AndyC

I think TLG basically consider the new clutch gear as an entirely compatible replacement part (since they never used the teeth on it), much as they did with the reinforced 16t gear. So they've probably just used up any old stock before moving on to the newer moulded pieces.

I really like it, very inventive part usage too. I don't really mind the monochrome look, it sort of fits better with the Architecture style of model that way.

It'd be so much cooler if it were set in prehistoric times, with Flintstones-like "vehicles" and lots of cave men minifigs. Although that seems unlikely. Personally I wish they'd stuck with Egyptian sets, I would love an army of Anubis warriors.

How about participants have to create a freight car for transporting something related to their favourite (non-train) LEGO theme of past or present? So maybe you could have a Futuron rocket transporter, a rolling Castle catapult or something equally crazy. The more imaginative the better.

4958 Monster Dino was pretty much exactly that, it was Creator branded but the build was pretty much 100% Technic.

The trains will keep running at whatever speed you have it set to, the remote is only used to send a signal to change it's speed.

Of course if you're one of those people who finds maths tricky, you could always download Lego Digital Designer and have a play around with pieces to see which ones fit the way you'd like.

Very sure. If you place one and then select it, the part number shows up in the status bar.

Eh? I can see plenty of stores which only have 2 or 3 of them and they're not particularly expensive.

Those parts are 3139 and 59895, I'm not sure what the exact difference is, but I suspect it's pretty minor as Bricklink suggests their basically compatible with the same hubs. Neither of them is the one you indicated in your picture, however, which is in fact the one below the second one you've highlighted I believe.

Feedback is a good indicator, but there are still ways to game the system. Often fraudsters will set up a couple of fake accounts and then do some fake sales between them in order to build up some established positive feedback. I remember seeing (and reporting) one case where the seller had sold the exact same mobile phone about 30 times to the same buyer, both of whom had left 100% positive feedback within a minute of auctions closing! Thankfully, with eBay and Paypal being effectively the same company and eBay having already acknowledged the fraud, you shouldn't have any worries about getting your money returned.

There's also the fact that it's only 13 new figures, so it's always possible you'll just see exactly the same Penguin figure used in previous sets. I've no doubt he'll turn up again at some point anyway, even Arkham can't keep the Penguin hidden away forever.

Sometimes it helps to change the view a bit, as occasionally the logic that tries to determine where in 3D space you're trying to put something just can't quite work it out. For what it's worth I built 21006 myself the other day and it can certainly be done without error.

I'm not sure that's as easy to do as it sounds though. You can't just swap some of the minifigs for females without potentially alienating the existing (and extremely successful) boy market. Simply adding more sets, some of which have predominantly girl figures also creates the issue that you have to second-guess where the appeal might be when selecting figures, would the recent 7285 police dog handler have been more popular with girls or boys, for example. It probably doesn't help that minifigs are one of the more expensive components of a set, so throwing in an extra female figure probably isn't an option either. What's more, if girls generally prefer playing with sets than building them (and to some degree I'd probably say that was my experience growing up with 4 sisters, even though we didn't have much in the way of 'sets') then it stands to reason that sets targetted at girls should be quicker and easier to assemble, so they can focus on the bit they enjoy. Putting such sets in the existing City line would bring back the problems of juniorization and lessen the appeal for the boys who do enjoy the building aspect more. Having an entirely seperate "Girls" line is probably actually the most risk-free strategy, even if it deviates from the traditional minifigures. At least these newer figures are a lot closer to minifig scale, meaning that girls will probably happily mix and match the two and let their imagination fill in the discrepencies, something that would be much harder to do with the much larger Belville figures. I think, as AFOLs, we sometimes forget that kids are much better at that than we are.

Looks like a clone brand set, I don't think I've ever seen a LEGO set where the baggies were sealed in that fashion. Presumably some sort of construction vehicle, judging by the stickers and heavy presence of yellow pieces.

Alas this doesn't seem to have made it into 4.1.8, maybe next time....

Ooh, exciting. I can already see a bunch of bits I really wanted, like the rope bridge, mummies coffin and different sized cart wheels. Time to revisit a bunch of sets I've done previously I think. It's a bit weird that the mummies coffin lid doesn't connect on top of the coffin, though thankfully it's very easy to scaffold that into place.

Nope, I run LDD on Windows 7 x64 and have for the last few versions so there is no inherent problem there.

Jamie Berard has said in the past that they really didn't sell very well at all and that there is pretty much zero chance of TLG ever selling individual train cars again. Although disappointing, I can kind of see why it's probably not the sort of thing parents are likely to buy for children when shopping for a LEGO set. It's a shame that Design By Me sets are so much more expensive, because otherwise that would be a great way of AFOLs sharing rolling stock designs. As it is, Bricklinking the required parts or just buying extra sets are probably the best way to go.

- 03 - George G. - bee hovering a flower: 3 points - 11 - the last chronicler - Red Faced Monkey-Lion: 3 points - 38 - The Lanterne Rouge - Helicopter: 2 points So many really cool models from such a difficult selection of pieces, it's hard to pick 3 but those were the ones that just had the edge I think.

Mine is all in bley, so yes there was.

And I suspect that is very much the case. Buying a set back in the 80s with the sole intention of making a profit would have seemed a risky business, since you'd be relying on finding a good toy auction with the right kind of buyers present. With the Internet and the likes of ebay, selling things on is a much more common practice. And if the success of the Emerald Night convinces TLG to produce more AFOL oriented train sets, you may well find that people will prefer to pick up whatever the current steam train(s) are, rather than paying an exceptional amount for an out of production model. Alas the only way to really guarantee a good investment is to buy sets that aren't particularly popular at the time, but whose appeal rises considerably later on. Predicting what those sets will be is rather more difficult however.

1182 Adventurer's Raft - Theme: Adventurers LXF File 2879 Desert Expedition - Theme: Adventurers LXF File 2995 Adventurer's Car - Theme: Adventurers LXF File 1x2 tile doesn't connect to middle of cockpit piece. 2996 Adventurer's Tomb - Theme: Adventurers LXF File 5901 River Raft - Theme: Adventurers LXF File 5906 Ruler of the Jungle - Theme: Adventurers LXF File 5918 Scorpion Tracker - Theme: Adventurers LXF File 5975 T-Rex Transport - Theme: Adventurers LXF File Brick built substitute for trailer baseplate. 5987 Dino Research Compound - Theme: Adventurers LXF File Brick built substitute for base piece, replacements for old-style hinges, technic liftarms substituted. Plane propellors left unattached as they're a mass of illegal techniques.

The argument goes that if you're a kid (or parent of a kid) with no LSW sets and you can only afford a $10 set, you're more likely to spend that on LSW if you get a selection of both factions in one box than if you get a single side. It's pretty much the same argument used across the rest of the product ranges that include both good and bad guys in a single box, so it wouldn't be surprising if it was extended to Star Wars battlepacks.

Several. The Service Pack for the 8043 included a few minor design changes in addition to the redesigned linear actuator and the Emerald Night was revised in later versions to improve reliability when running motorised for extended periods of time. I'm pretty sure there have been others over the years but those two immeadiately spring to mind.