zephyr1934

You were probably looking at the BBB medium drivers. The one odd thing about those drivers is that you can space them at 3.5 studs. Looks great, but you then need to either skip every other wheel when connecting the rods or use custom rods. Of course you can also use 4 stud spacing. A long time ago lego said there was no demand for train drivers, then Ben F. went and started producing drivers, proved there was demand, and wouldn't you know it, lego started producing drivers. It is a crazy world. You can find more about BBB in RailBricks #5. Functionally, the lego drivers come in a single size, have less clutch on the axle hole then BBB large drivers, but they have the counterweight, and grove for a traction band.

Hi there qnadah37, aren't the lego trains fantastic? For a long time I thought them to be just for kids (in the age of 4559 & 4561), but when the sets for AFOLs started coming out... well, I'm hooked. If you like running the trains without much scenery, it is pretty quick to set up a loop of track... even a large loop of track in any sort of open space (even quicker if you disassemble the track segments in pairs). Or if you like large, highly detailed layouts, check to see if there is a club in your area that you could join (most clubs are welcoming to members of all levels of interest) or aim for one of the many large shows (brickworld, etc).

Wow, fantastic build and great presentation

That is an all around fantastic build. It is so perfect that at first glance you do not notice all of the detailed snot work going on. The station has great details, the railbus is dead on, and then the building techniques are top notch. Wow!

That would be slick, they are a great looking train and the colors would work well in lego.

The originals looked pretty good too (even if the updates look better)

Looking good (of course now you need to build 50 hopper cars to drag behind, grin)

Another fantastic build. If you are winding down, hopefully you'll still hang out around the forums and toss in the occasional comment. Though here are a few parting thoughts, first, if you are space constrained, you do do like James Mathis did and go mostly virtual. Then, if it is getting too expensive, you could make instructions and sell them (sure, you probably won't get rich, but there will be a few builders out there that will be forever grateful and you'll probably get to see your designs built too when they build them).

A nice little build (perhaps a black technic pin for hitting the power switch?)

There are incredible subtleties no matter where the trains are from. That is part of the fun of building lego trains: build the model, find new details you can add in, rebuild and repeat. You also gain a whole new appreciation for the prototype this way.

looking good!

Great build (I have to stop look at stuff like this, it just makes me want to build a turntable and roundhouse, and I don't have time to build all the trains I want to build). At any rate, good work and excellent repurposing of the monorail parts.

Nice!

Yes, right off the bat I thought it looked like it would fit in with the hobby train. The 3 axle trucks suggests SD, the high nose and rounded cab roof suggest first generation. The specific model number, perhaps an SD 9. I THINK all of the letter prefixes originally had a specific meaning, e.g., "F" for freight, "BL" for branch line, "SW" for yard switcher, etc., but over time they simply became the letter(s) that denoted that general type of locomotive, e.g., F's became equally popular as passenger locomotives as well as freight. As for the the model numbers, there too, I think the early models there was often a correlation with the horse power (e.g., an sw1200 was rated at 1200 hp), but I think eventually the numbers simply increased with each successive update to the base design. If you want to peruse the various models, wikipedia is a good place to start.

You know, I never even questioned that the Super Chief model was an F7, I guess because Santa Fe was most widely known for their fleet of F-unit Warbonnets. From this site it looks like they had over 150 F3 and F7 warbonnets and 10-20 E8's (which look almost identical to E9's). The E8/9 were about 70 ft long, had 3 axle trucks, and four port hole windows on either side. The F3/7 were about 50 ft long, had two axle trucks, most had two porthole windows (the early and mid F3's had 3 porthole windows, but as built they also did not have the fancy grill work across the top, the late model F3's are very similar to F7's). The F7's also had 4 vents between the windows, 10020 only has 3, but you can see they were aiming for that feature with the grill bricks. E8's have no vents between the windows. The rear access door behind the rear window is also characteristic of an F7. Other possible models can be eliminated because the E6 had square windows, the FT had four closely spaced porthole windows, etc.. While poking around that warbonnet site for the road numbers from 10020, it looks like there was a 27A-27C that were F3's and a 301A and 301B that were F7's. At any rate, to my eye, the length, number of axles, and window arrangement are the most distinctive features between an F7 and E8/9. I still like the idea of a red sticker for the stripe on your build. There are too many pinstripes on trains that are so thin that a plate is 10x times out of scale.

Some nice detail going on there.

Welcome Skriblez! The 7939 is a great place to start (and at 40% off, buy two, grin). There are all sorts of great creations at the intersection of technic an trains.

Some good angles in that video, particularly the telephoto shots and the closing scene pulling in the station is nice.

I would agree about that, a lego plate is too thick, but if only you knew someone with the ability to print a thin red stripe... and who had matched the lego colors... sigh (grin) The build looks very good, but it does seem a little short to be an E9, it looks more like an F7 to my eye (especially with the two axle trucks). Still a nice looker whether it is an E or an F though.

Another excellent build!

You'll probably have to make a compromise some how. Either the small wheels like H.A., dropping one set of pilot wheels like my mod, pushing the cylinders out to 10 wide, or moving the cylinders above the pilot wheels... oh... there is one other way. Make all but one set of the driver wheels flangless, rigidly mount the rear pilot wheels to the frame (so the rigidly mounted pilot wheels are effectively a single truck with the flanged driver wheel), and then put the front pilot wheels on a pivot. In this last case the trade off means a very long wheel base.

The cars were all wooden and the consists rarely were more than 10 cars (the engines were not yet very powerful). It was the constant push for bigger/heavier trains that put an end to the link and pin couplers (one of the necessary advances was the introduction of air brakes). Of course heavy trains was not the only factor, the safety provided by knucle couplers also helped the transition come about, the brakeman no longer had to stand between moving cars to make a coupling.

The side plates without holes are for the 9v motors. I think those ran out before the 9v motors did, as the last of the 9v motors came with the new style side plates.

Looking great, and you really did a good job of capturing the essence of Hungarian trains.

A nice build... Yeah, the 1870's and 80's had some very ornate locomotives, the best had lots of shiny brass. As for those huge cow catchers, those were still in the days of link and pin couplers. Typically there would be a long bar running down the center of the cowcatcher, right on top of the middle bar. Unhook it, pivot it up, and it would now extend a little past the cowcatcher, ready to couple.