zephyr1934

Nice MOD. To my eye the dark green seems a little too much, did you try it with dark blue in place of the dark green?

Some neat builds, though you are using many pieces that were never made in these colors. Not a problem if you are only designing the models, but a huge problem if you plan to actually build them. When I design virtual models, I always keep an eye on bricklink to make sure I am not accidentally using parts that do not exist or are insanely expensive. If you do wind up building some of these, you'll likely need to come up with a brick and plate solution for the windows and doors since the dark red window parts which are very limited.

A nice build, I like the studs down doors with the panel across the bottom, very clean.

Oh yeah, the Electroliner is a beautiful train, but I doubt Lego would ever do it since it is a very niche item (it has been on my todo list for some time, but to get the stripes and the curves on the nose... very tricky). The Pioneer Zephyr would be a great choice except the model is probably TOO similar to the Horizon Express (I'm speaking in terms of the eyes of a non-railfan, both would be a 3-4 long train without a distinct locomotive). And we have to keep in mind that Lego will always make sure the design works for the non-railfans too. The Hiawatha though, now that could work. Here's my take from a few years back after the first major rebuilding. It was my first lego steam engine and It is on deck for further rebuilding. I may go the simple route and swap in the orange train base plates from the HE for the cars and orange arches to continue the stripe around the nose of the loco. I am tempted to be more ambitious though, extend the cars by 10 studs each, use half plate steps on the nose, and most importantly, rework the pilot truck so that it uses larger wheels. The tiny wheels are not reliable enough, one popped off at a show and left me with an ugly smear across the floor. Fortunately no parts were lost and it went back together within 30 min. Might even try to power it through the drivers since there should be enough room to hide PF in the loco.

A very nice build with lots of great details. What is most surprising is the fact that so much of this locomotive seems to be classical building techniques rather than ultra-SNOT. One suggestion would be to use 1x3 curved slopes for the cab roof. With an engine this nice, it really could use nicer drive rods though. As I posted elsewhere, technic connectors and axles could be a nicer all lego solution, e.g.,

You could always run the track down the middle of the street

A big improvement over the original

The DCC stuff looks great. One idea I used to isolated blocks was packing tape. I stuck two pieces of clear mailing tape together (sticky side to sticky side) then cut out small squares that I slipped into the rail joints. Completely reversible and very discrete.

While I cannot speak highly enough about custom rods, I was not trying to self promote. The thing I dislike the most about the EN is the way lego did the rods (the connection point is all wrong) and I was trying to say that when staying 100% lego, one can do a lot better, e.g., After my post I was tempted to suggest doing the windows in purple (grin). Good that you found them in white at a reasonable price. The train looks good all together. Now as for the cab windows, if you want to keep it green you might be able to snot 1x2x3 windows (60593) in green, perhaps with a window pane (3854 or 60608) stuffed into it. I don't know if the pane will fit or not, but it should be quick to find out. You would probably need a 2x2 tile on the top to attach it to the rest of the locomotive. Or you could build it out of bricks, snot a stack of 1x2 pieces together: green tile, green plate, trans brick, green plate, trans brick, green plate (from front to back) use the tile or the first plate to attach it to the body.

Hello J.T.M., aren't the dark colors fantastic? (the classic lego fan in me is still skeptical of anything that is not YRBWB in color and is not cubic in shape, but the trains have pushed me past that hangup). As for finding dark red, bricklink is hard to beat. Also, be flexible in what you are looking for, e.g., 1x6 might be expensive while 1x8 are strangely inexpensive.

That is a fantastic build all around. I like the fact that you built an entire train, not just the locomotive, but the detail in the cars is great too. Also neat to see the linear actuator used for decoupling.

Not only are the white windows pricey on the coaches, few folks have more than a couple of them. You should consider other window options, e.g., 1x4x3 transparent panels, perhaps with stickers to get the shape you want, or any of the more commonly available windows in white, e.g., this one. As I mentioned earlier, I think you should redo the drive rods. The quickest easiest fix would be to replace the 5 long connecting rod (technic half beam) with a 7 long connecting rod. You could also use a technic axle and connectors to go longer than 7.

That probably was lego keeping the "clearance" boxes full while teasing all of us. Though there is a small chance that they were sitting on a very small number lost in a warehouse. I like that, though if they do another steam engine, it will probably be x-6-x since the wheels are produced in a set of 6. I had always hoped that lego would do something like that only change the railroad... but the warbonnet is probably the most iconic American train of that era so it would be hard to come up with something with broader market appeal.

Yes, it is meant to be BN. I read that BN and Chessie were the big backers of the ACE project. So living in Ohio (Chessie country) naturally I chose BN (grin). It is on my "to post" list, I just haven't gotten to it yet. She's still together, so one of these days. There are two more photos of it in railbricks 6 with REC reveal for the nose in railbricks 7. As for the stacks and vents, these days the 2x2 turntables come disassembled, so no dissassembly required (grin some more). The vents on the tender are also turntable bases, 4x4 this time. Yes, I would think the railroads would number something like this A and B. Brilliant! Though seeing her run, you really should add a much larger layout and a few dozen coal cars (but shouldn't we all) Why not stash the 9v motors in the tender trucks? Looks fantastic (and steam in the garden to boot!)

Seems like a perfectly fine question to ask. As Lazarus noted, no the track will not attach to a baseplate, however, you can easily set the curved track on top of a baseplate unattached (or attached at 0°, 90°, etc). Most trains will have no problem with the slight grade going from attached straights to unattached curves, but if you do, you can add one plate below the straights and tiles below the curves.

Welcome aboard Ambroise, When I had my first son I was more struck with the quandary of how do I explain to my child that these are daddy's legos (grin). Please do post photos of modern lego trains on duplo track at some point. I like the idea already.

A nice build on the locomotive and I also like how you did the diaphragms between cars. Although it might be tricky to pull off, you might be able to work out something with headlight bricks to get half plate offsets on the nose and smooth out the ridges.

Nice build, it is amazing how much nicer the EN can be with just a little tweaking. The one thing I'd suggest changing are the rods. The quickest easiest fix would be to replace the 5 long connecting rod (technic half beam) with a 7 long connecting rod.

Very nice and an excellent choice of subject matter. Your nose work is pure brute force, really hard to fit all those angles in such a small space. I took a stab at the same prototype a few years back, your mechanicals are much more impressive than mine. I still haven't uploaded a dedicated folder, but I have two pictures on line,

Good to hear, please do post photos of both builds if you have them. That's too bad about the slipping in the 16x16, though if someone NEEDS the 16x16 form factor, the original crossovers are still only about 2x MSRP.

Take this and this and this and this for inspiration... (yeah, the last one isn't the FS, but it uses some building techniques that are transferable) PS, here's a great brick train that I stumbled on while looking for a few of these links though it is a little off topic.

A great looking build, that has to be about 60 studs long. My longest passenger cars are around 52 studs and they drag into regular curves, I've settled on 42 studs as being my trade off between realistic length and making it through lego curves. If you cut out two compartments you could probably get it around regular curves, but pull it with a powerful locomotive, e.g., EN. If you are contemplating running it, you might want to use the regular train wheels though, the technic axle wheels have a lot of drag. AFOLs need a good wide radius curve, but getting back on topic... The interior detailing and opening doors are great touches.

Nice! And the 12v track looks so 7777. Looking at these photos I see one potential problem with the EN on 12v track, the EN is 9 or 10 studs wide and I believe 12v track is 8 studs center to center.

One can never have too many jumper plates or headlight bricks! Meanwhile, I was starting to get lost in dreams of "this would make an incredible curve" when I realized that I failed to account for the importance of the inside guard rail in your design that I left out of my above modification. The outside rails are 5 studs apart, but the lego track is more like 4.6 studs apart. The guard rails keep the wheels from wandering too far and getting in to trouble. So fixing my oversight, let me introduce v2, (again, full instructions once moderated) I believe the wheels will run on their flanges when passing through, but that is also the case in the 9v lego crossover.

Don't get me wrong, I think your design is brilliant, and like you (or at least like your video) I too prefer to set my track on the floor. in which case the 10x10 dimension is not an issue. But others (like my club) mount the track to baseplates, at which point having multiples of 16 can be critical. So my little sketch was more just me working it out in my head how to easily extend your idea to fit 16x16.