zephyr1934

Also see Railbricks #7 for tips to make it run better.

Nice build, the binoculars for the pantographs are a clever idea. While I doubt it was your intention, the color scheme is reminiscent of New York Central. Pull off the articulated "hoods" from this model and it could look like an NYC boxcab. I know, I know, the croc is much more appealing. The box cab is just an alternate build to put on the back of the box.

Looks like a good start and I like the idea of the passenger train having to wait for the arrival of a station. While I never had such a nice table, it does remind me of the days when each time I built a new car I tried to find a spot for it on my layout. Those days are long gone. Be careful to also have enough storage to put your built trains that you are not running (which it looks like you might have both in and behind the cabinets)

Some interesting trains there. Though in the current build the cab looks more like a CF7 (in the 1970's ATSF converted more than 200 F7's to road switchers).

That is a great build (even with all of these insane curved pieces there is a warm spot in my heart for 45 deg slopes for the boiler), I think you struck a good balance between classic and modern building techniques on the locomotive. The cars and the track modules really round out the presentation. Very nice.

The PF system is set up so that you cannot connect two power sources together without deliberately modifying the path (either using a 9v jumper cable or physically modifying the PF wires). This design was deliberate to keep kids from accidentally damaging the components. Unless you are prepared to burn something out, probably best not to attempt to bypass the safety mechanisms. Recycle them if possible, the acid will potentially be a pollution problem in a landfill. I would agree, though with a few additional observations. Walls and a ceiling certainly help increase the range by allowing signals to bounce back to the receiver, but I've found the range at shows is incredibly short. It is often far shorter than the distance to the walls at home. At some point I heard that the lighting in large exhibit halls typically use wavelengths that interfere with the lego IR signals (which I think Duq was getting at with his comment about the light being different). Cheapest solution is to design a PF track layout that only needs to be controlled over a small portion of the loop of track, e.g., even if it leaves the IR range at top speed it will not fly off the tracks. One advantage to this approach is that you could actually have multiple control stations around the layout, having different kids controlling different blocks. Could be fun watching two kids ping pong back and forth. Just be careful that your train can stop suddenly while staying on the rails and go in reverse just as easily as it can go forward. For one-person control over the entire layout there is SBrick that just had the kickstarter campaign that might solve your problem. If you are hack-savy, there is the open source bluetooth system by Codefox or other home built systems that are not documented that are probably cheaper than SBrick but more labor intensive. You could also go 9v but that is expensive if you do not already have 9v.

@garethjellis Thanks for the tips, indeed, if I recall correctly you often make long coaches where you need the extra swing for the tight lego curves. This mod was just for the cases where I do not have room to use the 2x3 plates on the trucks. @Commander Wolf That's a good point, and thinking further, there is probably some combination of pins and technic pieces that could get the coupler out there in just the right spot with only one stud to do it from the train motor, but heckifIknow what it is. Still, I suspect it would not be as strong as the buffer plate though. @Aaron Oh my, functional knuckle couplers out of strictly lego parts!? The only ideas that come to my mind would be 4 studs wide... way too large for even 8 wide trains. Definitely post in a new thread if/when you have some progress on this immense challenge. @greenmtvince Good point, that potentially solves the availability problem... though I suspect Steve assumes one would use lego magnets removed from the black couplers. It would be great if he had a potential source for compatible magnets. Still, those do not solve my original problem of getting a coupler in the right place off of a motor in the minimum amount of spacing. Truth be told, I did this mod strictly out of curiosity. For the moment all of my trains with buffers off of a motor still have buffers off of the motor. It is little nod, true to the classic lego design.

Cool and good to know. Indeed, with an existing stock of lego track it will be nice that the ME track fits discretely in. Still, here's to hoping that demand eventually justifies more colors.

As a modeler of N. American trains, the lego buffer plates always sort of nagged at me. They certainly show the lego roots on the Super Chief, but when going for more detail the buffers get in the way of a North American design. I typically use the old style magnets and 2x3 plates with holes to get around that problem, but at some point I will run out of those magnets and there are some places where you simply cannot use the 2x3 plates, e.g., hanging off the end of a PF or 9v train motor. I've long wished that the buffers be made a separate piece held on by a single stud, while retaining the beam to prevent ingesting the magnets. A month or two back I decided to put it to the test. Pulling out my trusty hack saw I made quick work of two unsuspecting buffers. I think the net result is good enough for my occasional use on train motors, so I thought I would share.

A fantastic build, keep up the good work.

LT12V, you are putting the rest of us to shame, what is this, your 3rd fantastic train in as many weeks? Ah well, I'll just revel in the fine detailing. Great work.

For those of you not liking collisions, you better not watch this... As for myself, the collisions make me cringe and I don't think I would deliberately do it, but it is always fascinating how others play with their lego. Meanwhile, after having way too many accidental table dives I also now know how robust Lego is and realize that these crashes are relatively low risk beyond the time it will take to rebuild.

That does look a lot better than a half stud, very subtle but still clearly defining a door. I'm going to adopt that for my offset doors whenever possible.

Hey there ME Models, what color will the plastic rails be?

All the great detailing is readily apparent in this build. It clearly took a lot of time to achieve that look, but all the hard work really paid off. Keep it up.

That's great work (especially for your first train MOC). Keep it up and looking forward to seeing more (btw, also a fantastic id you've chosen).

They look great! Though if you are in the bay area, you should consider building a second set as the SP suburban cars.

You nailed all of the tricky curves on the model... now as many others have said, needs larger radii curves for the track (but don't we all... some time in Nov they say they say). There are a lot of great details in this build (no surprise). So on the doors to the coach, are those a half plate offset?

Great build and the bluetooth control looks really slick

The cars are looking great, the open top car is really fantastic, very simple design yet very good looking too. Groan! (grin)

Good bye living room... hello train layout with proper curves.

GN had branchline cabooses with side doors for LCL freight, e.g., http://www.rr-fallen.../gn-X100cca.jpg BN was still using these in the 1970's. But yours is probably more like logging railroads, e.g., http://www.trainweb....Caboose019.html

Looking good. For the round windows the trick is finding a hole punch in the right size. Perhaps print the size you need and then bring it to a craft store. If they scrapbooking supplies, they are likely to have a lot of different sized circular punches. These large cars look like they are already pretty heavy, and the technic axles have a LOT of friction compared to the regular wheel sets. If you are going to power it with PF (probably XL or several L) you will probably be okay, though your couplers might break apart. You might be able to make it work with 2 9v motors as long as you don't have too many cars (I'd guess 3, but experiment to see what works). If the technic axle trucks do have too much friction, you could build two variations, the detailed version for display (and perhaps close coupling cars) and the plain version with the stock wheel set for running.

Not sure if you want to go there, the long curve design has terrible power loss. Fine for PF, but not so good for 9v. Though given the size of your engine, you should be able to hide PF with little problems. Yeah, try rebuilding the underside first. I wouldn't be surprised with the length of your engine that the motors are catching on the underside of the train base. It is a lot cheaper. Perhaps replacing the train bases with 6x plates would be sufficient. Of course before you shop for parts, try it out with any old plates you might have lying around.

Wow, that is a great EN mod with lots of small but significant improvements (but now back to topic). Perhaps using plates at 8 wide as in this example, but maybe even one or two plates lower, plus curved slopes above could achieve the look you are going for? Maybe with an arch brick behind the curved slopes to hide the top of the wheels too.