zephyr1934

This set is an excellent idea. A few thoughts that come to mind, none of which strike me as being issues for where the concept is right now, rather, if it makes it through 10k supporters at IDEAS, 1) it needs at least two 1x6x5 panels in dark green so that it is easy to make a short boxcar with one set or a large baggage car with no windows or other doors from multiple copies. 2) while the pin construction is a great concept, I would fear that the cars might sag too much in practice. I think it would be nice to include a pair of 6x28 black train bases (no red, no 6x24), those are so fundamental to basic train building and so hard to get (yes, advance AFOL builders rarely use them, but, this set needs to hit the same market as the HE, etc). 3) I'd suggest excluding a motor from the set, that frees up a lot of money for other parts, leaving the motor as an add on as was done in HE, EN, and Maersk. Otherwise, if it comes with a motor, then all of the builds have to use that motor. The current models switch between medium and train motors and I think that is an asset to be kept. Still, definitely keep the red train motor side pieces... maybe even include a black battery box cover 4) For the steam engines that have an internal PF motor, also include non-motorized variants (basically exclude the gearing) so that they could also be pushed by 9v or a power car [and for that matter, include a power car that has a PF train motor underneath as one possible design]. 5) While the steam engines look good, a few of the designs look like they could prove to be a hassle with real wires, e.g., slide 24 has IR receiver input and output wires coming directly out of the front plane of the tender. That would make for a very crowded gap between the engine and tender. 6) Looking again, the cylinders might need to be redone. The technic axle through technic holes like on the EN can be problematic for operating. Designs that fake the actual piston seem to work better, e.g., Cale's technic half pin floating between two bars is much lower friction and much more reliable. Others have used a wrench sliding on a fixed rod. Again, the above is minor nit picking. The design is a great one and very well executed.

As I mentioned in an earlier thread, the locomotives are fantastic, and as Commander Wolf said, paying attention to the entire train is always a treat. Looking at the cars, it is too bad that the old gate pieces are so expensive, they would have been a great addition to the cars... ... though the 1x3x2 are still pricy they are a lot cheaper.

I hope I did not offend with my earlier post of the Flying Scotsman in the US (and apologies if I did), I'm still stunned by that tour. Meanwhile, as I said, I think the build looks great and I am anxious to see how the printed bricks turn out.

See this thread, and maybe this one too.

All of the engines look fantastic, with all sorts of clever tricks (no wonder you say that you have so many LDD files of just building ideas). As for the above picture, it is always neat to see the trains in context (though !@#$% that the brick bricks do not come in dark red as used in your viaduct). The buildings and road vehicles show as much attention to detail as your trains. I can't wait to see some of these in real brick. Well you know, thanks to Duq, you can build virtual rods too... That's what I like about virtual building, no need to dig out the parts (if you even have them) or put away all of the unused parts until you have the design nearly perfect (always something that needs fine tuning in actual bricks, but that is also part of the fun)

That is still amazing to watch those trains climb the grades, especially given their size. Oh, and I have to admit that this is probably the first time I've seen stockings used so thoroughly in a lego build.

That's a great build, although the prototype is rather boxy, there are some tough angles on the front end that makes this an even trickier build. And those poor minifigures who gave an arm for the trucks... do not forget about them...

They had that and it was a great set...

Excellent! It is very neat to watch the evolution and progression of this design.

Looking good... at least right up until the edge... hope she went back together quickly. I would agree with jtlan about making the tender a little longer and putting two separate two axle trucks under it (though there were a wide range of different tenders pulled behind these switchers).

That is a slick build, great work! Please do post further about the printed bricks once you have them. Meanwhile, here's another locomotive on North American rails with dual tenders... (more info here... though since that old post the url changed to http://morphotoarchive.org/rvndb) and here is a shot of the whole train.

This looks really good. You've picked a really challenging prototype to build in lego with the very curved end of this unit. (now cut that out, you are being too productive and making the rest of us look bad... grin)

That is an insane livery, but you nailed it spot on. The real locomotive really needs a few checkers laid out on it though.

Oh wow! The train looks beautiful all together.

I don't know, seems the best trains to build are the local trains so a warbonnet makes perfect sense (or Texas Limited). And yep, that makes sense, 8 wide is 33% larger or 6 wide is 25% smaller. Unfortunately the part I used did not come in either red or yellow, but if you are not against part mods or you have a lot of room to conceal excessively large parts, there is a similar piece that did come in yellow.

Excellent!

Yet again I am humbled by all the kind words... answering the various questions... Indeed, I love the old passenger trains. It is hard to imagine what a third of a mile long passenger train might look like all painted like this as it zipped passed a crossing. The actual consist would be more like 15-20 cars. So not counting the missing cars, yes, this is a prototypical consist. Perhaps the most notable exception is that until the last decade of passenger service, the NP had a policy of at least one flat roof car in front of every dome so as not to impede the view. So there should be a coach between the two domes. But I did not want to do that because then the train would almost alternate dome, flat roof, dome. The sleeper dome would get lost in the shuffle. While I came up with that headlight trick on my own, I have since stumbled on to a lot of other folks who invented it before me. Keep an eye out and you will start seeing it. The domes are a crazy nightmare. Click here for the details of how I built them (many clear pieces have been recolored to help show what goes where). Meanwhile, I've uploaded a few more details to the same directory (once moderated), including an exploded view of the A unit nose. Of course there are easier ways of doing it if you have more parts than what are available in sand green. When the Super Chief came out, I always hoped they would eventually make other railroads too... but if lego was only going to do one, then the Super Chief is probably the most iconic. Maybe the IDEAS sets will eventually get to the point where lego can do many small runs of niche market sets, then the AFOL train fan market can be met without sacrificing the next police or fire station. Indeed, the PennLUG layout is fantastic (it is hard not to look good on it given all the detailing they've done). Meanwhile, the fact that I am active in a club that puts on public displays meant that much of the sand green came via lugbulk (still expensive, but it could be worse) With regular lego curves the full train requires a little attention to get it running fine. I have rare earth magnets helping increase the coupling strength, but still, if the train is moving too fast in the curves they might pull apart. Once moving, if starting with a freshly charged battery it has to run slow for 20-30 min. Then as the battery drains it slows down just a bit, notch it up one step and it will then run at a nice speed without problems for another hour or so. Done right, it can run two hours. If you go too aggressively, the IR receiver overload protection kicks in and you have to let it sit for 5 min to cool down (I still have not tried the V2 receivers). The motors did not like the irregularities of the wide radius curves on PennLUG's layout, at the end of each 16 studs there is a small turn to the next straight track. With the trucks turning and straightening for each one of those small turns between track segments, the IR receiver overheated after 40 min. So I am near the limit of the PF system when using the regular train motors (a pair of XL motors would have no problem pulling 5x this train). I could leave one or two cars out and these problems would go away. When I built my own wide radius curve, the long cars loved them. So I am confident that the ME curves will make this a happier train. Perhaps enough that I could add a few more cars without causing problems. Still, the full train ran just fine at NMRA 2014 for several hours without any of these accommodations. Yeah, I know, such a cute little train isn't it (chuckles). In all seriousness though, thank you. With all of the impure things I'm willing to do (custom parts, supplemental magnets, etc), strangely I like the challenge of making a train run on the standard lego curves. As it is these cars should be another 12 studs longer to be proportionate at 6 wide, they would need another 16 studs beyond that to be proportionate at 8 wide. Meanwhile, you aren't by chance thinking of a black widow for that F?

Looking good and the detailing on the trucks are insane.

Very nicely done, great work.

That locomotive looks even better in real bricks. Could you cheat the striping and have it curve to the lower front corner of the tiles? As for the trucks, I'd suggest you put a pair of half bushings on the axles for the wheels, it will help keep the bevel gear on the central axle (in my experience they really love to slip off if given the opportunity).

Nice job on a quirky locomotive.

That is probably the "buffers with plows" rubbing against the rails. If that is indeed the cause you could probably keep the bridge make the sound go away be swapping the buffers with plows for normal buffers or sanding them down a little bit on the bottom.

Oh wow, I just responded to your 0-4-0 and this one is even better, great work.

Thanks all for such kind words from such good builders. Indeed, working in the two greens was quite a challenge. There were no snot pieces at the time in either color (well, insanely expensive sand green headlights and dark green 1x4 bricks with studs on the side, neither of which I used). In fact at the time there were no 1x1 dark green plates or tiles and the 1x2 plates were stupid expensive (oh how quickly prices change). This build predated the Lone Ranger train, so the 2x4x0.67 slopes on the F's actually came from EN with the gold stripes removed. Needless to say, I love dome cars. If you've never ridden in one, do so at the next opportunity... and do it in a short dome like this so you can see all directions rather than a full dome where your view is limited (I cannot recommend the VIA Canadian highly enough, the Canadian, a few other VIA routes and the Alaska RR are the last domes in regular operation). In any event, the domes took quite a lot of work to get right and there are a few subtle tricks, largest of which is using the 3x3 curved plates on the ends of the dome to get the right look of the profile. The 3x3 technic beams and the windshields at the end of the car are both too curved compared to the prototype.

That's a great little engine with some nice features. It is very challenging to get the details into a moc this small.