zephyr1934

Yep, exactly, though generally the b-unit never had a cab to begin with. It was cheaper to build a cabless unit but presumably the extra hassle operating it over its lifetime did not justify the initial savings. Here's an example of an American one, and the wikipedia page.

These are a great little build. I like the way you worked out the floating axle on the powered unit. The decoupler mechanism is great too. That design would work well in the tender of a steam engine too or in the US on a cow-calf pair of first generation yard switchers.

This build is excellent. The grated cheese on the nose is fantastic, I also like the subtle spin you used to get the slopes at the top of the nose to bow out.

Cale, quit breaking the laws of physics. I refuse to believe that you made such an accurate interior in such little space. There has got to be a little Dr. Who going on here. Seriously though, your trains look great on the outside and then you see the inside and WOW! Benn

Nice build. I think the toughest part would be the orange arches on the nose, but those came out last year in a set and can now be had for about $0.70 ea. It might be indulgent ($9 per), but I think it would look great with the black train windshield too. Online PaB can be very pricy, some bricks are 10x more expensive there than on bricklink. Though you do occasionally find a bargan. In store PaB can be very good, but the selection is very limited. One thing with this engine is it might be worth parting out a set, e.g., if you found a complete 4564 used (looks like they are about $140), it would probably provide all the wheels you need, a 9v motor, the pair of windshields, plus some track. If that price does not include the 9v motor you should be able to get it lower. I'd guess $50-$75 (plus shipping). Less if you have some of the bricks in hand.

Hey Cale, these are looking great and glad to hear the rods are working working well for you. Keep building those fantastic steamers.

Very nice! I still have to shake my head in amazement at all of the detail you manage to pack in to your builds (BTW, your new or newly posted boxcars are fantastic too).

I had suspected that would be possible to use a universal remote to do just that and it is great to know that it is. There are other functions that you can do, e.g., set motor to a specific speed. But as far as I know the only off the shelf product to do it is the HiTechnic IRLink + NXT

what do you mean?... (grin) Click on the photo for other views of this layout. I don't completely follow your question, but the "current" duplo tracks seem to be designed to be mostly curved, including the switches, which are actually just a choice between curve left and curve right. I say "current" because I suspect Lego just discontinued the duplo trains. They have a new train set, but it just has the four wheel push cars like the ones off of the track at the bottom of the photo above (which happen to run fine on the track as long as you don't have any switches or what not). Also, Lego has revised the duplo track designs several times over the years. I don't think there is a good match, but with a few sections of track you can wiggle a few extra studs one way or the other. Duplo isn't designed for long trains (at least not the powered trains), maybe three cars max. If you have one of the bridges possibly only two cars (at least I think that is what the sets maxed out at). Presumably Lego figured young kids wouldn't appreciate long trains (never mind the fact that that is all my son wants to do) and they also wanted to keep the mechanical power low for extra safety. Somewhere I saw someone had built a PF XL motor powered locomotive for duplo track, that could probably pull more than a few cars. One way operation is cheaper, also they now have an automatic detection system to stop if they come off the rails (extra safety). I suspect making that auto stop function work in two directions would have been expensive and less reliable. I like the "glug glug glug" that the refueling port triggers, with features like that I suspect these were not designed on the cheap. The smart locomotives look cool and I've never actually played with one, but I suspect that system was way too complicated for the target age group. That fits with the one way operation. Though with a little finesse you can use two locomotives on a train with one at the front in normal operation and one at the back as a pusher. Probably borrowed from the 12v track. It gives a little extra traction. Regular lego trains have much lower friction in the wheels compared to duplo, so duplo needs the extra traction. Generally no, I don't think they do. But Philo has done an extensive comparison of most of the PF, train, and mindstorms motors (at the moment google is warning that his pages may be a risk, so google "philo lego motor" at your own risk).

Thanks for the kind words, though as I noted in the original post, it is really just an update of someone else's design. Argh! I did not mention where you can find the switch design. I've just added that in the other thread.

Doh! It would appear that I left out some very important information in my original post. The instructions for the actual switches can be found in RailBricks 12 The original challenge for these switches was presented in issue 9, which provided a little more information about the switches themselves, "there is not much to look at, just a clean, efficient mechanism.... The red Technic connecter serves three purposes: a color code for the switch, an indicator for which way the switch is lined, and a manual override to throw the switch. The switch is un-modified and I have never had a failure with the six remote controlled units I have built." I've got to say that even with the motor attached this design is easier to throw than the normal lego switch lever since the light blay box provides a convenient spot to pull against. I haven't documented the remote control yet (I'm planning on including it as a short article in a forthcoming RailBricks), but if you scroll up to my original post, you'll see the pictures of the 2004 original by Philippe "Frogleap" Label and a link to more information. My design for the remote is very similar, except that I've updated it to the PF pole reverser.

The low profile is fantastic, great build.

Those are some good looking trains

I just spotted this announcement on BBB's web page. Sorry to hear about the delay but great to see quality comes first. ========================== New Modular Track System(MTS) by Big Ben Bricks Update: Design Revision and Delays 13 January 2013 Having extensively reviewed the current track design, it has been determined that the electrical connector is inadequate to support the electrical power required by nine volt (9v) train motors. Because of this the track will not be released as planned. As another famous toy company said long ago, 'Only the best is good enough'. The current design is not 'the best' and a significant revision is required before moving forward again. Thank you for your patience as Big Ben Bricks works on providing a quality track for your train needs. Big Ben Bricks is committed to providing quality products that fully meet or exceed the high expectations of builders around the world. Please check back for further updates in the coming months.

Xerox boxes work great for storing trains too. I think I can fit 14 boxcars per box in two layers. Depending on the scratch risk I might use a sheet of bubble wrap between the layers or around the cars. If a car or locomotive has loose parts I might put it in a bag before boxing (the parts will fall off, but I'll find them quickly and know where they go). The blue plastic tub in the picture is for more delicate pieces (e.g., steam engines).

Personally I like the hardwired option (more info here)

You could always download the instructions and build it in another color. At this point it is probably a lot cheaper that way. The coach easily translates to another color scheme and personally I like my red EN. I've seen another red one out there and there are a few black ones too.

For more tips on making the EN run even better, see RailBricks #7.

Peterab brings up some great points about switching gauges. However, if you choose to deviate from Lego track, you do not have to stop at the track. You could also adopt the trucks and couplers of the new system (potentially addressing the friction issue with technic axles), perhaps even the motors to overcome the limits of the lego motors and plastic gears. If you go as far as keeping the motors of the new gauge, you would effectively just be building a shell to fit over the new host gauge. For the cars you could probably just screw the trucks into a technic hole (e.g., in a train base or a technic plate). In this case you could go all the way down to N-scale though getting satisfactory detail would be quite the challenge. Moving to larger gauges will likely make more powerful motors available. I suspect incorporating parts from a larger gauge would ultimately be more expensive than an all lego solution, but it does open up more possibilities both in terms of track geometry and propulsion.

Straight track is a choke point, see a few earlier threads, e.g., here and here. If you want to do it on the cheap- Enlighten might be the way to go. If you want to do it top notch, BBB or ME Models might be a good way to go (though both are still in the prototype phase at the moment).

Nice build, and that looks better than any of the sets that inspired it.

Happy new year and welcome aboard, I have just four words for you: bricklink ldraw railbricks L-gauge Enjoy! Benn

Thank you for the kind words. It is flattering to think that I am giving a purist pause and having them doubt their conviction (insert evil laugh here). You know you want to buy them. Then soon you will be cutting up lego bits to make your eccentric gears just so and... In all seriousness though, I have total respect for the purists (I love going one step further and I try to come up with clever constructions out of basic bricks, but that's a different story). I made the first batch of rods for myself simply because I was not happy with any of the available alternatives. If there were longer technic half beams I might never had even attempted this, but now I am glad I did. Heh heh, Monorail! I don't think it is viable in the present. Early on I had contemplated custom PF track geometries, while feasible they would be insanely expensive and the fabrication precision is not yet tight enough to give consistently good studs/receivers. However, I hope that costs will come down and precision will go up in the next few years. I'll also scratch my head about a hybrid solution for monorail tracks that might be cheaper. As I mentioned in the other thread, she looks fantastic. Expanding on that, however, I really like all of the subtle improvements you've made on the EN design. That looks like you are using black tile clips for the lower 3mm hose, did you know that they are now available in dark green? The EN looks so much better with the rod connecting to the middle driver (even a purist can make this improvement using a 7 long technic half beam). Now as for black rods, yes, if a customer understands that the rods may need to be drilled out before you can fit a pin in the hole and they are willing to do it themselves, I would be happy to fabricate in black again. I was doing drilling the holes out by hand and it took me way too long to do in quantity. I will also keep searching for a viable solution to drill the holes quickly and accurately.

She's looking fantastic! Benn

As others have said, the frequencies are not unique. The only real concern is that you do not accidentally have two trains powered up on the same frequency. So plan ahead of you are building the IR receivers into your trains or include an access hatch to change the frequency. Yes, I think you can safely power a 9v motor with a PF battery, but given the cost of the 9v motor compared to a PF motor I'm not sure you'd ever want to. When you do power a 9v motor from PF, any 9v track under it would be energized. I don't think I would attempt to power the motor both from the track and a battery, but...? One interesting thing that this brings about (as I think Steve B. first pointed out) is that you can mix plastic and 9v track to power track side features from the train's battery, e.g., crossing lights or ??? But you do so at the expense of reducing the power to the motor. Finally, one nice thing about PF is that you don't have to deal with the power drop on long loops of track and you can go slower too. I still like my 9v, but PF has some strong points.