zephyr1934

Looks good, though my only suggestion is that if you do find that you need more power (second motor) perhaps add the second tender back in for it instead of stashing the motor under a coach. You might even be able to power it off of the same battery and IR receiver... though at that point you could probably stash both motors under a single tender.

Sounds good, just let me know. Meanwhile, I have fabricated up to 17 stud long rods. I'll drop you a PM and we can discuss the details further.

Looking good!

Hum... maybe my suggestion for the roof wasn't that great. No matter what you do, probably the secret will be to de-emphasize the ends of the roof and keep it monotone. Looking back at the original, if the roof were all one color instead of red, black and dark gray, it would probably look fine (same to in version 2 with the wedge plate). The windows do look a lot better. Keep up the great building, Benn

The tram looks great (the seats, running boards, etc), but since you are asking, here is my 2c: I would change the 1x2x2 trans panels for the 1x2x2 windows (as you already have on the ends of the cabin) that long transparent band doesn't look period correct, and for the end roof, where it steps to six wide, perhaps use one of these (but then again, that trades off in the opposite direction), On the shunter, also already a lot of great little details there. Perhaps make the platforms on the end 4 wide at the top instead of the current 2 (seems a little narrow at the moment, but I also see that the prototype has a wide step at the base too, so ???). For the stacks, I'd replace the 1x1 rounds with technic pin connectors. Looks like they haven't made the new version in dark blay yet, so you'd be stuck with the more expensive old one,

That is an interesting boiler on the locomotive, to my eye it has a steam punk shape to it.

Well look at that, on "big sale" at TRU (now selling for MSRP) and actually on sale for $71 at Target.com

Wow! Yet more insanity (I say with the utmost respect and perhaps a little awe). That is a clever trick to wire the IR outputs together (if the receivers complain too much they are replaceable). It is just too bad that you cannot get the weight of the batteries on the drive wheels.

Wow, what a great build! And a slick trick with the cab windows

Wow! Great detailing on the locomotive (even without the fantastic stickers)

It looks good and so what if it happens to look like a set, that is hard to avoid if you are doing a container car using a drop baseplate. Still has several important improvements compared to the Maersk train cars, most notably the shared trucks. Also, the nod to so many themes with the containers is a nice touch.

Great build and looks like it will fill a nice corner on your layout.

The 10 wide looks like something out of a legoland park. I like the home built track under the loco too.

I suspect you will run into overcurrent limitations either in the IR receiver or the battery before you could realize the full power of 4 train motors. I have two heavy PF trains each with a pair of PF train motors. When they get warm the IR receiver will cut out for a second or two, then unfortunately it snaps back at full power. I recently got a v2 receiver but have not yet had a chance to install it. While I hope it will solve my problem, I doubt it would allow for significant power from a 3rd or 4th motor. Using two separate units each with two motors is probably a good solution, it is just a challenge keeping the speeds consistent. If you care about power but not speed, you could use a pair of XL motors. They run slow, but I've pulled 50+ boggied cars with a single pair and one IR receiver.

Hey desert752, that is a pretty slick looking train. The various operational features are very clever.

You are keeping the second one for yourself, right? (grin)

Wandering back on topic briefly, I THINK the 9v controllers were standard world wide, but the wall wart varied by country. If you scroll down on the BL inventory listing for the 9v controller, So first the good news, it looks like you need 70930, now the bad news, it looks like none have been available on BL for the past 6 mo. If you have ebay or similar, you might be able to pick one up there. Otherwise, as one of the earlier responses noted, If you brought the controller and wall wart to an electronics shop, they should be able to fix you up with a replacement wall wart that works with the local outlets.

Don't mention it (though you are quite welcome), I'm just paying it forward. There is no such thing as a dumb question after all and it often does take some trial and error to get lego to work right for AFOL trains. As for the EN and hills, I bet it could be modified so that it would do okay over grade changes. I built mine with extra points of rotation on the pilot and trailing trucks. I have yet to take photos of it, but the mechanical design is similar to this one.

That is soooo embarrassing when you run into yourself like that (grin). Seriously though, yes, I've done that before myself. Though worst of the matter, I saw that the cars had decoupled before the rest of the train collided but without any time to respond. ARGH!!! Out of 10+ crashes off of tables at shows (including a few with steam engines), so far I've only suffered broken bogie plate.

The box shows one layout that is 124 cm x 96 cm. In general the lego curves are just under 30" in diameter. Parallel tracks are typically 16 studs (or 5 in) center to center, straight track segments are also 16 studs long (there are 8 in this set). The two switches are 10 in long.

Wow, that's an impressive prime mover, and combined with a great MOC this is a great locomotive. The video answered my question about the wire to the second unit, visible in the last photo... you are literally running on an extension cord (very industrious).

The 7 wide looks good (I like the curvature of the roof on the cars and the use of the track pins). The 10 wide is not yet public.

Somewhere in the EB archives of the past 9 mo is one or two threads talking about the recent train magnets having problems. I think there was a batch where the internal magnet had problems flipping over and aligning itself in the shell. I think the simple solution is "bring the cars together slowly and listen for a click from the magnets before coupling." Or simpler still, if they pull apart, try recoupling. I THINK one of the posters also said that customer service was happy to replace the coupler pieces. I saw that today too, but it looks like it does not solve the problems discussed here, rather, it is simply a bundle of all of the parts you'll need except track to start from scratch. It looks to be at or near the MSRP for all of the included parts, so if you already have a train controller or battery charger, or do not care about the lights, it is more expensive than buying the parts individually. However, it is still a good gateway dru... I mean "set" for this hobby. For someone new to the hobby or someone out of the hobby buying for an AFOL, it is good to have all of the parts together for one click shopping. They still need to put together a track bundle for the HE though (again, even at full MSRP if they insist).

Oh, I generally prefer to err on the cautious side, and I think it is a good idea to test a prototype before spending a lot of money on fully detailing a project. Building and detailing the hill sections could be expensive and if you then find your trains will not work, that would be !@#$%. Better to first build the supports out of used 2x4's to test the idea. Okay, enough preamble, here are the points of caution that strike me. First, the stock lego train motors are not very powerful, so if you have a heavy train, that could cause problems. Second, if you have long wheel bases or some other odd design to a MOC locomotive, that might not like the gaps (e.g., some MOCs do not like to take switches). I THINK most of the stock city PF sets should do fine on a grade. The EN should do POORLY because the front and rear trucks will likely lift the driver wheels off the track at the bottom of the hill and lift the pilot truck off the track at the top of the hill. It is designed to run on flat surfaces. The HE and Masersk trains MIGHT be problematic- the HE because with 6 cars and only one motor the hill could be too much for it, two motors might solve the problem though. The Maersk simply because the engine has a lot of drag (if you put two motors under it, that might eliminate the drag problem and give it a lot more power). Oh, one more thing that comes to mind that you probably do want to avoid, and that is inserting gaps between rails on a curve. When a train comes around the curve the extra gap is a spot where the wheels could take to derail (see the clockwork article in Railbricks 7 for more on this idea)

Hum... since you are working in modular base plate sections, I'd suggest that you start out with a bare bones design to get the mechanical details working (just the supports to get the rail in the right place). Once you have that tweaked to your satisfaction, then figure out how to go back and make it look like a hill or bridge or ??? If you are using PF, my knee jerk idea would be to have the gaps occur at the edge of every base plate section. Then they should simply be wide joints rather than actual gaps (that is another nice thing about having the bare bones prototype, you can test the joints and see if they cause problems for your rolling stock). In any event, many (but not all) pf trains should be able to cross up to a half stud gap in the rails with little problems.