zephyr1934

Oh, that's nice too.

That's too bad that you can't do a follow up on your article, It is a good resource to point new train builders to. Feel free to post a link in this thread. Although it will undoubtedly get lost in the huge number of posts, I think it would be of value to post it on the main Orient Express thread too.

Nice! I don't plan on rebuilding my locomotive, but it sounds like your build has less internal mechanical resistance so others will likely be interested in your version with the weight brick added. So feel free to post a link in this thread (regardless, I think it would be a great addition to your original Brickset article too). I'm using brand new rechargeable AAA batteries that were fully charged within 48 hr of my running. I realize rechargeable have a lower max voltage than alkaline, but I doubt it would be a "go/no-go" on a fresh charge. The blinking light might have been orange rather than red, hard to tell seeing it through the cracks between the bricks while the train was moving. In fact I only knew that it was a warning light because of @idlemarvel's book, which is a fantastic resource (and stupefying why it had to come from the AFOL community instead of Lego... Lego designer in development: "let's build in a lot of great functionality" Lego manager at release: "Documentation? We don't have any budget for that, and why would we want to document anything anyway? It's only good enough, that's the best."). Functionally though, for me it was definitely correlated with low power, after about a half hour of run time the train would stop in the curves. But the hub remained on and after resting the controller on the app I could get it to move sluggishly. Next time round I'll see how long it runs on a fresh charge. @allanp has some interesting thoughts on improving the piston working and I see he split the axles on the pilot truck too.

Great work, I bet it will look sharp once it is integrated into your layout

@Train of Thought Creations and anyone else interested, here's the MOD from the engineer's side (assuming French engineers sit on the right) And then the fireman's side Yellow black and gray are existing parts in their original spot, blue is really dark blue parts, green (and that one pink plate I missed) are either new or moved parts. I do not have a PU L motor in my LDraw library so I replaced it with PF and spacers in the file. When building I started it from the middle driver wheel and slowly disassembled the kit's locomotive as I went. The build is very fragile until you click the boiler sides on... at which point it becomes very hard to disassemble. It retains the form factor of the original set. Motor wire goes over the top of the motor following the gap to the back. Here's the .mpd LDraw file. Having run it a bit more, I'm not thrilled with the performance. The PU Hub keeps flashing red as it goes around curves, which I assume is the HUB saying it is not happy with the load. I bet it would run A LOT better with the cars converted to ball bearing wheel sets. Meanwhile, I made a very important discovery. The pilot truck was causing a HUGE amount of drag. Between the fixed axles for the wheels also used as structural members and the traction bands on the wheels, it is nothing but a literal drag. The best solution would be to rebuild it, but failing that, I just pulled the traction bands off the pilot wheels so the wheels could simply slip along the top of the rails whenever they did not want to cooperate. I can definitely understand why Lego ultimately did not offer an official motorization, but I also appreciate the fact they built the tender so that it would handle a motorized MOC.

There is the classic steam engine problem where the pilot and trailing trucks can lift the drivers off the track if the engine goes over a short valley, but the OE loco doesn't have a trailing truck. In theory if you had bands on the rear driver wheel it would be making contact. If so, is it just that it does not have enough weight to get enough traction? I think some of the "only two bands" combinations that I tested on my build resulted in wheels spinning while going through the diverging leg of a switch (both facing or trailing movements), but most of the time it only briefly stalled, the wheels caught and it moved without my intervention. Quick answer- the weights are three plates down from the top of the boiler, with the top even with the top of the snotted curved slopes on the side of the boiler. In my build I was able to get the motor a little lower than the two MOD's I mentioned in the first post. I have no problem sharing, it is just that the file will not be very user friendly. I use LDraw and did not have many of the recent parts in my library. So I only built the inside of the locomotive digitally. I'll need to do some simple clean up on the model and then I'll post it, probably within a week.

Excellent work!

Nice! And the conveyor really tops the cake. That type of action is eye catching and will keep the public engaged.

A bit of being in the right place at the right time. It escaped scrapping by fleeing the country and by the time it came back people were starting to think that maybe preserving a few steam locomotives would be a nice thing. So it was one of the first operational preserved locomotives.

Indeed, another great build

A lot has been said about Lego set 21344- the Orient Express here in the Train Tech forums. I think just about everyone here was disappointed upon learning that it did not include any official means to motorize the train. Shortly after release several folks came up with MOC solutions to motorize the train, including at least two that have been posted in the lengthy thread: https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-165803/StijnD/21344-orient-express-motorization-powered-up/#details https://brickset.com/article/102806/motorising-the-orient-express Now that the set has been out for roughly six months, I'm wondering about the experiences people had with motorization- either using their own design or a design from someone else. With your response, please note what design you used. ==== I was inspired to post this question because I just finished motorizing my Orient Express. I would not say I'm completely happy with the results. It works, but it is not without its flaws. I used my own design for the motorization. I kept the form factor of the set (quite the challenge) and took a different approach than the two solutions noted above. Like the others, I used a PU large motor. The two things that set my solution apart is that I used a gear train to transfer power instead of a few more bevel gears, and I managed to squeeze two weight bricks into the design. I doubt my solution offers anything that the already public designs have to offer unless folks have problems with the wheels spinning or bevel gears coming apart. It was neat to finally see this train moving on its own. I used a 1:1 gear ratio, which resulted in a slow but acceptable speed at full power using the crocodile option in the PU app. My permanent layout has R72 and R88 loops, but I swapped in a few standard switches and a 90° R40 curve just to see what happens. Not surprisingly, the engine doesn't like the diverging path on switches, and it doesn't like R40 curves. But it generally powers through okay, generally running forward through switches and R40 curves is "good enough" for me. Not great, but I would not hesitate to run this at a show. On my own at home, I would probably run one of my MOC's instead simply because I'm more interested in those other prototypes . I tried various combinations of drive bands on the flanged drivers: (a) one band on each of the 4 drivers, (b) bands on both drivers on one side, none on the other side, (c) bands on the lead axle no bands on the trailing axle. Each variant had its own strengths and weaknesses. None outperformed the others in all cases. With my layout on the floor, the tow-ball couplers get annoying pretty quickly. When shoving the two cars backwards through a diverging switch usually either the tender or locomotive derails for me. If these results are typical for other people that might explain why Lego never released their own motorization solution and made the set strictly a display piece. I don't expect to shove the train like this very often, so while I don't like it, it is not the end of the world for me. That's my experience so far, with less than an hour of running time. I'm curious what experience others have had with motorizing this set, especially from folks who have many hours of run time.

The ravine looks really organic, that turned out very nice. Great job, interesting to see and here the development process too.

Welcome aboard @Blaine, sounds like a great adventure so far, I bet you're glad you saved all the old lego. If you've gotten the DCC stuff to work, maybe start a new topic to both show what you've done and ask questions about what you're not sure of.

There are a lot of details that we do not know about here, including the exact nature of the ruling and the scope to which it will transfer to other situations. But time should tell in those regards. Presumably someone who sells roller bearing train wheels only saying that they are compatible with Lego is at lower risk than someone who sells roller bearing train wheels explicitly stating that they use modified Lego parts. If indeed it is now illegal to sell modified lego parts, technically that would also outlaw the sale of used parts since they have unknown modification in the form of wear and damage that can include cracks, scuffs, marks, stickers, sun damage, discolorization, etc. I think it is within the TOS on bricklink to sell a broken part as long as that fact is disclosed, with no distinction between accidental or deliberate damage. If it remains legal to sell used parts then what's to stop the 3rd party vendors to say the printed or modified parts are simply "used." But taken to the extreme, there are ways of marking items as "no longer from the manufacturer". In the US, for garments I think they cut the tags off of them, for books and magazines they remove the cover, for passports and drivers licenses they punch a hole in them (not really a product, but similar concept of voiding). There could be a simple way of doing similar to lego. Nullifying all of the studs would be arduous, especially for hollow studs, hence, the idea of just using a metal punch to put a "dot" in ONE of the lego logo's to show the part has been invalidated.

But Lego has known of and tolerated 3rd party printing and otherwise "damaging" bricks for decades. Brickworld has been distributing 3rd party engraved LEGO brick badges from their first convention roughly 20 years ago and checking the current BW web page, you get an event brick and have the option of ordering a brick built badge with your name printed or engraved on it. Lego has sponsored that convention from the start (I don't know the current status of Lego sponsorship, but they have sponsored many years). Presumably the same is true for many other fan conventions that Lego sponsors. It's not just conventions, there are a lot of First Lego League trophies going back decades that include 3rd party printed or modified bricks? I suspect more happened in the case of HA, e.g., there must have at least been a cease and desist letter that spelled out how Lego thought HA was infringing. While I'm no expert, that photo early in this thread showing "HA models with 100% Lego parts" could be problematic. Maybe it is simply saying that the modified bricks are Lego that is the issue. If you are selling modified bricks, without identifying the source, that might be okay. But if lego does start actively pursuing "no reselling of unmarked modified bricks", hopefully they will also offer a means to "mark" modified bricks, e.g., using a small punch on just one stud to damage the lego logo.

Oh, that's cool that it has printed bricks and until you mentioned it I didn't realize the tender wheels were dark green. Very nice. With the full sized tender and varied coaches this really feels like the train the EN wanted to be

Well played! It has the feel of an updated EN. So are those 6x28 train baseplates and bluebrixx tan windows on the cars? It would be interesting to see the cars modified to use 2x2 or 2x4 curved slopes on the bottom of the walls to give more of a classic British coach feel. Interesting use of the 1x6 wagon ends under the cars.

@Jon Reynolds Indeed, these layouts are far from prototypical. Long ago, when I started trying to incorporate yards in a layout I realized just how insanely long real train yards need to be just to have switches to get to a few tracks wide. So I'm not going for prototypical here. As I said in my last post, "The layout is only about the trains, no scenery no mils." Something that could be laid out by maybe two people in a couple of hours. I don't think of them as city though, in my mind city is strictly R40 and usually 90° curves. I would agree, hidden returns would go a long way to make a realistic looking layout, I've always thought a nice touch of realism are gentle curves, maybe 22.5° S-curve out of R104 track. The 9v era magnets are stronger than the modern sealed magnets, so that helps in getting to longer trains. I used to supplement that with neodymium magnets to get longer. With the super magnets the trains would stringline the curves before the magnets pulled apart. These days I use roller bearing wheels, they greatly reduce the drag, and the wide radius curves help a ton too. So you can get to 15 ft trains without the super magnets using the old 9v couplers. With the more modern sealed magnets and roller bearing wheels on wide radius curves you might need to supplement the joint with 1x2 plates or a super magnet. Just remember that you only need to reinforce the joints with the greatest force, so you don't need to supplement the couplers on the last half of the train.

You've captured the Penn Central! Seriously though, great build from the video game train

@JopieK you're too kind. This layout all started with the R120 crossing part. The layout is only about the trains, no scenery no mils. @Feuer Zug yep, used the curve radii layout for the yards, outer two tracks are for running, the rest for storage. The awkward legs on the bottom are for parking locomotives while charging the batteries. Most of my trains have lego lipo batteries that are built in. I don't want the sidings so far in that it would be hard to reach from the edge of the table. Oh, and I don't have room to set it up either. If I clear out the living room I might be able to test build half of it. @Man with a hat well, the track just followed me home one day... and another day... and a few more days. And who can refuse a poor little lego track segment without a home? @bogieman nope, no brickworld for me this year, and this layout isn't really good for BW, no landscape. If I were manning the layout most of the time I could keep it interesting, but there's so much going on at BW that I could never sit with my display that long (grin). @SerperiorBricks remember, most of the curves are for storage. Here's the same layout with all of the storage on the bottom tracks As you can see, there are only two loops for running trains. I am envisioning using the dog bone most of the time and only using the lower branches for storage. The extra curves on the dog bone keeps things more visually interesting when you are following a train. Only problem here is that the outside loop is not directly accessible from the yard. The goal of this layout is to squeeze a lot of storage into a short term 25 ft long public display, e.g., at the local science museum. Assuming I have collaborators that also want to display trains I'll probably need both the storage tracks on the curves and the straight yard in this layout... but I don't have enough of the R40 yard switches (doh!) @Stereo Nice layout you have there! I have a bunch of trains that are 10-15 ft long, so I need long sidings. I don't anticipate doing much switching so the yard leads are not critical. That said, here's the 30 ft version with yard leads:

That's a great layout, looks like a fun day running trains.

Long ago my Lego trains outgrew my home layout. I have a roughly 10 ft x 10 ft (3m x 3m) double loop on the floor of my lego room. While it has some nice qualities like disappearing under tables and shelves for half the loop (it is important for trains to disappear for a moment), there's no storage tracks and I have several trains that are roughly 15 ft long (4.5 m). So my trains spend most of their time in boxes. Every now and then I'm able to get out to a large space and really stretch the trains out. I like to see those 15 footers go straight for a little while before hitting the next curve. Another important part of a layout is displaying your trains while they aren't running, so storage is also a premium. I settled into variants of this roughly 30 ft (9 m) layout for several shows. It's nice because it has R120/104 loops, plenty of storage for parked trains and the inside loop has a little S-curve on the top leg so the trains bend as they pass. It is also designed for public shows so that the trains can run without paying much attention to them. With thoughts of improving that layout I've expanded my track collection to include R104 switches and two of my favorite bits of track geometry: TrixBrix R104 double slip switch and R40 yard lead for compact yards. With those parts, I could probably get the layout down to 25 ft if I had to. But even a nice layout gets boring after a while. So I shook things up with this layout: This one is designed for more attentive operations and the double dog-bone on the inside track proved for great fun when running. Throughout all of this, there's that magic R104 switch where the geometry lines up for crossovers, but my outer loop is R120 so there's no graceful way of escaping the curve. For years I had been longing for a 3D printed crossover piece where a R104 switch could go straight across a R120 curve that matched the diverge on the R104 switch. Well, last month I checked what was new on TrixBricks and to my surprise they just released said part. And not only that, they also released an R120 switch. Whohoo! But before I get to that, another thing happened in my layout designs. Last year we had a day long show and the trains were relegated to a 10 ft x 6 ft layout. Ugh! How are you supposed to store anything on a layout like that if you have R120/104 curves? I caved and put the yard in the curve, R88 and R72. While all of my trains are designed to handle R40 switches because most predate R104 switches (and most can handle full R40 curves too), parking trains in curves just highlights all the ugly overhangs. I don't love the look, but the economy of being able to store the trains in otherwise dead space is very helpful when you are tight on space. Anyway, Matthias Runte http://mattzobricks.com already had all of the new parts in the BlueBrick library, so I got to playing. I thought to improve upon the double dog bone with the return at 45° instead of 90°, but that requires giving up a lot of storage on the top side of the layout. Ah... what about the curves! I went nuts and came up with a 25 ft layout (7.5 m) with tons of storage in the curves. So much so, that for my needs the lower branch on the layout probably does not need sidings. I put a charging station for up to 6 locomotives in this layout. The basic loop is still R120/104. I envision mostly using the dog bone for both loops and only using the lower branch for storage. If I expand the layout another 5 ft, I can have the loop yards terminate on the bottom of the image while keeping the R88 curve going all the way to the current end point, giving me a switching lead on both yards. Anyway, my TrixBrix order arrived (I haven't opened it yet) and I'm looking forward to my next large layout... now I just need to find an event.

An excellent build that is easily recognizable.

There is at least a grain of truth here, someone could say, "this Lego part broke, Lego has a strong satisfaction guarantee and I want my part replaced." But I THINK it is legal to sell broken things (even deliberately broken things) as long as it is clearly stated, be it Lego, Disney, Nintendo, or what not. Custom printed parts and engraved bricks have been around forever, and with all of the conventions Lego sponsored that gave out engraved bricks, they might have a hard time arguing that the distribution of "altered" bricks has never been tolerated. That ad claiming "100% Lego parts" is a little over the top though. Perhaps going forward they could address the matter with a delineation in the description and the parts, something like, "275 genuine Lego parts, 35 non-Lego parts." It could even go one step further, make them separate "sets" each with their own sku but they are only packaged and sold as a bundle. As for the past, perhaps they could offer to repair or replace any failed modified Lego brick in their previous sets, perhaps even offering to replace them with an unmodified Lego solution (technic axle and 3rd party train wheels)

Nice looking steamer! And yes, one should always test clearances on all types of track you plan to run on (switches and R__ curves) with a simple prototype that captures all the constraints before getting too far in a design.