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zephyr1934

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Everything posted by zephyr1934

  1. zephyr1934
    Oh no... now that is a mistake... UGH! The box even has a promo for Lego Life. The 5 wide taxi set is still available, it appears to be listed under "exclusives" but not any flavor of creator. The blue train poly bag is listed under "train," again, absent from any flavor of creator. Maybe the high speed train is the replacement for the crocodile? (grin, though I do hope my statement stays a joke rather than becomes reality). Also interesting that the US shop still does not list the crocodile as "retiring soon"
  2. zephyr1934
    That's a good start, looking forward to seeing more
  3. zephyr1934
    Oh, no, Lego could probably buy a few small countries if they wanted to. It is not a matter of lego being unable to do something, it is a matter of Lego having a bunch of economists and MBA's who figured out how to maximize profit. So they have a limit on the number of sets they will produce per year (and it gets really complicated when they consider size, theme, target audience, etc.). Balance it all with the production cost (including licensing if applicable) and they wind up with some ranked priority (e.g., Lego IDEAS and the BL designer program are simple examples where we can see the process play out, the process for the normal sets is much more complex and very much proprietary). The trains are only high enough to result in the occasional round of sets. Meanwhile, these specialized nooks that are too small for the whale to be interested in are just the right size for the sharks or dolphins or some other smaller fish (don't tell me dolphins are mammals) to come in and do their own smaller scale production.
  4. zephyr1934
    That makes total sense. I've just taken to half plate insets to highlight doors that are actually flush with the walls to highlight their existence. The fact that you turn to snot at the doors will do that much more subtly. You could easily preserve the blue line using studs up for the lower half of the door and just use snot for the window, but then that loses the snot defining the door shape, but you could preserve it by breaking the brick line there. Avoid the fingernail groove in the tiles using this panel for the non-stud top as you convert to studs forward of the door, Another thought is that you could redo the door on the R/W/B livery- top unchanged, 1x2 trans clear brick studs forward, below another row of 1x plates studs forward, with a white 1x2 x 2x2 bracket studs down (or even the new 1x1 x 1x2 bracket), then a white plate and a blue tile
  5. zephyr1934
    Actually, I think you might have answered all of the questions right there, make it 6 wide and people will want train wheels and buffers. The GWP loco from a year or two back deliberately did not have buffers. The magnetic buffers are probably 100x more expensive for Lego to produce than any pure plastic brick of similar size. So for the price point I'm sure they started with "no magnets." The train wheels are also probably a lot more expensive for them to produce than the small train wheels. Everything there is to keep the price down. So perhaps we should view this as an enlarged Emerald Express and the more recent train polybag.
  6. zephyr1934
    Those look really nice. Such a classic design (on the prototypes) recreated exceptionally well (on the MOCs). I do see the cab door being a bit of a bother on the red/white/blue scheme not so much for the blue stripe, but because it disappears into the wall and you cannot tell that it is a door in that livery. If anything, the premature ending of the blue stripe is a hint that there IS a door there. Is there any chance you could set the cab door in by half a plate?
  7. zephyr1934
    You know, that is the saddest bit about this set. Same amount of parts and they could have made a nice push locomotive. Or make a two in one set that can either be a high speed cab car or a high speed coach. Even better, a single 6 wide subway car. Oh well
  8. zephyr1934
    If the source I found is legit, 40518 looks to be 4 wide, 3-4 bricks tall, mostly white with blue and dark blue stripes, small train wheels. Sigh. The title of "High-Speed Train" was so promising. No where near as good as the four wide found here.
  9. zephyr1934
    Actually, thinking further, perhaps de-angling the arcade at the next baseplate would work well. In this way the extended arcade would be shaped like a hockey stick, with the bent portion on the set, and the "parallel to the track" portion on the MOC side of the build. And for completionists, a "U" shaped with a reflected set on the other end.
  10. zephyr1934
    Getting back to the model on Ideas, the one thing that rubs me about it is how the concourse strikes the platform at an angle. The angled concourse looks amazing and really makes the MOC pop, if one were not going to expand this build the angle adds so much to appearance. But the angle also makes expanding it really difficult, the concourse would run into the track just off the edge of the MOC. So in this case for functionality it might be better to pull that angle out so that the concourse is parallel to the track. It would be really neat if they incorporated a few 3in1 ideas too, e.g., making it easy to convert a second set into a "concourse extension" with the option to add a bridge across the tracks, and obviously a mirrored version to close the concourse (all that would be needed for a mirrored version is simply including a second set of shop signs). BTW, did you notice the simple yet effective way the builder added a railing to the stairs?
  11. zephyr1934
    Doh! That's right, not much in six-wide bricks. The 1x2, 2x2 and 2x4 curved slopes can be built into 6 wide cylinders, that simply trades the dashed stud holes for straight lines on the face of the cylinder. There is one nice 6 wide part though that could work for tank cars, as I think has been done in several sets,
  12. zephyr1934
    Thanks for the info, fascinating stuff. Meanwhile, back to the builds. I see you used round plates instead of round bricks for many of your tanks. Was that simply because you liked the more regular pattern of stud notches? Or was it color availability? It is definitely more visually interesting than bricks would look, but I bet it adds a ton of weight.
  13. zephyr1934
    It is part of Spike prime, perhaps it has more memory than the PU hubs.
  14. zephyr1934
    Looking good. Meanwhile, I've always wondered about those brakeman cabs. They really add a neat feature to the cars but growing up in the US I never learned how they were used. Would they only be at the end of a train like cabooses in the US, or would they be anywhere in the train? Would there be just one occupied cab per train? Since the cab is tied to the car, would there typically be more cabs in a train than the number that needed to be occupied?
  15. zephyr1934
    That one looks easy to work around if necessary. There are two styles of train windows, the older being $20 ea for new parts, newer only like $3 ea. Both expensive, but in this case one could easily use used + extremely high grit polishing sandpaper to renew the parts. Or worst comes to worst, a stack of 1x2's: tile+brick+plate turned sideways. Or to hide the studs and the nail groove, could use 2x2 tile with 2 studs.
  16. zephyr1934
    That is a REALLY nice build.
  17. zephyr1934
    Not only they the closest Lego colors, they are actually pretty close (old dark gray might be closer, might not, but cost aside, the available parts are much more limited)
  18. zephyr1934
    Another great build! That's a clever use of curved slopes to hide the seams in the roof.
  19. zephyr1934
    The PFx brick has an IR extension cable (actually two options, long and short) so you only need to make a little bit exposed, like smaller than 1x1.
  20. zephyr1934
  21. zephyr1934
    I forgot that PFx is usb power compatible, but it is limited to 5v, has anyone had good luck with PFx @ 5v power for trains? The fact that the PFx brick is compatible with IR control is really nice at shows where Bluetooth is overloaded by too many nearby devices. Or simply not needing to keep your phone on and ready. The Circuit Cube is really in a class by itself, it is unlikely that you will be choosing between that and one of the other power sources. You either want the circuit cube for small builds or one of the other alternatives for larger builds. I think the BuWizz is the only "off the shelf" option with an integrated rechargeable battery at the moment (excluding the 5v usb input to PFx), which is a nice feature for building the battery/controller into a model. Lego had a PF battery that I really like, but they are long discontinued. It looks like they make rechargeable batteries for one or more of the larger PU hubs, but I'm not sure they are "charge in place". The small hub looks like it was designed for a rechargeable battery retrofit, but if it ever comes to market the design of the hub itself makes me think that it would still require removing part of the hub from your model for charging. BTW, @Chromeknight thanks for the comprehensive table
  22. zephyr1934
    Look back through the thread, I believe Michael had said that power pickups were in the plans.
  23. zephyr1934
    Wow! We've waited 16 years since lego ended 9v, a little longer is hardly noticeable. It is nice to be able to savor each new element.
  24. zephyr1934
    Yeah, I know it is a turnout track and I totally appreciate the fun of doing realistic switching. It is just that with the double loop (and possibly the widest radius curve on the layout) by the time the turnout track is going horizontal it looks more like it is a mainline track. Before you get to the fully realized layout you could also do a linear, open loop, switching layout
  25. zephyr1934
    The robots are taking over the world! It is still unbelievable how much you packed in that tiny space. And then sharing high quality instructions on top of it all, amazing!
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