zephyr1934

Here you go... it should be a very good first 9v set. The Santa Fe is a fantastic set. Even if it is price prohibitive, it is an excellent set to build a repainted MOD out of. I'd suggest downloading the instructions, get a copy of LDD or LDraw and build it in virtual bricks. Then change the colors, tweak the design both for parts not available in the new colors and to avoid expensive pieces where possible. It is an excellent adventure into a first MOD. There are several solutions for the windows, e.g., using clear stickers for the portholes.

There are duplo crossing tracks, but they are not common. About every other cycle has a crossing in the large duplo train set. The other common alternative is a bridge, which can be used as a crossing as well (also most recently found in the large duplo train set). If you have enough track you do not even need the bridge part. In either case, you can make a figure 8 layout embedded in a "O" using the four switches to connect the top and bottom loops while bypassing the "x" in the middle.

This is a nice build, with the inclusion of the old style windows it really has the feel of one of the train sets from the late 70's or early 80's.

Greetings RTZX9R, that is a mighty nice collection you have. And don't worry if you don't have any MOC's, plenty of the folks in this forum don't. There is always something interesting going on and worthy of comment. See you in the forums

Hi all, thanks for the kind words. It was a nightmare getting the spacing right, not only is there a lot of snot, a lot of it is offset by one plate here, a half plate there... ugh! It was a lot of fun digging up photos of the old buses though. @Ben C The front bumper was tricky because behind the bumper the outer two studs are occupied with snot until past the front wheels. So the connection has to go up the middle two studs and it actually anchors with two technic axle pins just ahead of the front wheels. The main visible construction is made up of two pairs of theses: Between each set of these connectors I used a friction pin both to keep the pin connector from rotating and because it is hollow throughout (the regular pins have a stop in the middle). I ran a 4 long bar (light sabre blade) down the middle to keep the bumper rigid across the two halves. Then topped it off with a pair of half pins on the ends. If that doesn't make sense post back and I'll take a photo of the underside.

My first 9v train set was the 4561 and it soon turned into my first train MOC. Partswise 4561 is a little nicer than 4559 because it has two complete sets of trucks and couplers whereas 4559 has a shared motor truck on the first car. The drop baseplates in both of these sets are of limited use (very good for somethings, but not so good for many other things). I personally would recommend 4512 or 4564 as an entry 9v set. I think your choice of just buying the parts you want is a better decision than buying a set you don't like (way too much curves not enough straights). Keep an eye out for them at resale shops though, you never know when you might stumble on to a deal. I have 9v and I enjoy it and it will probably remain my dominant variant, but if I did not have any 9v I'd probably just stick with PF. Or at the very least, I'd hold off and see how well the ME metal track works out.

Welcome aboard snaphappyninja, 60052 looks like a great set and I bet you will have a lot of fun adding your own twists to it. See you in the forums!

Wow, nice looking engine, is that 16 wide? Now you just need a few technic figures to work the engine (grin).

I can't wait to see all of these cars together. Looking good!

[ full gallery] Hi there, I'm wandering out of my normal train haunts because try as I may, this MOC simply is not a train. A little over a year ago I rewatched Ferris Bueller's Day Off. What was my big takeaway? Wow, those old CTA "fishbowl" buses were really cool. They were built by GMC and Flexible in the 1960's and 70's and were used by most major cities in the US. I've been a fan of the Corgi diecast models of these buses for some time but never really saw the need to spend that much money on one (I mean you can't take it apart or anything). The movie reminded me how great those buses were, then a little tinkering and viola, I had myself a CTA bus in time for brickworld 2013. Later that summer I added Columbus and Cleveland Yes there is a heck of a lot of snot going on there, but you can still see through the model... You can even see through it front to back, but ever so faintly (several layers of snotted trans clear plates, headlight bricks, etc.) though I don't have a photo. I've already added the dark orange grated cheese that came out this spring to the rear Columbus bus and maybe some day that part will come out in tan so that I can get the AC unit too. For a few more photos visit the entire gallery.

Wow, that's some impressive engineering to get all the parts in the right place in such a short height.

Either buy it from a third party off of bricklink, or call lego customer service and ask for replacement parts.

Oh, good point, but also quick to fix. A gold 1x1 plate in one as a builders plate and some grebling in the other (technic half pin with a loudhailer (4349) as an air compressor) and "poof," the holes are gone.

I'd suggest keeping the locomotive unpowered and put a PF train motor in one of the cars with the battery box and IR receiver (probably the box car or build a new power car in the same style as the other cars) -errata- Doh! I missed that you had already tried this solution. It SHOULD work, the train is small and light enough. If you go back to this idea, you might want to check if all of the wheels spin freely on the various cars. It could be that you have one wheel that is causing a lot of binding and it may be part of the reason why you are still having problems. Also, if you are pushing the engine, make sure you do NOT have the traction bands on the drive wheels of the engine.

I did a trainline power supply on one of my trains using the old 9v power wires. I found it to be too much of a hassle to connect and disconnect that I stopped using it. In the process I found that the 9v wires can be a bit finicky, either bunching up between the cars or eventually wearing out where the wires enter the connector due to the perpetual bending. Depending on your space and power needs, you might be better off just using one of the old style 9v battery boxes or simply a loose 9v battery in the car that needs power.

Apologies for typing late at night (thus omitting the necessary visuals), and yes, think some of you are following what I was getting at. For the rest, here is what I was talking about... (click on thumbnail to see a large version) though I'm sure an xacto knife could realize the same effect for non-purists

Oh, yeah, they would never go back to the 4.5v/12v/9v style magnets that could be easily swallowed. What I meant was to just make a slight modification to the current buffer piece. Right now if you hold it up it looks like a "T" with the magnet opposite the 2x2 tile, then on the two arms of the "T" there are the buffers parallel to the magnet. Keep the arms of the T but where the actual round buffers are, replace them with two studs on the "T". So it is still sealed and cannot be swallowed. Then yes, use two of some new/repurposed part that is slightly larger than a 1x1 round brick that pins on to the two new studs to make the actual buffers. It is certainly feasible, Lego is always tweaking the molds (e.g., the jumper plates changed twice in the past couple of years, and even the sealed buffer beams have changed once since they were introduced). Of course I am not holding my breath.

Lego is a quirky company (and that is part of the fun). The consist of EN was balancing the price point and part count, hence the tiny tender and only one coach. And like the HE, they were hoping you would buy more than one copy. It is not so much a question of making "a profit", a set has to make a target profit to be successful. Since trains are a niche market, they do not want to have a full line of sets at different price points. They would sell, they would turn some profit, but the profit per set would be a lot less than, say, another police truck for the city theme. As for the train wheels, I suspect lego paid more per set for the existing magnetic coupler parts than they did for the new train wheels even after accounting for the mold. I still think in 5 to 10 years they will get the pick line figured out and will then be able to offer small run specialized sets on demand (e.g., a single train car) with sufficient return. That is what Cuusso/Ideas appears to be working towards. I just wish they would revisit some of the good ideas from the hobby train and the regular "creator" line. Produce a train set that could be built into one of three different pieces of rolling stock, but they all work together (kind of like the Emerald Express only in a full sized train). You just want the engine and one car? Buy one copy of the set. Want the engine and a total of four different cars? Buy two copies of the same set. Even better, include small but important variants that allow customization for different parts of the world, e.g., the Maersk train could double stack the containers for the US or put them side by side for Europe. Or one of my personal favorites, remove the buffers from the buffer piece. Replace them with studs (so it is still "T" shaped to prevent ingestion, but if you are building a N American train, you do not need to put the buffers on). Then if you are a European builder, put put the buffer piece on.

I was fortunate enough to run some of my long cars on the BW PennLUG layout last year. The curves are fantastic, but at least for my long cars they actually created more drag than the normal lego curves. For example, my full set of superliners only made it around once or twice before the IR receiver started cutting out, I can sometimes go a complete charge on normal lego curves with the same train. It looked great in the photos though (grin). Nate was way too accommodating of my son (thanks again) so I did not want to hang out there too long debugging my train. It could be made to work, it would just need a second IR receiver, but I'm digressing, the one thing I THINK it shows is that those curves can have more drag. (Come on ME Models, come on) So you might not have been able to hit a record anyway.

Oh, wow, in the small photos I missed that subtle taper in the boiler. Very nice.

Oh, that is slick. It looks like the reference model used a cut down full technic beam (the half wide beams only go out to 7 long). One potential weak point is if the motor comes loose, the bevel gears might not make sufficient contact. So just be careful to make sure the motor stays tight in place. One thing I would suggest different from the reference design is putting the traction bands on the axle that is powered rather than using the rods to transfer power to a different axle. Somewhere around EB is an article about adding a groove to BBB medium drivers for traction bands. I've not tried it myself, but it looks like it should help.

That's a nice looking update. I would agree that the cab roof would look better with curved slopes. Only other suggestion is that it might look better without the small window (back side of a headlight brick?) between the two larger ones. I think the cab length is fine, but I could see it working either way (this length or slightly shorter).

Looking great, it is neat to see the progression as the cars come together.

Some great looking trains and the layout itself can't be beat.

Wow, with each iteration I see more and more fantastic detailing in this MOC. Some of my favorites are so simple, like the step on the front of the smoke box or the hatches on the top of the cab. I guess the key is that you have incorporated a few dozen of these great, simple features. All that detailing really pushes it over the top.