zephyr1934

You did a good job matching the look of the prototype.

That car was (and remains) on my list of things to someday build. You did a good job at it and I'm surprised yours is the first bar car that I've seen anyone build for the HE. Did you try it with 2 wide standee windows instead of the 1 wide that you currently have? (of course you would also have to reduce the number to 2 or 3 of them too). I THINK there were variations of the prototype where the white stripe did not go over the windows and they were strictly surrounded by orange. If so, that would be easier to replicate at the resolution of lego. Now the one thing that has been bugging me about building one of these cars for myself is the fact that each half of the HE already has a bar. Did you convert those cars to being strictly coaches? In any event, a nice build.

Looks like a good start so far, and the 1x2x5 bricks are a cheap and easy way to get the look of the doors on the hood.

That is insane! The nose job is fantastic. It looks like one of the D&H pair wandered west and is now in storage in Michigan... at least if the caption here is correct. You are going to be hard pressed to do better with the windshields, what you've already done is very good and it is only the fact that you've been staring at it for a long time that you even notice anything out of place. As for A-B vs A-A, I'd go for the latter, after all, two noses are better than one.

I like it, it looks better than the lego track or enlighten track. If I did not have a ton of all gray track already that would be the direction that I would go with ME model track. The one concern that comes to mind is that the paint will likely chip at some point. Oh, and masking the curves might be tricky too.

Oh wow! That is a great little engine (and I like the wobbly loop you made with the 4 wide track, that looks good). The backhead of the locomotive is very well done and she looks great from the outside too.

Love that photo, looks like you've wandered to the shed at the train museum. Very contemporary steam (oh, and the locomotive is nifty too, grin, but you knew that already).

YEAH! Thank you (and again, if it does prove problematic to split the shipments, I would be fine with a coupon for the already paid for metal sampler pack with a future order)

Yeah... me too (grin) My first guess is that you are running on 9v track and you are doing so counterclockwise. Running clockwise might solve your problem on the curves. The 9v track have a little lip at the joints where the wheels can climb the rail. Details on the process can be found in "Clockwork" in RB 7. In summary, I THINK the problem has been reduced on the plastic track, but maybe not (I only have 9v set up). I have a similar problem on switches that is due to the general geometry of the lego switches (lego has redone the guardrails on the plastic switches, but again, I've not tried them so I do not know if it was to fix this problem or something else). There you can stack a 2x2 round plate and round tile to make a guard rail in the key spots, e.g., here's my solution. You can also use this trick on the curves to run counterclockwise, though depending on the rest of your railstock, it might cause problems for other cars. If that does not work, or you do not have the parts handy, then next thing you could try is disabling potential problems until you get it to run smoothly. First pull the connecting rods to the cylinders, test the running (there is definitely a possibility that the technic axle is binding in the "cylinder"). Second, pull the side rods from the wheels, test the running. If it is still misbehaving, see if it will run without the pilot truck and give that a try. Once you have made the problem go away, start adding everything else back in (except for the final step before it went away) to make sure the poor operation does not come back. You could also check to see if the driver wheels are not binding, e.g., because they are too far apart on the axle.

I made my pledge because I want a few loops of plastic track, that was my main goal. I tossed in a metal sample pack just to see what it looked like. At this point I definitely do not want to have my plastic track delayed by the metal track sample pack. While I certainly understand the production delays necessary to get it right, I also do not want to wait a second longer than I have to to get the plastic track once it is ready to go (I made a kickstarter pledge after all, of course I'm anxious). The plastic track is already a little behind schedule and while the metal track should be coming a month or two thereafter, I am simply too anxious to wait for the metal track. So if ME can't ship the two separately, is there a way to cancel the metal track from my order and be refunded just the $17? Or at the very least, issue a coupon good for a free metal sample pack in a future order? Then ship the plastic track from my order as soon as it is ready to go?

Yet another fantastic build, I can't wait to see shots of all of the cars together.

That may be the best looking truss bridge I've seen out of lego, and much nicer than the common technic designs. That took me a while to stop laughing... ... and then you hit with a second one (oh to have such problems, grin).

Fantastic build with lots of great detailing (at least as far as the small images reveal) and the color scheme works really well.

If they report distance with sufficient precision and accuracy, you should be able to use the two sensors you have to monitor both directions of train movements. You could even work in some reasoning to figure out which direction the trains were moving, even with occlusion. ... Doh! Just read the specs in greater detail. Only presence sensing out to 5 cm, so just enough to monitor one track and no range info. So never mind... Still neat stuff you are doing.

Indeed, I wasn't thinking of actually using blue door rails given the current price, I was just wondering if in a different color could they strengthen the design?

Those are some fantastic layouts, both in the original post and in raised's post. Meanwhile, Ashi, what are the rules of the road, it sounds like you had a block system in place, no? Do different people control trains in different blocks or does the operator follow their train through the layout?

Neat stuff, so what do you do for sensors? A break beam light sensor? Also, does it work with trains traveling either direction, or just one way right now?

Wow, that is an intense building structure on the inside. Could you have used door rails instead to do the ribbing? (though I think the blue 1x2's are rather expensive at the moment), e.g., PS, with the newer 1x2x1 brackets you could probably save on headlight bricks

Garden railroading at its finest!

Lego has a habit of revisiting things again and again and again that worked, e.g., the Maersk was a reworking of the BNSF and the 60052 is just a reworking of the Maersk. There could be all sorts of surprises, e.g., maybe they are switching to a 3+ yr cycle (though I THOUGHT someone said that they were told the Maersk ship and HE were closing out by the end of the year). Given the tight radius of lego track I doubt they would ever go larger than a 6 driver locomotive. I had not thought about a Shay before, though I doubt it would have sufficient recognition among non-railfans or kids to make Lego's short list. A well built 1880's era train might just do, especially if there is a western theme within the next two years. A 4-4-0 with an iconic diamond stack, a hybrid between the General and the Jupiter (the latter allowing for dark purple or other rare colors). The smaller locomotive and smaller cars would go further with the part budget, might be able to squeeze in two cars and a tender. Yeah the lone ranger train was kind of that, but ???

??? Have things changed? Back on Oct 9 when asked if someone pre-ordered both metal and plastic would the two ship separately you said "yes"

It is always nice to see the cars get as much attention as the locomotives. Some great detailing in that build.

This topic is already active in this thread...

Those trees are beautiful, great work.

Definitely agreed, the nice thing about lego is that you can make it anything you want.