zephyr1934

You started out with a great design (the big QJ) and the repeated iterations just keep making it better and better. Can't wait to see the continued evolution.

That is looking really good. As for the gaps on the end, you could probably leave it as is and only you would notice, but you might be able to cover it with 2x4 wedge plates... though that may mean you would have to push the end out another plate.

A long time ago I used to build and paint plastic model sets. My preferred brush for detail work was actually a toothpick. I also found that as the paint was drying (very tacky but not yet solid) I could scrape off many "overpaint" splotches with a clean toothpick. I'd suggest practicing on some scrap bricks to perfect your style (e.g., the bottom edge of a 2x4 plate). Just one XL motor has the power to pulverize lego gears and snap axles. You are going to be limited by weight on the drivers before you are limited by the power of an XL motor. If you can avoid using two IR receivers and two battery boxes it would be for the best: saves a lot of money, it can be tricky to sync the two IR receiver speeds (one motor could easily be running a notch or two off from the other... still doable, just an extra challenge), also you might run into trouble if the batteries run down at different rates. In any event, you'll likely want to build several "sketches" with the wheels in place and different propulsion ideas before settling on the final design of the actual locomotive, e.g., this.

Don't be silly, nothing to apologize for and nothing to be intimidated by. This is a place for builders of all abilities (and all depths of pocketbooks) to just come and chat.

At least based on the kickstarter numbers I think the R104 were the most popular, quickly followed by the R56. Which makes sense, there are a lot of people who want as wide as possible and there are a lot of people who just want another 16 studs beyond R40, presumably for double track in somewhat tight spaced. Even if you do not have room for the full large radii curves, by introducing small changes of direction the R104 make the straightaways more interesting then simply straight track. Taking a slightly different view from someguy, I'd suggest designing as many of your trains as possible to negotiate R40 curves in case they have to, but if you prefer the look of wider radius curves, by all means do so. After all, it is most important that you like the look of your creation.

Here's a good thread going into the cross-sectional dimensions...

That sure does not look like a fast locomotive, from the size and shape of the prototype it looks like it should be hauling a large slow freight train. Obviously from the video it certainly can move like nobody's business. Perhaps it all comes down to the gearing. In any event, your MOC does a great job capturing all of the difficult angles of the prototype. Excellent work!

I would agree with the others that the engine does not look that much like an F40, but it is still an interesting looking locomotive. I can see hints of a beavertail, but on those the windows did not wrap around the corners. To me that car looks more like a Turboliner.

I had heard that it was the rail fabrication that was the death nail for 9v. Lego would manufacture the track, ship it out to a third party to add the metal, and ship it back. It was quite expensive compared to most parts. As for the track layout, looking good. I think that was roughly the same direction that BBB was heading towards with their track design. I had heard that the way the rails attached to the ties proved to be a weak point. Looking at this design I don't think you would have that problem but I could see getting rails into the ties to be a major pain (though 9v fans would eagerly accept it). You would have to slip one rail in to all of the ties from the right, then slip the other rail in from the left. Pure speculation on my part, but I suspect that is why BBB went with plates that clipped the rail to the ties, but there was not enough clutch to keep the rails in. Now if you could click the rails in then slide the connector into a lock that could be the best of both worlds. The conventional model railroad crimp connector on the end is certainly a nice improvement. Anyway, clicking straight rails might be one thing, but switches would be very demanding to assemble correctly, and then wire across for plug and play (likely need to solder, etc). Certainly non-trivial, which will either greatly increase your costs if you sell them preassembled or reduce the market if the customer has to assemble them. ME started with metal rails back around 2011. They made straights and promised wide radius curves. The straights came out and initially were supposed to be "drop in" replacements. The connectivity was hit and miss. I believe later versions had copper jumpers to adhere to the bottom for connectivity. I didn't have any problems, but I only bought half length rails and put them between normal 9v segments which still have the slight "spring" to the metal tabs. The project dried up without any wide radius curves. Then ME returned with the kickstarter and that has brought the great PF tracks. Still waiting on the metal but I applaud anyone who is working in that direction. Heh heh heh, I really like the idea of 200 radius curves but I doubt there would be enough takers at least at first. Start with one or two geometries and then grow from there. You do not want to overextend attempting a complete system from day one. I'd suggest modest a kickstarter to do just straight track and work out the kinks or discover that they are insurmountable, and then only if successful do a larger kickstarter with stretch goals for additional geometries. As for a wish list, I personally prefer single crossovers, but that would require two more molds... unless you got creative and made a universal "switch" that then had a range of attachments to either turn back to a parallel track, turn further out to give a continuous curve, or connect one switch to another for a single crossover (I think ondrew had implemented some or all of these in the past using hand modified 9v track).

I would agree that it is a good parts set... it turned into one of my first train MOCs.

Welcome aboard engineerMax. I hope you are getting your due attention at the train shows (hard to top a lego train, grin).

You could use jaster's trick for the vents on this locomotive. Get something up the middle that is about one plate taller then the edges (e.g., a double slope ridge piece or a snotted tile wedged between the studs) then just barely peg 1x4 tiles to the edge. It will be delicate, but you could probably reinforce it with a row of 1x plates underneath. Then again, might look even better with 2x4 tiles.

Still a tour de force getting all of the mechanicals and electricals in such a small form factor... then to have the room to dress it up so well... impressive.

Hi dxpert, yes, the pole reverser is used to flip the polarity for the second motor. In this configuration they have to run in opposite directions. If you forego the lego train baseplate you can run two motors in the same direction, but that is a more advanced technique than what I wanted for this build. If you poke around the EB train forums, MOC pages, and elsewhere you can find instructions or LDD files for several good looking trains. There are a few sites that also have instructions available, including RailBricks, LGauge, and rebrickable. There are also several folks who sell instructions, e.g., Michael Gale and Tony Sava

Probably the best thing you could do is buy a few Kaydee couplers and build up a couple of test cars to see what works. I've seen big boy MOC's that look good (on the straights) and can navigate standard lego curves (not so pretty). So it probably comes down to your own preferences. Oh, and even the traditional model railroaders run into this problem- different cars and locomotives are rated for different radii of curves. At least some of the old time lego train modelers (e.g., Dan Siskind and John Neil) built some nice looking steam engines in the days before BBB wheels. They would use large technic wheels or similar flangeless wheels to make the drivers and then have guide wheels inside the track. So their layouts had no switches on the mainline, relying strictly on the hand of ... for switching. I suppose you could also build a transfer table though. Actually, thinking about it further. Some of the earliest switches were stub turnouts and didn't have points, they actually physically moved the rails between different sets of tracks. You could use a piece of flex track and a very long straight section to completely avoid the frog. Probably wouldn't be pretty, but it would allow you to switch without going custom built.

Simply a stunning MOC with all sorts of great touches- the fence, the washing machine made out of the rotation brick, the books on the shelf out of profile bricks, the tree, the mix of classic bits in the scrap piles. I have but one minor quibble that is easily fixed- for this scene you should replace the tank car with a gondola car.

That's a fantastic build, very realistic.

@edsmith0075 My most powerful locomotive uses a pair of XL motors, I've used this design both in a tender and in a boxcar so that I can use my 9v locomotives with heavy trains and not worry about motor burnout. I have pulled a 50+ car train with this configuration. It is not limited by power, rather, it is limited first by the couplers coming apart (fixed by rare earth magnets) then by the cars pulling off the track in the standard lego curves (no simple solution aside from perhaps ME curves). Key design features: it has a 1:1 gear ratio (simple bevel gears, with technic bushings on any cross axles to help keep the bevel gears in place) for the three axle trucks. The full build has a lot more weight on the wheels to give sufficient traction. The three axle trucks have the aftermarket o-rings on the drive axles while the middle axle just has the standard bands and thus, rides a few mm higher and seems to be fine in the curves but it sometimes complains in switches. I run it clockwise on 9v track to avoid the clockwork issue discussed here. I suspect a pair of L motors would have plenty of pull and should be sufficient for 10+ heavy cars (but I have not built an L motor locomotive yet) @greenmtvince Love those trains, they are all fantastic @Mark Bellis Your creations never cease to be amazing

Nice work!

Great station and well proportioned. Your layout also has a lot of interesting things going on. The level of detail is very nice for a layout of this size. Keep up the great work!

Oh, thanks for the kind words and you are quite welcome. This set of instructions was my way of making it easier for folks just like you to get into the hobby. No, I have not compared the parts list from the set against the instructions, I just made sure that the most expensive parts (at the time I made the instructions) would be in the set. If you stumble on to something that is too expensive certainly substitute, e.g., much of the 1x4 bricks in the walls could be built with 2x4's (well, you will need some 1x walls in the PF powered unit) or 1x6 bricks, or panels, or ... you get the idea. Also the 4x4 plates can be replaced with a pair of 2x4 plates, etc. You can print off the parts list from the instructions and then review the parts list from the set, checking things off that are already in hand.

Indeed, I ordered a roll of that tape (3M 1183) but I figured I'd wait to see how well it worked for me before going into details, just in case it was a different product that worked so well for the person at Bricks by the Bay. Google around and you should be able to find it elsewhere in smaller quantities. I decided to try the 1/4 inch and got a single roll (18 yards) for about $21 with shipping from http://www.mouser.com/

She's looking great! Can't wait to see her with your fine cars in tow. (I would agree with lostdriveway that the scenery is equally impressive)

Oh wow, codefox, that case looks bomb proof (hopefully it is somewhat girlfriend proof too, grin). I'm a lot more casual about storing or shipping my trains. Most of my builds are fairly sturdy and for these I've found the lego to be very robust. Here's a typical load after a big show, I use almost exclusively copy paper boxes with up to 32 stud cars fitting 12 to a box, 24 stud cars fitting 20 to a box, up to 52 stud cars 10 to a box. A little packing bubbles between layers and in voids and off to a bumpy ride in my car. I used to try to perfectly fit the cars in the boxes before the show but that always made packing difficult at the end, so now I try to have 0.5-1 box worth of extra capacity so I don't have to worry about being precise in my packing. Some of my larger trains get a box of their own (e.g., the Superliners, the North Coast Limited, and the Empire Builder), the rest, well however it fits. Once home most of the trains then just go on a shelf in the same copy paper box. I've taken to bagging some of my recent builds before putting them in a box because there are a few small parts that really want to fall off and this way they won't wander far. A few of the other cars will always drop off a little bit of the undercarriage, but that quickly goes back on. Only the steam engines get special treatment (notice the plastic tub on the left of the cart), these have a lot of small parts so this way if something does fall off it can't get too lost. For my more delicate steam locomotives I've built football helmets to protect their noses. Still, I don't feel comfortable packing these in the club trailer where they will have to survive sliding around or being crunched by a few hundred pounds of tables (here's one of the other club members rebuilding before a show after a particularly rough trailer ride)

Good to hear... well... not so good as it now sends me off on experimentation (grin). In all seriousness thanks for the information and if indeed it works that would be a handy piece of track to have in my layout. I'll post back if it works for me (probably in a few months).