enough for myself, don't think I'll be tangling another steamer this year, this one was already enough Everybody else that commented (can't be quoting them all): thank you for your kind words on how much you like her, now of you go to Rebrickable and buy those plans

there's 3 linked in the topic thanks, she's a complicated but fun build

Well, it is already V4. V1 got scrapped, V2 got burned to a crisp. V3, of which I have only done renders took about 2-2,5 months to redesign starting from V2. I pushed her a bit to enter the Brick Train Awards. But instead of building her, I finetuned her, extra hatches on the cabin roof, shortened her and the tender a bit, lowered the cabin roof, etc etc. And thus V4 was born. I recon, if I'd had to start from scratch she would have taken the better part of 6 months to design. Once the parts were ordered and printed (the valvegear is homemade, from design to printing) she took about 3 days to build at around 4 hours a day. That might seem long but I didn't want to push her and make building mistakes. And test while building (and even change the design a bit at some places to add more rigidity or change how something was connected. At the end testfase, where I was testing to see if she'd take R40 I made another change to enable her to do just that. All it took was changing the set up of the wheels on the second truck from F-B-F-B to B-F-B-F. To enable her to take R40 switches all I had to do was change the beam connecting the second (last loco truck) and the third (tender) truck from 9 long to 11 long with pins at hole 1 and 10. Even though she can take R40 (and actually I designed her with that in mind), she'll look a hell of a lot better on R104 curves and switches

Only one 2-8-8-8-4T was ever built, a Mallet-type for the Virginian Railway in 1916. This is the one in the above photo, it is also the one that you are about to build using these instructions. Built by Baldwin Locomotive Works, it became the only example of their class Xa, so named due to the experimental nature of the locomotive. Like the same railroad’s large articulated electrics and the Erie Railroad 2-8-8-8-2s, it was nicknamed “Triplex”. The purpose of the Xa was to push heavy trains over steep inclines, requiring high tractive effort, but low speed, over short distances. The Xa worked on a difficult 14-mile section from Elmore to Clark’s Gap. The Xa’s center set of cylinders received high-pressure steam, and the exhaust from these was fed to the two other sets of cylinders, which were valved for low pressure.The right cylinder exhausted into the front set of low pressure cylinders, and the left into the rear set; this is also why the high pressure cylinders have the same diameter as the low pressure ones, whereas most mallet locomotives have much smaller high pressure cylinders. The front set exhausted through the smokebox and the rear set exhausted first through a feedwater heater in the tender and then to the open air through a large pipe, which can be seen in the photo. Since only half of the exhaust steam exited through the smokebox, firebox draft (and thus boiler heating) was poor. Although the boiler was large (in line with contemporary two-cylinder and four-cylinder practice), six large cylinders demanded more steam than even such a boiler could supply. With all six cylinders operating at their full pressure (which could not be sustained for very long), the Xa produced huge amounts of tractive effort that may have been the highest of any steam locomotive before or since (160,000 pounds-force in compound mode, which was the largest tractive effort for any locomotive up to the time,1914-1916).The Xa is also considered the largest tank engine ever built since the tender had driving wheels as well and thus contributed to traction. The problem of variable adhesion on the Xa’s tender unit was not a serious one, since pusher locomotives had frequent opportunities to take on additional fuel and water. The Xa was unable to sustain a speed greater than five miles an hour, since the six cylinders could easily consume more steam than the boiler could produce. The tender had a four-wheel truck at the rear to help guide the locomotive into curves when drifting back downhill after pushing a train over the hill. This MOC has around 2800 parts in her (and about 80 3D printed parts). She runs on PU, 1 battery, 2 Large motors. Decals made by OKBrickWorks.com Even as large as she is, she still manages to take R40 turns https://flic.kr/p/2kJu33v and switches: https://flic.kr/p/2kJq1K4 She can even take light graded slopes (1 plate/straight increase) https://flic.kr/p/2kMA1um Instructions available on Rebrickable

Although.... competing to win 3rd party prices without being allowed to use said 3rd party pieces is a bit the chicken or the egg

Building her, and while building redesigning again, so she'll actually be V4. She's now 3 studs shorter on the loco and 1 stud shorter on the tender. Roof of the cabin lowered by 1 plate, some cosmetic changes to the roof as well. Also changed some parts to make her a bit cheaper to build (had 6 1/2 bush in black in previous version but those things cost an arm and a leg). Corrected some errors as well as an issue with the coupler from BMR I ran in to, it the required me to set the bottom plate of the front deck a plate higher (the coupler not sitting level with the tiles next it, the difference is small but big enough for it to get stuck). Tested the valvegear and the custom made pieces for it (in this video: Applied the decals from OkBrickWorks. Still some parts missing that will need to be ordered. Almost ready to really show her and make the instructions

Decals are being made by OKBrickWorks, They'll be available both on our and their webshop decal placement by Barduck12, on Flickr

Not hours, more like weeks. There was always a problem. Some clip was in the way, or it didn’t bend how I wanted it, or it didn’t look ok. There were moments I was thinking;”what the hell did I get myself in too?” But I persisted. I sure didn’t want to make the same mistake I did with the previous version. I didn’t plan out the tubing on that one and ended up having to relocate a whole bunch of clips. I did manage to “recycle” big parts of the previous version in MLCad, for example she’s got about the same nose (but with more details on it), cabin and upper bodywork. I did increase her length by 2 studs. Made the tender a bit sleeker. Added 2 seats in the cabin. And a whole bunch of other stuff that’s either underneath her bodywork or are small cosmetic changes. I’ve been working on her since September 2020, and now I’m finally in the stage where I can make the instructions for her and build her myself. Only other thing that needs to be done is send pictures of an O-scale version to Andy from OKBrickWorks to get the decals done

Well, the cat is out of the bag as they say. Now that I've enter the renders of the WIP in to the Brick Train Awards I might as well start the topic here too. I'll try to post updates whenever I can as I enroll in this endeavor. So... Another Virginian Triplex or XA as it was called.... This is al ready my 3th version of this train. (Topics on V1 and V2 can be found here and here). I like my previous version a lot and to have it go up in flames in 2020 when our house burned down made me want to rebuild her. But when I started looking at the plans I made I thought to myself, why not improve her? Why not add more details? So I virtually tore her apart and started on a redesign. Now, she's ready for the future as she'll have the new PU system to power her. Let's hope it's a bright future. Now for the renders:

Hi everyone, it's been a long time that I've posted something on the forum. A lot has happened in the last year and I've been very busy. First of al, last year we had a really bad start of the year as our house burned down and I lost 95% of my LEGO collection, including all of my train model. I had just started building a model of Portland's Union Station and those were at that moment the only bricks we could salvage. There a video on my facebook page where one can see just how bad it was: https://www.facebook.com/hans.thienpont.5/videos/2342232532543767/ While I'm still not fully recovered from this event LEGO-wise, I slowly started picking up the pieces and designing some new things. Among those, a new version of my Triplex with a hell of a lot more details (will be posting more on that in a few weeks as I start building her). Other things I started looking at were custom drivers. Having my own printer (that luckily survived the fire) I started designing some. From the start I wanted to do something special, something nobody was doing. That's how I came up with the idea of doing 2 part wheels. One part is the wheel itself, the other is a disc that goes in a cavity in the wheel and gives it the style wanted. Those discs can be in Boxpok, Scullin or whatever style needed, with any size of counterweight. I'm very pleased to be able to say that Im now able to sell these drivers on my personal webshop at https://bct-and-c.onlineweb.shop/ For the moment only the L-sized drivers are on the webshop. Will follow later on: LL, XL, XLL, XXL for drivers and eventually there will also be some custom parts that go with some of my MOC's instructions as well as pneumatic and rigid hoses, valve gear and decals (provided by OKBrickWorks). The XL, XLL and XXL drivers will be 3 part drivers. Basically the same as the L-sized so a wheel base and a disc that gives the wheel it's form but here there's also a ring that can be in any color wanted. For those steamers that have a white wall on their drivers. So give our shop a look, you may find something you didn't even know you needed

did you add those in the proper LDRaw folder? Most commonly it should be in c://users/public/public documents/LDRaw/Unofficial/Parts/ for the actual rod and ...(same)/s/ for the files that tell it how it looks (like benn-rod-end-hole.dat)

open Wordpad. Copy paste the text you got of the wanted part in to Wordpad. In Wordpad then click "save as". Enter the desired name (f.e.: partx.dat (be sure to put the .dat part)) and change the " .txt" to "all"

skip to 11:45

good. judging from the measurements set in the file my 65" gondola's are right on par at 52 studs long

So I assume it's still 2017 in your timeline here So here we have, still according to your own timeline, the fact is that Bricktracks allready has a working prototype of r104 crossings available, for which he is all ready looking in to getting molds, while TrixBrix is only doing a poll. The copying began here You actually answer your own question throughout your post. While apparently it took TrixBrix nearly 10 (yes ten) months to develop and produce the r104 crossings, Bricktracks was all ready at the stage where he was sure his version worked, had sales on Shapewaysfor them, and he had the designs ready to have the matrix cast to start making injection versions, hence he started the Kickstarter campaign. So here all ready is prove that TrixBrix copy/pasted. And that's only from Bricktracks. Same analogy goes for 4DBricks, Tom had automation stuff out way before TrixBrix had