zephyr1934

Great build, and indeed, it looks like a well crafted HO building.

Great build, the handles on the door and the roof are some of my favorite details Hey, what about all those BL2's??? (grin)

"I have this strange feeling that I'm forgetting something... nah, couldn't be."

There are lots of great detail in that layout and the two levels really add something. The steam engines are very well built with all sorts of clever parts usage (that yellow one with the aquanauts window is crazy).

I think you are on to a really interesting train with these two cars.

I had heard that as well... I think from some of the AFOLs who gave feedback during the development. Somewhere there are photos of the prototype segments and they did not have the guardrails. I suspect late in the testing that lego discovered that a heavy zig-zag would lead to derailments and added the guardrails to keep the parental complaints down.

That is a great build, above and beyond the praises from others, you also did a good job filling the new shorter window.

Wow, that was a quick turnaround on a recent discussion in a different thread. While I am not familiar with the Pacers, from the discussion I fear "good" is not an appropriate word to be used in describing a Pacer, but to heck with it, that is a good build. The PF gearing is also eloquent in its simplicity.

Sigh... such a wonderful sight. Great layout, you make it look easy but there is clearly way too many hours in the scenery alone.

Indeed, it sounds like you are dealing with two or three problems... Spot on, in addition to the force trying to push the truck apart, the bevel gears will want to creep off the end of the technic axles if they are able to. Putting a bushing in the way so that there is nowhere to go is quite helpful, or in the case of the following picture from an earlier post, a pin connector on the central axle and 1x1 technic bricks on the cross axles. Given the fact that there is an XL motor in the background and this is Cale's design I would surmise that it is plenty sturdy. Yes, and a quick summary can be found here. Though that discussion was why you will likely have better performance running your steam engines clockwise (rather than counter clockwise) around a 9v layout. A similar problem arises in how you choose to transfer power to the wheels. If the central axis is spinning clockwise as the train goes forward it will push the front axle of the truck against the right hand rail and it will hit the small protrusions at the rail joints. Rebuild your truck swapping the location of at least one bevel gear and now the central axis will have to turn counter clockwise to go forward, thus pushing the leading wheel against the left rail, away from the protrusion at the rail joints (I THINK the RB article goes into more detail on this problem, see in "Clockwork" in RB 7 for more info).

I don't remember exactly how I did it, but I added a vertical hinge on the EN pilot and trailing wheels so that it looks something like this engine when picked up, Having the wheels bend down like this will not solve your problem (but it will help keep the train from derailing when the driver wheels go over a bump). What you need is for the wheels to bend up when in a dip and keep the drivers on the rails. Again, I don't recall exactly what I changed, but I was able to clear out at least one plate above the wheels on both the front and rear to allow the hinged pilot and trailing wheels sufficient flex to keep the drivers on the rails when going over a dip. If the above still leaves you confounded, post back or PM me and I'll try to get photos of my EN mods.

That all depends on your interest. I started out building stubby cars with interiors, but I rarely did anything on the inside and the roofs keep falling off when I pick up the cars. So now I don't bother with the interior and often exploit that fact to hide snot work for a fancier exterior. I am also tending toward longer builds now. Is that best? No way. There are some fantastic 8+ wide builds out there that are 50+ studs long. Those get into engineering problems though to overcome the limited power and tight curves of the lego system (both can be overcome, but it takes that much more work). There is still something nice about a train that has a retro design harking back to the 12v era or whenever. In short, big or small, all depends on the builder's interest. One thing you might want to consider is experimenting with other styles. Maybe keep most of your trains the same size you've been building, but then for the Pullman's make them larger and see if you like it. You can still run trains designed to different scales, just don't park them next to each other if the size difference bothers you. Then again, maybe you do not want to uncork that bottle because it may leave you wanting to enlarge all of your trains (grin).

That car is insane... in a good way... but still insane.

There is all sorts of small detail thrown in, e.g., the red carpet. Great work.

Excellent! When you have time it would be great to see more about your jig and the curves too.

Greetings Stefan, welcome to EB trains, you have definitely come to the right place. You have some interesting builds already in your collection, e.g., your TEE has some challenging curves and your skytop... that is a very challenging build no matter what. I look forward to seeing more of your MOCs as they are built (either electronically or in brick).

At least from this shot the blue engine and three cars look very sharp. It is a pity that you have to pack it up again, but I'm sure the next round will be even better.

Looks good and I recognized the Soo Line livery right away (the numbers and two white stripes were the give away). If you are going to have a heavy locomotive, you should exploit that weight and power it. A heavy powered engine is usually a good thing since it increases the weight on the drivers, giving better pulling power. If unpowered, you want it as light as possible.

1) do the wheels turn fine when power is on and the engine is lifted off the track? if no, check to make sure you have quartered the wheels correctly, make sure you have nothing binding elsewhere. Remove the XL motor and try to turn the wheels by hand. Oh, also make sure the rods are not binding in the cylinders (remove the rod that goes from the drivers to the cylinder, I think it is a 7 long half wide technic beam). Otherwise, 2) Yes to #1 but the stop wheels spinning when on the track if no, check to see if the bands are loose, also check to see if it is only stopping in certain locations (both issues that others have mentioned). If the bands are loose, perhaps folks here might have further tips. If stopping only at specific locations that is likely the uneven track. There are some tricks you can do to give the locomotive a little more flexibility over these bumps. Also, make sure these tests are with no additional cars beyond the tender. If yes to #2, that might suggest you have dead batteries or a bad PF component. If none of these help, write back with more details and I'm sure someone will have a good suggestion for you.

Looks great in the video, please post photos too.

Okay, maybe the 15% off HE is not a good sign then... but I still THINK lego is trying to serve the AFOL train fans. Time will tell and suggestions like the SMSPTB can only help the case.

That certainly is a great build in the spirit of 12v designs, like 7777. You suggested that you are not completely satisfied with the build, if that is the case continue tweaking the design as you get ideas. Or before undertaking a major rebuild, make a submodel to make sure you like a potential change. Now I THINK Gioppa was talking about the fact that the piston is not in line with the center of the wheels (which is the case on most, but not all steam engines). Googling the prototype, it is clear that this locomotive had an external cylinder in a plane above the center of the wheels, and no piston in line with the wheels. From the look of the design, it seems as if that cylinder is actually for the valve gear. Translating the Italian wikepedia listing for this locomotive, it appears to be originally of German design and it has two internal cylinders (i.e., between the frame). Also, the unusual square sand dome on your model is consistent with the prototype. So you did a good job catching the unusual features of this locomotive (or at least unusual from a N. American perspective).

Simply an excellent build.

At least from what I've heard (and I am NOT in the loop on these things), the IDEAS designs that are accepted then get a major reworking by the lego designers before they ever go public. So worrying too much about the small details at this stage is probably not important. Lego moves in strange ways. They do not want to have too many different sets for niche markets. Given the fact that HE sold out in Europe without going on sale is probably a good sign for a future creator train. We probably cannot expect more than one train set targeted at the adult customer for now (again, I think once IDEAS matures, they will start offering many more niche sets). Furthermore, even if the trains lose money on their own, you need look no further than most public displays, usually there is a loop of track around most town layouts. So the trains help sell a lot more normal bricks. The hobby train crashed and burned for several reasons common colors (not attractive for AFOLs) all special parts also became available in PAB at the same time (why buy the set if you can get just the parts you want) a user needed LDD to see all but one instructions (at the time LDD required an up to date computer, and few people had a computer in their building area) the risk of small magnets became apparent, so the sets were blown out at a huge discount To a lesser degree, there was little harmony between the different designs beyond the fact that they shared the same color pallet. I do think it is unfortunate that lego has chosen to call the AFOL trains "Creator Expert". The creator sets are based on the old school lego, where a set could be built in several different ways, yet unlike the normal creator sets, the creator expert sets only have one way to build them. The problem with all of the recent AFOL sets is the fact that they are so inflexible. Want two passenger cars for your EN? Buy a second set and ignore the second locomotive. Want more cars for your Maersk? Same thing. HE was worse, want a train? Buy two sets. Anything else... well you are on your own. Since lego is likely only going to have a single AFOL set at any given moment, AFOL's want variety (and the vast majority of AFOLs are not designers, i.e., prefer to follow the instructions), I do think the best solution is to revisit the hobby train idea with several improvements, namely, use a rare color (lego has already learned this lesson) keep some of the parts exclusive to the set (again, lego has learned this lesson) if there are a lot of different models, print the key ones and use pdf for the remainder (I don't think lego is here yet) make the set more harmonious- instead of 18 disjoint trains, offer three or four variants in one box that all work together (like the super chief 10022). Even better, offer 2-3 variants for N. America, 2-3 variants for Europe, etc. to address a builder's natural desire to keep the design local to their home country. At this point the trick is then to figure out the color combination that can both yield a nice locomotive with plenty of detail and an attractive set of cars. Much easier to do for passenger trains since the locomotive and cars are often painted similarly, harder to do for freight. To this end, the Super Mega Steam Power Train Builder is a great first step. Lego needs to keep hearing the feedback from many directions.

From the quality of the renders I just assumed you were using LDraw, are you using something other than LDD to do the renders?