zephyr1934

Excellent work and great PR

Thanks LoneBrickerSG, lostdriveway, legonerd54321, lightningtiger, garethjellis, and the rest below... I think the stockcars technically are 7 wide, with the ladders projecting out 0.5 studs on either side, but call that detailing on a 6 wide (grin). With the autoracks they are almost 7 wide too at the skirting with one plate on either side. Of course you can see more shots of the display, those were just moderated and can be found here, as discussed further in this thread. Yeah, you're right about the emptiness, they must be on the way back out for another load (grin). Oh, no upset on this end. As I said, I would have been surprised if I really was the first to come up with such an obvious use, I just was not aware of any other. Actually it wasn't that bad (well, except for the 9v motors of course), but I had most of the parts on hand already. I assume you saw the two other shots here. There are probably a few more shots mixed in at the show... yeah, here's one. The basic design of the cab unit is very similar to my new MNS locomotives here, though I changed the hood slightly in part so that I could apply the stickers. 6 wide is always a fun challenge (grin), antialiasing in 3D. Here's ten years difference in my designs side by side, (yeah, the color balance is horrible)

My club, COLTC, just finished up two large displays. Going in reverse order, we just finished up a two day display at the local World's Greatest Hobby train show. Given the railroad theme of the host event, it featured lots of trains, with separate areas for passenger, freight, and locomotives (hey, who stole the roundhouse!?) With several mystifying vignettes and deep sociological commentary added to what is the single most recognized MOC in almost any of our shows (much to the chagrin of many builders in our club) more WGH shots can be found here. And before that was a static display at the Columbus Museum of Art for about two months. On the free days at the museum the line to get in would stretch several hundred feet. This show was more about the skyscrapers and medieval village. With yet more sociological commentary (I'm not sure if the flat earth society ever caught up with those stinkin spherical loons) One of my favorite MOCs from the two shows was this little gem, a mid-century motel by Gerrit (here's another shot at WGH ) More CMA shots can be found here.

Indeed, that is a unique looking locomotive. On the side of the cab is the center window supposed to be the same height as the two on either side of it? If so, perhaps use two windows sideways, e.g., as in the copula of this caboose. The train bases are not just for keeping the part count down, the convenience also includes decreasing the probability of a building mistake preventing the car from operating. When the base plates are about the right size and available in the right color I actually prefer them because they are strong with a hard to beat weight to strength ratio, and they make a solid base to build on to make a stronger model. As for the bogie plates, the beveled edges help them rotate against whatever surface is above without getting caught on something.

I too like the one on the right with the curved bars, very nice (and great use of the 1x1 round plates for detailing)

The SP (and its sister, the Central Pacific which was later absorbed by the SP) had all sorts of strange steam engines, e.g., the 4-2-4 CP Huntington. It, the SP 10 above, and a few others can be found on this page. From the excessively large cab I'm guessing the SP 10 started life as a tram locomotive, perhaps on an interurban train that ran in the street before electrification. taltosVT has a nice cog railway posted, I think I've seen others. Here's an odd duck for you, a GG0.5.

I think Enlighten copied the old style train magnets that have separate buffer beam, holder, and magnet. If so, it is quite possible that shady333 only knows about the newer sealed magnet couplers from lego and might not have seen the original lego versions

My rods are 3.5 mm thick while a thin lift arm is 4 mm thick and a plate is 3.2 mm tall. This odd thickness in the rods arises from omitting the pin cuffs on one side and allows them to float on the technic pin heads. It also allows the rod to bend outward like the photo in my last post. You cannot (easily?) replicate that design with thin liftarms because the side rod is 9 long and the longest lego thin liftarm is 7 long. You can do it with thick lift arms or technic connectors (both are the same thickness) and that eliminates the need for bending the connecting rod. I think in this case a 3/4 pin works, but it might need a full pin.

Thanks for the kind words, the TR3 has a pair of 9v motors, one each under the first and third units. So I can pull out the middle unit and make it a TR2 or both calves and make it a common switcher.

I've built several new MOC's in the past 6 months and have not posted anything on them until now. First off, I have a new stockcar, I can't believe that I am the first to come up with the idea of using the 1x2 plates with ladder for stockcar sides, but I could not find any other examples. The use seems obvious so I am sure if you did hard enough that someone did it at some point. The one definite new bit is the all orange version given the fact that the orange ladders only come in the Simpson's house A few more shots can be found here, along with my older take on similar cars. Next up, my take on the TR3, often called a "herd" because it is a cow and two calfs. I found a builders photo of it on line, but I've since lost it. Here is a shot of part of the locomotive in its original paint scheme and here is a shot of one of them in a newer scheme after being renumbered. with a few more shots here. I almost forgot, while not new MOC's, these C&O cabooses are newly lettered. Next up, I've retired my old autoracks, and replaced them with a newer design. I borrowed a lot of the "rack" from Andrew Duff's fine build, including the trick to make the top of the trucks part of the frame to make it a lower riding car. I went further, moving the top of the bogie one plate higher into the car, and then adding a 1x8 tile skirting outside the normal lego bogies (you can see it in the car on the right in this photo as it is coming out of a curve). I wanted to keep my cars to 42 studs so they would be a little easier around the curves. I also made the ladders much smaller and used a different part for the roof. Unlike Andrew's build (and my older autoracks) the doors do not open and there is no interior. Several more shots here, including my old design from ten years ago. I have a couple of shots of the old and new together, but I will have to upload those in a few days.

I finally got a shot of the decorated coal cars, And more shots of the decorated equipment should show up in these photos from our recent show, once moderated.

Oh wow! Looks like she is going 100 mph when she is standing still (just like the real thing). Excellent build. BTW, are those custom metal tracks she is sitting on in the photo?

While I certainly do think that Zephyr's rods are keen, if you keep it pure lego I think something like the rods on this moc are a pretty good solution... oh, and while I like the cylinders in that design, the "piston" design from Cale is REALLY simple and runs very well, e.g., as used in this MOD, with more details here.

Good knight!

That's another thing you could do is build a repaint of the EN locomotive... or probably not that expensive to simply build it in dark green. I think the only rare pieces might be the gold stripes and you could use the undecorated versions without much loss. The passenger cars are way expensive, but there are other nice designs out there for cars. (well, "you" davidmull said that you prefer new sets and there is nothing wrong with that, but I guess that means that this post is to the "you" everyone else who is reading)

Simple, as dr_spock put it, buy the sets that catch your fancy and skip the rest. The Santa Fe is a great set (probably my favorite), but I'd suggest downloading the instructions and build it in the colors of a different railroad. If you are not a huge fan of N. American trains, there were several similar designs in Europe, a few were even double ended.

Duq, in your ambivalence toward the passenger train but also desire to support lego trains in general (both points I certainly respect), why not simply buy a second (or third, or ???) copy of the freight train and either build it or use it for parts? I think the freight train is a better buy as a parts pack than the passenger train. It would also send the right message to lego- design a better set and it will generate demand. On the other hand, several others have raised good points that the passenger train could easily be modified to something a lot nicer. For me, though, to put that kind of effort I would rather build something else from scratch. I had mentioned in another thread that if we do not have an AFOL train, we as a community really need to come up with a few gateway designs to take the stock train sets and use a few more parts to turn them in to a much nicer train (e.g., as I had done with the Lone Ranger engine, with or without the custom rods). Since several folks have already come up with an improved design for the passenger train, if one of them has a CAD file for it perhaps we could circle our wagons and turn it into a set of instructions? Even in my case that could overcome the "it takes too much effort to mod the set". (BTW, I've got thoughts along this line for the freight train, but please do not let me stop others from doing the same)

Oh wow, while I like the original already, the update is even nicer. Lots of great detailing- the rim around the tender, the stack (is that a small train wheel?), the simple yet very convincing smokebox door, all sorts of goodness. So no suggested changes. I'd be curious to see what is at the cylinder end of the valve gear.

The boiler, firebox and tender all look to have a good start. I Think most steam engines of this vintage would have had two domes on the boiler, one for sand and the other the steam dome (at least they would in the US, but this looks to be a British locomotive, which I am less familiar with). The cab windows do not look prototypical, but that only matters if you are trying to reproduce a specific locomotive. In the side view the underframe looks quite bare, definitely needs cylinders and some detailing... but if you are having running problems that lack of detail will make your life a lot easier since you do not have to figure out how to preserve the details while redesigning. Also, the way you built up the boiler on plates should make redesigning the running gear a lot easier. Often times the biggest challenge with a lego steam engine is simply getting it to run the way you want it to. That just takes a little trial and error... and upon stumbling over an error, forensic analysis to figure out what needs to change. To this end, building up "quick sketches" is a great approach. That is to say, don't worry about colors, or if your bricks are too long, etc. Just get the axles in the right place. Once you have an idea, run it by hand over the track to see if it binds anywhere, if yes tweak and repeat, if no, try it with the tender, then add the boiler back on, etc. until you are happy with it. One last suggestion if you built it by hand (rather than CAD first) you might want to preserve your current frame in case you accidentally go in the wrong direction when redesigning the mechanicals. =========== edit- scratch that, indeed, it looks like many British locomotives only had one dome

Greetings new friend, while indeed there are all sorts of interesting bits in old threads like this, please do not bump an old topic just to add a small comment or ask a quick question. Few of the readers will remember the original discussion and it just becomes confusing for the regular readers. If you have questions for the original poster you can try sending them a private message. You can also start a new thread if you have a related topic that is not a direct continuation. Of course if you do have a substantial follow up to an old thread it is sometimes appropriate to do a bump like this, e.g., "I finally built this and found...."

This looks to be a very nice follow up to your DDA40DX. I am looking forward to seeing more details.

These look neat, please keep posting as you continue to develop them. One small note, it looks like the running surface of the wheels are completely flat. You probably want a slight slope on it so that it is shaped like a truncated cone. That will help keep it stable on the straights and more importantly negotiate turns (the different radii on the conical surface allow the wheels to compensate for the fact that the outer wheel has to travel further).

Thank you for sharing these wonderful resources, I have already put the ME tracks to good use and I am looking forward to the track planning library.

Excellent idea

I think the ME straight track comes out cheaper per stud than what you can get lego straight track for either direct from lego or from bricklink... but certainly check prices. As long as you don't have long cars (more than 32 studs) the lego curves via bricklink are probably cheapest option and it is the tightest curve for small places. However, another neat thing with the ME tracks is that you can get rails in dark gray and ties in another color. If I did not have a bunch of lego track already I'd be interested in that feature. The ME track does require assembly and is not as durable as the one piece lego track but as long as you are not planning on tearing up your layout every few days it should be fine (the lego track is designed to withstand even the toughest of children).