zephyr1934

We recently finished building 60052 in my house and I noticed the same problem. If you are using the rechargeable pack it should not be much of a problem. It will time out after an hour or so and turn itself off. You lose some power for the IR receiver but since it is rechargeable no big deal. You could probably rebuild it to make a gap to see the light without too much trouble, though I haven't attempted it.

The oldest RC train wheels had horrible bands that slipped. Lego went through 3 or 4 different bands. The most recent ones I've seen are clear and work fine. You should be able to test if extra weight helps without rebuilding anything (just put something on top of the locomotive, over the motor).

One more suggestion- ask if the venue they can provide tables. On the plus side that is a lot less that you need to haul to the show. On the minus side your surface might be more wavy than you are used to. If you bring a few shims with you you should be able to level it. You could also use the venue tables to create the parameter.

That is a great build, you hit the look of the prototype on the spot.

I am flattered, thank you. Unfortunately I already have too much on my plate so I need to pass on this opportunity right now.

Lego probably would not include the PF equipment, instead making them an optional upgrade. So I would suggest changing these parts to "optional", which should also do a good job at lowering the price point. I was also thinking after my last post that maybe the snow banks "as is" would be more thematic (but perhaps figure out some way that the same construction could be fouling the track or beside it in two piles (with little or no rebuilding) to add some play value. For a winter village set, this does seem to be missing some of the hot cocoa and excessive hints of xmas presents or what not. But again, those are things that I think the lego designers could easily add in and not worth sweating over now. I would agree to a point that an 0-6-0 might be the way to go. Then Lego could use the full set of 6 driver wheels in one build. Thew following is NOT a criticism of your build, but rather a reflection of the mass market view that lego is pursuing. To that end, I think the two things this locomotive needs to make it a "typical" steam engine are the large driver wheels and a cab. While it is sacrificing historical accuracy, could you add a cab and redo the wheels? Then tell the fan community that with a few small changes they could mod the set to have a Brotli/Adler locomotive? Then insist to match the red wheels, lego needs to add in the red motor side pieces. Now to be a devil's advocate, how could lego have a winter train without a station? Many of the winter village customers would never consider buying a train. I would wager that lego would do a winter village station with no train before the other way around. Unfortunately for a station with a train, the train would have to be pretty tiny (a tank engine on top of a PF train motor + one car... maybe a combine coach/baggage?) Still worth doing to get lego thinking of the potential (the next lionel- a lego train running under the xmas tree). And who knows, maybe a train one year and a station the next.

Much of my comments eventually came up already in the thread, so apologies for redundancies (and I did not say some of the things others have said... generally you are getting good advice). One thing that has not come up is if you have extra tables, you could set up them up as an outer ring to literally keep the crowd an arms length away and help prevent any derailments from hitting the floor, e.g., here at a display that was largely unmanned for a week or two (though in this case there was also room for the club members to walk between the table to reach the layout). Thus eliminating the need for other barriers or the Plexiglas. Bring a bucket to pick up the pieces if/when a train goes over the edge. It might take you 30 min to rebuild but the other model railroaders will be very jealous of you for the fact that you can rebuild after a table dive. If you can bring a second body, do bring a second body. It always helps to have two pairs of eyes making sure everything is working and that the kids are not starting trouble. Also helps for snack breaks, water breaks and bathroom breaks. Chairs are also a must, but the venue might provide those. For the 9v loop, put in a second power drop on the far corner. That should solve those problems. Also keep in mind that the 9v motors could use a break every few hours too (or sooner if the train is heavy). All of the trains you've listed have a lot of drag. The EN with XL motors shouldn't care, but the Maersk and HE might. For these, they run more efficiently if you replace the techic axle wheels with the more conventional lego wheel sets. Not as pretty, but for a show you want the lower friction for sure. Don't raffle off the set at the show unless the show is paying you to do so. If you are doing it alone (or even with just one helper), I'd aim for keeping it modest, e.g., maybe just tracks and trains... or perhaps only a few buildings. My club can take 8+ hrs with 8 people setting up a layout. Oh, and find out in advance what the rules are for loading/unloading and parking. Often times it might take three hours before you can get your trailer or vehicle in to load up after the show.

I would agree that it is too large to be a production set, but that is fine for the conceptual stage. If it makes it to the big time Lego will figure out how/where to cut it down while maintaining their formula for play value, etc.. One obvious tweak is to repaint the tender from green to dark green and the coach from blue to dark blue (Lego does tend to toss in some dark/exotic colors in the holiday sets). I think the snow banks and the snow on the ties are a great idea... though I suspect lego would not include the track, e.g., with the horizon express they chose to include minifigures instead of straight track. However, the part count for the current snow banks looks way too high. Perhaps a pair of LURP's on their sides plus a few bricks to finish them off would do, or maybe an obscure bionical part might look like a pile of snow. I also like the idea of shoveling out the tracks. Looking at the engine, I suspect lego would favor a more "traditional" (read "generic") looking engine like a 4-4-0 even if it were less prototypical. Again, I do not think that is an obstacle in the concept phase.

Hello new friends. While it is always nice to pass along kind words to a creator, it is generally discouraged to revive a dormant thread simply to say "great work" (you can, however, send a private message to the original poster to that effect). Many active readers just read the recently updated threads. Reviving old threads like this just confuses some of us. Oh, and of course if you have something substantial, e.g., "here is how I rebuilt this work, look how it has grown..." I think that is generally okay to add that to an old thread.

That is actually a great idea. If there is someone willing to collect threads of "useful ideas". Perhaps even someone willing to collect and moderate the MOC index too. Even if only informally, it would be helpful. This forum used to have a moderator who did all of that work (and it is a lot of work), but we are moderatorless for the moment (not to downplay the fact that we have JopieK taking care of the most critical tasks, for whom we all should be thankful). I have no idea of the inner workings of EB, but simply having that information being cataloged in some manner would help the next moderator when they come along. Or there might be some way of updating the index periodically without a moderator (???)

Thanks for the kind words all. @Younge You just got my vote in your campaign to become the next lego production manager (grin). I probably would have used the half arches like the Super Chief it they were available in the two greens, it would have made the front a lot easier to do. The limited number of parts in these two colors made it a lot of "fun" to build. I have a 6 plate gap in the middle of the sand green to ensure that the sides line up with the rest of the locomotive (I think I used a 2x3 plate with hole and a jumper plate inside to get those together). Then the outer-most bit is studs out for the tiles and cheese bricks. The plow/pilot was fairly straight forward. I used minfig neck brackets to hold the 1x1x5/3 curved bricks on. The front unit has 1x1 tiles next to the coupler while the rear unit does not (if the tiles were there, they would occasionally knock against the magnet holder, very tight clearance). If you want more details on the nose let me know. @robuko Thanks for the kind words, though credit for that goes to Raymond Loewy, the designer of the original train. @garethjellis 3 locomotives (2 F7A and 1 F7B), and 8 cars (baggage, 2 coach domes, coach, diner, duplex sleeper, sleeper dome, sleeper observation), all of which are at least partially visible in the last photo of my original post. @BrickBuff I think it is about 14 ft long in total. On my home track it is always in at least one curve, but at shows it can stretch out on the straight aways. My favorite was when I ran it on the PennLUG layout though. Those curves were fantastic and all the detail they built in to the layout is over the top. I am looking forward to the ME models curves.

Those are some great cars and containers with all sorts of neat details. Thanks for sharing.

As promised, here are a few shots of the North Coast Limited, including a close up of the decals More details on this MOC can be found in a separate thread.

[ full gallery] I am pleased to present my MOC of the Northern Pacific streamlined Vista Dome North Coast Limited. The North Coast Limited ran between Chicago and the Pacific Northwest (the train split and went to Portland and Seattle). Much of the attractiveness of this build is simply due to the prototype, designed by Raymond Loewy. More info on the actual train can be found here. One of the unusual features on this train was the full sleeper domes (as opposed to the dome-observation sleeper cars found on several trains). More info on the domes can be found here. I have been working on this MOC for over two years and it remains a work in progress. The initial assembly occurred about two years ago and it has been displayed a few times. However, without the lettering, I considered it far from complete. I just applied the decals this past weekend and uploaded the photos to brickshelf. The cars are 42 studs long plus diaphragms (another stud total), to strike a balance between realistic scaled length at 6 wide (more like 52 studs) and the operational constraints of lego curves. The cars have a real vestibule on the door end (set off from the interior) like the prototypes. They also feature close coupling for display, with the diaphragms connecting, while with the insertion of an extra magnet allows for sufficient clearance to take a curve. The domes were my focal point. The use of the 3x6x1 curved windscreens was one of my favorite features, but there is a lot of snot in the domes themselves to get the right shape and form. I used transparent headlight bricks so in principle one could see through the dome, but in practice only a bright light can make it through all of that plastic. Still it does a good job reflecting the ambient light so the design worked, just not as originally intended. There are lots of subtle features to be picked out, including the detailed under-frame (no great shots at the moment) and the half plate vents on the side of the dome cars, e.g., as seen below the dome here. Throughout the cars I used an unconventional approach. Sand green plates are way expensive. So the lateral strength of the cars comes from white 6x plates between the sand green and dark green layers. This has the added bonus of making the windows much more apparent than they would have been without the reflective color on the inside. I did seek bonus points for the use of a large unruly piece for the roof of the observation car. I had to leave out several cars (including the RPO/dorm; travelers rest lounge; several coaches and sleepers; and a sleeper dome). The locomotives have a lot of subtle features going on, e.g., the louvered openings between the porthole windows and the much more complicated snotted nose. Unfortunately for me, the NP was one of the few railroads to actually paint over the chrome upper grills on the F-units, still, I took the liberty to use chrome lego grill tiles since they are typical of most F-units and dark green grills would not show up well. The train is powered by a pair of PF train motors in the b-unit, which also houses a rechargeable battery, IR receiver, and extra weight for traction. I've made a few small changes to the build over the years, e.g., swapping out 1x2 grilled cheese for 1x2x2/3 curved slopes on the nose of the locomotives. The train runs fine around standard lego curves, but it looks a little awkward, It looks REALLY sharp on the wide radius curves, e.g., on PennLUG's layout (videos can be found here) All of the photos thus far are from before applying the decals. Here are few shots with the custom decals applied, Many more shots are in the full gallery. Enjoy the ride, questions and comments welcome, [ full gallery]

Oh wow! That is a beautiful train. Each piece is a remarkable MOC unto itself, but to see them all together is really over the top. I can't wait to see more of the interior, the one shot you included above has some nice detailing that I've not seen before. Sure, it is only two seats, but you nailed the look of passenger car seats of that era.

Oh the irony, steam punking one of the few things that was actually steam powered in the first place. The MOC is nice build.

Oh yes, that would be fantastic to see 7740 revisited with the detail of the AFOL trains (there have been some good looking MOCs of this train in the various photo repositories). While I like 7564 a lot, I don't think it has the same iconic status as 7740 and it has been redone not once (3677) but twice (4512) already.

@1225Forrest Thanks for the kind words, perhaps some PM in the future, but more immediate will be rebuilding the C&O cars to be longer and replacing the black roofs with dark blue. Then building a few GP and SW in C&O. @English Electric While these decals are not from JopieK at ministickers.nl, everything I've seen of his looks good. Meanwhile, I finished putting decals on two of my newer works. First, the GN northern, with a few more shots in the gallery. Then second, the North Coast Limited, but the photos have yet to be moderated on BL. Once they are, I will post more here. I still have four more locomotives and three more cars to decarate...

That is a very subtle build of a humble locomotive. There are a lot of incredible details that you've built in. Then to see that you have fit so much PF in on top of that, unbelievable (yes, I know you showed the photos, but I still don't believe it, grin). I saw your other post about the switches and this is a great project.

That is a fascinating little engine (the prototype) with the cabs on both ends, looks like it anticipated the never built ACE designs of the early 1980's. The MOC is well done too, great work and thanks for sharing.

Thanks all for the kind words. The short answer to the burning question is that I found a sign shop that can print white and multicolor on transparent "window cling" or "static cling" decals. Now for the longer answer, I think these products are mainly targeted at retail stores, e.g., hours of service signs or short term promotions. The folks at the sign shop must have thought that I was crazy with this artwork, but they did not ask any questions. The following is my experience with the local shop, I have no idea if the products are uniformly available everywhere, etc. Preparing the artwork requires a bit of skill, including some proficiency with Illustrator or similar software to do the layout. Then there is the actual artwork (it helps to have a collection of railroad lettering and artwork, e.g., www.railfonts.com). So this task is non trivial, but certainly doable, especially if you already have the software, etc. Then there is the transfer process to the sign printer, e.g., making sure the scale will be preserved when printing. The cost is not trivial if all you want to do is a single train car. At least in my case there was a large setup fee and then small costs to increase the size. So I went nuts and did a large layout, It includes decals for 30-40 pieces of equipment, making it stomachable. For scale reference, the circular heralds that the bottom are about four plates tall and the larger "NORTHERN PACIFIC" stretch 16 or 17 studs long. I have to cut the artwork out by hand before application. For this first round I was not even worried about color consistency, I just wanted to be close. Next time out I will attempt to match lego colors and try some fancier things. At a distance the artwork looks great. Up close it is not as crisp as a laser print, e.g., there is some blur on some of the smallest numbers that are shorter than a plate tall and some of the colors have a "halftone" like appearance, presumably related to the printing process. I don't think any of this is perceptible beyond 2 ft though. Then there is the application, which aside from manually cutting the decals, is potentially easier than regular stickers because the material can be pulled up and repositioned. For my learning curve I started out with just the older MOCS that will be going to the upcoming show (as shown in the photos in my first post). The material has a slightly rubbery feel, so I hope it will stand up to wear and tear (I'll hopefully remember to post back as I gain experience in this regard). I am slowly learning how to work with the material. It has no adhesive, so that means no glue to show through the decal. The material is repositionable, so if you get it wrong the first time, it is no big deal to peel it up and redo, a feature that is far superior to normal lego stickers in that regard. For all of the pictures in my first post I applied the decals dry. It worked, but there were a few air bubbles, e.g., I noticed the bubbles at the top of the circular "monad" in this shot: So I went back and tried applying the decals wet, i.e., with a little water on the lego before application. That did a good job getting rid of the bubbles. Now the only bubbles that remain are when the decals cover the edge between two bricks that have slightly differing depths. I think this remaining bubble problem would impact any transparent sticker applied in this manner and it is something that could easily be avoided if the decals were laid out to split over the seems between bricks with one brick per decal and one decal per brick (e.g., as I think has become common in lego sets in general and was seen in the EN in particular). One of the nicest things about the wet application is that you can slide the decals around after you have applied them to the model (similar to water slide decals), which makes it a lot easier to get the perfect alignment. However, you then have to be careful not to touch the decals for a few hours while they dry. I think these decals are a lot more durable than water slide decals (they certainly feel more robust... just attempted a scratch test, no apparent damage to a decal applied 24 hrs ago after 10 scratches with a fingernail and a few scrapes with the corner of a new brick... I did not go crazy but they seem reasonably durable). And they certainly are not water slide decals, they are peel and stick. I've also gone on to letter about half of my North Coast Limited train with mostly white lettering on top of dark green and sand green lego. I think it really looks sharp. I don't have any pictures yet, but they will be coming as soon as possible.

That's brilliant!

So I've got a ton of lego train MOCs and I've been meaning to letter them for some time. My club has a show coming up in an art museum and I have so few new MOCs that I decided to take the plunge and spruce up some of my old MOCs. I made decals for four of my passenger trains, several of my steam engines and a few of my freight locomotives. So far I have only decorated the trains that I plan on displaying at the museum and one of my son's engines. Here are the results, first, my C&O passenger train, While I plan on rebuilding this train to make the cars 42 studs long, replace the black roof with dark blue, and perhaps make the locomotive PF, it was an obvious choice for the show because I live in C&O territory. A few more shots can be found here. While lettering the passenger train, I also decided to also letter my C&O BL2's Next, I decorated the cab on my son's sw1200. Finally, I lettered my NW J class and cars. I have one more shot of the new lettering in the main folder. I am least happy with this lettering job because it highlights a few deficiencies that would be really hard to rectify. Chief among them is that to my eye now the missing pin striping on the boundary between the red and black has become really noticeable. Without the lettering the missing pin striping was easy to overlook, but with the lettering it feels like it is missing. And no, at this moment I do not want to attempt the pin striping. Except for the sw1200 these are some of my older builds, from back when my passenger cars were mostly MODs of the Super Chief cars. With the lettering I am all the more interested in stretching these cars. But that will wait until time allows. I am not even half way through the equipment that I will be lettering on this pass. Almost all of what is left are my newer MOCs (I am very anxious to decorate my North Coast Limited). So more to come soon...

Impressive work, that looks like it was quite a challenge.

It's a great little build, especially considering it is your first train MOC. You did a good job of capturing the essence of a BR 08