zephyr1934

Those are some excellent shots of some great MOC's. Sounds like it was a fun show.

Looks like my job in this town is done, now to mosey off into the sunset... in all seriousness though, yes, as Murdoch17 noted, you can easily replace the custom rods in my Lone Ranger mod to use regular technic beams. The one thing though about that mod is that it turns the engine into a 2-6-0.

That is a great little MOC, things like this really add so much detail to a layout.

As of a few days ago ME has restocked the R104 curves in their online store. At brickworld Tony gave a great seminar on the ME Track. He has been in contact with ME Models and they sent samples (everyone left the seminar with a straight track segment). He said that a large number of Kickstarter backers backed out without paying, which is part of the reason why things are moving so slowly. Then they ran out of stock and had to do another run, which just came in. So they should be shipping more KS pledges. He also said that if anyone had any questions, just send ME Models an email. Meanwhile, he brought samples of their forthcoming offering: silver rails. They look REALLY sharp on brown or dark brown ties... too bad I have a ton of dark gray lego straights or I would be all over those new color options.

The technic axle pins without friction did come in black in two sets from the 1980's, but good luck in actually finding them (most listings on bricklink are misclassified pins with friction). Though I suppose the tan pins are nothing a black sharpie marker can't fix (grin). I've seen piston rods that look bulky for these wheels using technic crank shafts off of the central axle... I think they add 3 studs to the width of your model and be warned that the clutch of the axle receiver is not very strong. It still can work in select situations. I borrowed the idea from someone else and used it here on a very cartoony steam engine, but I don't remember who did it first. I've seen some good mods to the wheels where someone drilled a hole through the wheels to insert a pin (I think they used a technic beam with axle hole to position the drill bit). I'm sure in either case I could fab a rod to fit (brickshelf is being flaky at the moment so I can't show you an example), but if you go either of these routes I'd suggest trying your chosen mod first to make sure you like they way it is heading before purchasing any custom rods.

How about this for a steeple cab locomotive... (grin) ... yeah, nothing compared to the excellent diorama though.

Thanks for sharing, all sorts of great info on ballasting ME curves can be found in that presentation.

That is a fantastic looking consist you have there. The big boy looks like it is track powered with metal drivers, no? How did you power it? Do you have more photos of the big steamer? While poking through your photo stream, the blue CSX locomotive is very sharp too. It also looks like you've been metal taping ME tracks, is that working well?

Looks like that spot could use a sanding tower over the sand pile I like the transition from wood ties to concrete in that shot... but what are those flex tracks doing there, are they permanent or just a place holder? You are crazy with all of that hard work and great results, but some of the most beautiful art lasts only a moment.

Now this is truly a fine bit of 1980-something technology, you did a great job of capturing the feel of 12v trains. And for your first steam MOC starting with an 0-X-0 is always a wise choice. Even with the retro feel there are a lot of nice details, e.g., the fence of grill tiles around the coal bunker. At least in the last shot it really feels like a small branch line or logging railroad engine. In the US there were plenty of 0-6-0 switch engines with tenders (non-tank) but your build definitely has the feel (and buffers) of a European locomotive. Plus, with a tender you would likely want to remove the tanks from the side of the boiler. There is only one thing gnawing at me... and it is the same thing I hate most about the EN... those tecnic pins in tan. Depending on what you have inside the frame, you might be able to replace them with 2 long or 3 long technic axles with a thin bushing on the inside. I really wish Lego have simply made those non-friction technic pins in black for the EN, it can be a real pain to work around.

If the batteries survived one week of heavy use by the kids that sounds good. I would agree with Vorkosigan, start with standard rechargeables (hint- do not screw the battery box back together). If you find the train is getting a lot of use or you start thinking of ways to customize it with the battery built in, then the lego battery might be worth it, but the battery is $50 and the charger another $25. They work just fine for me but it is a high cost of entry.

A very fine train, the pictures look great, but having seen it in person I have to say the photos still do not do it justice. The detail that you put into all of the vignettes and how you weaved through the entire song was well done. Then there is the fact that the photos show nothing of the extensive lighting you built into the train. Let's just say it looks even better in person. I hate brown... in all seriousness though, it was a bit of work to get the right shade but I like how it all turned out. Of course all of your own lettering really helps make the entire train pop. I'm working with a sign shop for my printing. It is stupid expensive to make a small bit, but the economies of scale start to kick in with a larger run.

I don't know, it looks like you are pretty close to a nice 6 wide PF locomotive. Take a look at the instructions for Maersk Container Train, set 10219 (available from customer service at lego.com or in my Conrail MOD here). The tiles bring the long hood out to almost 5 wide but I think that is okay. Of course it is all in the eye of the builder. If you do not like the look of the Maersk loco you could look around at how other folks have dealt with PF and find a solution you like. Of course packing all of the PF into a boxcar (battery, receiver and motor) is easily done and works fine in most cases. In which case you would not have to rebuild any of your existing 9v locomotives, just make a set of dummy trucks. If you have many locomotives you would likely save on PF this way since you do not need to build it into every single locomotive.

This is looking good and as others have said, the coaches are a big improvement over any of the official sets.

Okay, the new folder with day two photos is up and now all of my brickworld 2015 photos are now in this folder (I will add a few from day 3 and 4 at some point, but not much more). Meanwhile, the older folder from the older post will be going away soon.

Yes, day one is here for the moment, but it will be moving to join day two here once moderated. Scraps of day three and four will be uploaded later this week. Train quote of the show, "saved by the princess train" (which, incidentally, went on to be chosen as best train). Michael Gale's layout and PennLUG's roundhouse were the stars of the show in my opinion, though there were lots of great trains throughout (photos of most scattered throughout the above links)

I think a few pages back someone said Novemberish in the states.

That too is very well done. There have been a few one stud scale trains, but when done right (like this one) they are amazingly recognizable and the details are unbelievable. Excellent work!

Excellent work! There have been a few other 4 wides posted here, e.g., as enumerated here, but I think yours is the first I've seen that fits a minifig (excluding deliberate narrow gauge). So it comes off as either a deliberate distortion of scale or a 1/4 scale model railroad (either way is good).

Oh, there were plenty of horse cars that traveled with passenger trains in the US in the days before the interstate system. They typically looked like baggage cars, but had the main distinction that one end of the car would open completely, e.g., I've see at least two streamlined versions that, aside from the end door hinges, were completely indistinguishable from baggage cars... and in fact after the horse transport business dropped off many were re-purposed to be baggage or express cars.

Oh, that's right, I forgot about the fact that those 1x14 bricks bend back down. Getting the groove AND the bend is difficult. One could probably snot something, but that would take a lot of trial and error. The one stupid idea that comes to my mind is putting in a second pair of those 1x14 bricks upside down right after the current ones to keep the doors up. Otherwise, the overhead tracks will limit just how many door segments you can get in. Yeah, I had been watching those nets for the very same use, heck, they even used them like that in the lego movie... sigh.

That is looking good

That's looking good. A building like this would probably have storage tracks out front and a small yard to the side (all off of your baseplate). I like the fact that you used the garage doors, I think this is an excellent use of them. Two small changes that I would suggest, first, I think you should have the garage door track stay high and horizontal rather than looping back down. Otherwise, when the top of the door starts coming down it might hit the top of the locomotive. Second, the gay fence bits you've used don't come in gray, which is a definite shame since that is an obvious use for them.

If you are talking a normal boy both in terms of tolerance and interest in lego, almost certainly yes for the public hours. Though you will risk adjusting his expectations for lego that much further beyond what any normal person could afford (grin).

Looking good and that is a clever yet simple solution for the pilot truck. I bet it will quite fast with the large train wheels on the pf train motor.