zephyr1934

The conventional Lego track is 4 studs between the rails, for 6 studs outside of one rail to the outside of the other on 2x8 ties. It is common for people to build 6 wide trains to 8 wide trains to run on this track. Most trains from lego have been 6 wide, but some of the AFOL sets have been up to 8 wide. 6 wide is cheaper to build and easier to run due to size and weight but 8 wide offers much more options for details. Small trains are easily powered with the third party circuit cube system. Look for the bluetooth expansion kit. Works great in the current Harry Potter express train set.

Simply amazing My thought was keeping both the bevel gear on the motor in place and the vertical axle, but I don't play with gearing enough to know what's most efficient

Most impressive, I really thought it needed more weight... if it works with a normal L motor, why on earth did Lego make it non-motorized? Heavy and plastic axles already confirmed, but is that R40 curves? Simply a thing of beauty Very nice, and maybe this shows why Lego did not motorize it. I bet those bevel gears will wear out after tens of hours of operation. If so, that is probably not reliable enough for a general set, but at $0.10 each, not a problem for an AFOL to replace them every now and then. Two suggestions, first, why not add a half bushing on the end of the axle from the motor? Second, are you still supporting the rear end (image left) of the 10 or 12 long technic axle that holds the slider simulating the crosshead?

I appreciate what you two are doing reverse engineering the set and then modifying it to make it self propelled. A huge thank you to both of you. However, if you look at the model, it clearly was designed for PU, the tender is the big give away, but I think they got far enough in development without getting the motorization working that they had to give up and keep going without it. My bet is that they simply did not have enough weight on the drivers to make it work around R40 curves. But we'll find out in under 2 weeks. No, today's lawyers are a lot smarter than those in the 90's. Anyway, Lego did away with 9v (and almost all trains at the same time) because the 9v system was WAY more expensive to produce. One piece of plastic track costs a few cents. One piece of 9v track cost them about the same as what they sold it for. The plastic track was made in one facility, shipped to another facility to get the metal applied, then to a third to be packaged. Lego does not like including anything metal (axles, motors, battery boxes), it costs a lot more than the plastic. Why should a simple PU battery box (NOT The hub) cost $30?

I believe Big Ben Bricks has a M wheel with traction groove http://www.bigbenbricks.com/products/products.html west of the Atlantic and http://www.blokbricks.com/contents/en-us/d35.html east of the Atlantic

That is definitely the first thing to try if you are running on 9v track, it should have a very good chance of working

Anyone have thoughts on how to power this train? Do you think one L motor in the locomotive powering the drive wheels could do it? Or would it need two L motors to reliably move? I know they said they "tried everything" to motorize the train and couldn't power it, but I bet that really means, "everything without making a compromise Lego can't or won't take." I suspect the main issues they encountered were: 1) not enough weight on the motor so wheels slipped. Probably true no matter if they motorized the loco, the tender or a car. Can be fixed with weight bricks or non-lego ballast. 2) there's plenty of space to motorize a car but you can't do that with an interior (and this set is ALL about the interior of the cars) and it is always wonky to push the locomotive from a powered car On the plus side for motorization, it looks like one could carve out a large cavity inside the boiler for motors and/or a PU hub, and then there seems to be unlimited space in the tender for a hub. One challenge I see is that to get two L motors in the boiler you might need the hub in the tender, and that would require a long run for the wire to the front motor. I have not done much with PU, does anyone know how long the wire is on a PU L motor? My guess is 32 studs, but ??? I'm pretty sure those are actually brackets from the Friends cubes, I've been keeping an eye on that part for some time, has a nice curve to it Wait 3 months and I bet they will be selling really cheap as people buy 2x copies of the set and don't want duplicate figs and others buy in quantity and start parting it out.

Oh god, you've been tag teaming us all along? (grin) I wasn't suggesting that Lego goes back to the old style magnets, while they are safe for adults who will not generally put them in their mouths, you both hit it spot on, magnets small enough to be ingested are horribly dangerous in toys that might be played with by younger siblings, etc. So third party magnets are not necessarily bad when bought by adults for adults and kept away from young children, but lego is first and foremost a toy and should always fail safe. Meanwhile, I don't really have a better solution in mind than the tow balls. They just seem like a bit of a hassle for coupling and uncoupling. I had though of a hook mechanism (a variant of which was used on lego trains in the 1960's before magnets) but as I think about it more that could be worse than tow balls since you need a lift and drop instead of simply pushing the cars together. Knuckle couplers look amazing when you have flat track but can be bad if you have really bumpy track. Maybe a variant of the G-gauge couplers could work well for lego trains?

Exactly that, and improve upon the loco too. Worst case, a medium level AFOL can simply do an updated EN (it does not look like much of a stretch) or use the croc. And exactly that too. It is definitely too much train for someone who isn't comfortable MOCing at least a little (e.g., this is the ONLY lego set I've bought in years) but shouldn't be bad for someone with even just a few parts kicking around. Worst of the worst, hey, it's a dark blue parts pack (grin). I'm kind of mixed about the towball couplers, but the modern magnets definitely would not have held.

Seeing this image gives me a couple of fears: (1) this shot and the two lifestyle photos from the "lost catalog" all have the "rods down" on the locomotive, i.e., the wheels are at 6 o'clock. Looking at how the connecting rod attaches at the cylinder it might not move. (2) clearly there is no front magnet, the "lost catalog" shows something between the cars but it might not be magnetic couplers. On the other hand, the tender definitely looks like it was designed to hold a PU Hub and the geometry of the wheels on the locomotive looks like it was designed to operate. So maybe there is a slider on the cylinder. The tender appears to have normal train wheel holders and it looks like 4 studs between the rails, all of which suggests it can operate on normal track.

Yes, with the added spacing the lettering looks a lot better

Not to nitpick, but it looks like your floor tiles are off by about 4 studs (grin) Michael, you have produced incredible products for the Lego train community. They are way above anything Lego has produced (well, maybe the full 12v line is still ahead of you with it's diversity, but I'm sure it is only a matter of time before you catch up to that). As far as I can tell, the FX Track products are all great values for what they cost. You will never have the economies of scale that Lego had with the 9v system. While I have no idea what your profit margins are (nor do I care to ask), I would wager you would have made a lot more money if you had spent the time you invested in the 9v system doing your day job (again, I do not want to know the answer). I just hope you are in the black so that you keep expanding the world of 9v trains. Seeing more FX Track (and train) products is all the answer I need. If folks want to complain about profiteering, well, start with TLG, but they too make a great product. The FX Tracks are a high quality product and they are priced where they need to be to continue production. With the high prices they are not for everyone. Nuff said

The color and look do a good job capturing the prototype. If you did not include the lettering I think the length is fine (in line with Lego City train dimensions but more realistic looking model). But with the lettering too many of the characters run together, definitely needs 4 spaces to separate the letters, maybe 6. If you do not plan on having an interior you could probably get away with half stud spacings.

I would agree. While that roof would not be produced, there are plenty of other ways to get a similarly interesting roof and the lego designers have latitude to do so

That looks like an amazing layout. If I recall correctly, you do open loop operations, with no complete circles of track, right? If so, that is all the more impressive. That looks like you've gone and updated 7777 to modern building techniques. Also very impressive. Then there you go, you're still using the classic road plates but blending them in seamlessly.

Nicely done

Top notch job there!

Looking forward to see what you've got/done... You only get a very limited storage on EB, it is meant for sig figures, etc. For any significant photos you need to use flickr or similar and then link to them in your posts here.

Still looks like it is simply a hybrid of 10194 and 75955 to me

The guy in my club who seems to know all the leaks said Dec 1, but who knows if he pull that out of his donkey

I'd flip that around, (1) they spent most of the budget adding in a detailed second car, and only had a little left for the loco and (2) whatever loco they made had to handle R40 curves. But same end point.

You're awesome! You might be on to something here

There you go, the page shows one of the Austrian crocs pulling the Orient Express...

What about simply pulling the Orient Express cars with the Crocodile Locomotive? It looks like several of the classic Orient Express routes ran through Switzerland.

I think dark azure is way too light. To my eye it looks like it is about half way between normal blue and dark blue, but dark blue can photograph lighter than it looks in person. I just did some sampling, first using the catalog photo of the new set, all colors in CMYK Random point sample on loco in photoshop, 96, 67, 17, 3 Random point sample on loco after auto color in photoshop 95, 65, 14 1 Random point on photo of my dark blue MNS locomotive 96, 84, 6, 1 Using color tables of Lego colors Dark Blue 100, 70, 36, 40 Blue 100, 47, 0, 0 Dark Azure (converting RGB to CMYK) 70, 25, 12, 0 According to the BL color guide, there are 4.1k parts in blue, 2.3k parts in dark blue and 0.8k parts in dark azure. So I'll be you a 1x1 brick, if its dark azure you win I owe you a dark azure 1x1 brick, if its dark blue I win and you owe me a dark blue 1x1 brick, if its another color we both lose. Winner pays shipping (grin)