zephyr1934

Ugh! What an unpleasant surprise, sorry to hear. Exactly that, the most common "glue" used on lego actually chemically welds the parts together. Hopefully they did not glue the bogies or wheels. If they did, that might be worth exploring ways to make the train roll. If the glue is a problem, you could resell this particular set to get your money back and buy another one after that.

It looks like R88 is 1/4 circle while R72 is 1/2 circle, so you need two boxes of R88 ($152) to equal one box of R72. Or in other words, you need 4x of the R88 boxes to make a circle. Also note that prices on FXBricks are in Canadian dollars, which are currently equivalent to $0.83 USD. I just placed my pre-order from the North American shop (9v of pure joy)

Looking good and easily recognizable

I did say they were unusual, but not in a bad way. It was purely a mechanical concern of conflicts on the curves that I was cautioning about.

Well done, that looks really nice. Definitely keep it 6 wide, without the tie in to the set it loses something and I think going 8 wide for a 90's train is too far of a departure. The sloped diaphragms between cars look interesting but I suspect the fact that they come out 2 studs might cause troubles, however, that should be simple enough to build a moc up to test on curves and switches, then if it causes problems you can go back to a more conventional vertical design. It would be interesting to see a pure cargo wagon for the set too.

Thank you. I look at the prototype and I see a brilliant first draft, with rough spots that were quickly edited away in subsequent drafts (i.e., locomotives), specifically the internal cylinders, the crank arms instead of powering the wheels, and the lateral bars which become redundant with the axles. An interesting feature of this locomotive is the horizontal boiler, they were still building vertical boiler locomotives for another decade or two after this was built. I suppose it took a little longer to figure out how to use exhaust steam and the Venturi effect to create sufficient draft for horizontal boilers to work properly. Haza! Thank you, I knew someone around here would know the details. It looks like Chaldon was a unit of volume and the brake levers were used to position the cars individually via gravity. Get a load of this image from the preceding wikipedia link, purportedly from 1813.

That looks like a stout and strong prototype and excellently captured (clever use of wedge plates, I like how you did the ladder to the cab, and just general styling around the boiler). Just one thought, didn't the USRA 0-6-0's also see service in other countries? If so, perhaps the black variant would be prototypical to other countries too (though even without knowing the history, it is a nice little tank engine that could fit in just about anywhere).

Thank you thank you. Yes, the cranks are part of the appeal of this unusual prototype, I'm still tickled that I was able to build it, I never thought it would have been possible as a self-propelled MOC. The front and rear axles are 1:1 with the cranks, but for the middle axle I had to gear up due to the uneven spacing (20:12:20) and the fact that motor location prevented putting a second set of gears in (16:16:16). Sigh. That's what I was aiming for with the coal trucks. They are not a perfect replica, I had to choose between an open hopper or coming up with some snot technique that would be a bit more realistic at the expense of being a solid build. I can't tell if the real cars have both ends sloped or one end sloped, but either way, to get that effect I would have had to made a solid build and I wanted to keep them open. As for the passenger cars, best I can figure is that those are a modern addition simply employed so that passengers can actually ride what would otherwise be a freight train. The prototype probably only had coal wagons, a unit train in modern US terms (grin).

Oh, yeah, tough choice. I was limited to what I could get to by train or foot (it's hard enough not to get hit by a car when crossing the road thinking "look left"). Anyway, I was limited to what I could get to and Shildon was right on the branch line from Darlington (Beamish is a 45 min bus ride). On the way to Shildon the train even passed the site where they were building the new Azuma (sp?) train sets. All this while traveling the line of the Stockton and Darlington. There were coal mines, led mines, maybe even copper mines, but I didn't see any gold mines there (grin). Just rail related sites are amazing, e.g., Bowes Railway, a preserved cable railway where the cars were pulled upgrade using stationary steam engines and gravity did the rest.

Look at that, there is still the 4DBrix monorail track, the studded battery box cover, etc. Excellent! Not all stores carry all of the designs.

Much thanks for your kind words. All of the beauty lies in the prototype, I just did a pretty good job of copying it (grin). I only know about Beamish because I spent some time in Newcastle (wistful sigh), but it is definitely worthy of an international reputation. When I mentioned Beamish to some of the older transport people in Newcastle one of them volunteered a bit of back story about the visionary behind Beamish. I don't remember his name, but he basically went to all the cities in the region and said, "when you rehabilitate your roads I want you to look for these bits of trolley (tram) hardware and I want you to set them aside for us." And he took deliberate care to find a spot where there were no flight paths and no power lines to pull you out of the time period. When I was last there I think they were working on a 1950's section that included an overnight hotel. If it has been 13 years (and one ex later) definitely worth swinging by next time you are in the area.

Thanks! And no, the pistons are powered from a gear train running through the frame of the locomotive. I think the combination of how slow it moves and the fact that you can see both pistons really makes the motion stand out compared to a typical steam locomotive where you can only see one piston at a time and the fact that on most steam engines they've done away with the need for gearing. That is one of the neat things about doing this build. I can totally see how a steam engineer (in the design sense, not the "engine driver" sense) used to building stationary steam engines would design their first locomotive like this with the vertical pistons, using gearing, etc.. And then I can see how subsequent designs would quickly move towards a more contemporary style- connecting the rods to the wheels to eliminate unnecessary mechanics, moving the pistons to the sides to get them out of the boiler for ease of maintenance, reduce the forces on the rods, etc. Thank you both. And yeah, I still can't get enough of the movement of the running gear. As noted above, it is amazing to see first hand how steam locomotives evolved. That's where the real action is!

google "eurobricks roller bearings" and you should find a bunch of threads on them. If you have limited funds and do not yet have a need for big switches then starting with R40 switches probably makes sense, they are at least 1/5 the cost of R104. Aside from the trains looking a bit silly as they traverse R40 switches, they do not prevent you from running long trains. You can always retrofit R104 when you need them or when you are able to finally go back and address deferred maintenance in your trackwork (grin). This way you could focus more of your resources on wide radius curves. You will ALWAYS be going through the curves and only occasionally going through the switches. If you have the space and the money, going larger than R40 curves looks so much better and the lower resistance helps the big trains too.

Thank you. Indeed, this build only used one of the motors, it has a long gear train under the boiler to power all five axles, and then the cars all have technic axles. So they seem to be pretty powerful. I did have to gear down the drive 12:20 in order to physically get the motion from the motor down 5 plates to the drivers so that might help with the pulling power. Your eyelids are getting heavy, you are falling into a deep sleep, when you wake up you will go out and spend a fortune on plastic bricks.... Seriously though, thank you. LT12V you are too kind. I wanted to go with all lego but it would have made the engine a full stud wider and made the guides on the top another brick taller. So in an Indiana Jones "I've got a pistol" moment I just pulled the trigger and went on with it.

Welcome aboard! Yes, the EN and carriages are heavy compared to most sets (and very light compared to many 8 wide MOCs). That is probably why the EN was powered by an XL motor. The wheels will slip before the motor stalls and your weakest link will likely be the magnetic couplers. The roller bearing wheel sets (homemade or from many third parties) will go a long way to solving all of those problems- especially the large amount of friction from technic axles. In the mean time one thing you can do is remove the traction bands from the wheels on the pilot truck. And yep, the stock EN was designed to run on a pretty flat surface. Many steam engines have the problem with 3 points of contact lifting the middle wheel set off the rails. You should be able to add some clearance so that the front and rear trucks can flex upward to keep the main drivers on the rails. Not at all, I've got R72, R88, R104 and R120 loops now, but most all of my switches are the normal R40 switch geometry. The EN will take those just fine, all of my rolling stock will handle R40 switches just fine, including 52 stud long cars. Of course I do not use the yellow switch lever which might get in the way. R40 pros: take up minimum space, relatively cheap; cons: they look stubby, can't take the diverge at high speed, really long equipment will not work on them. If you have the space and money you can't beat the BT R104 switches, but the normal R40 (in theory) lets you pack more switches in a tighter space. I say "in theory" because the normal R40 returns to parallel, which winds up taking about as much space for a ladder of R40 as it does for a ladder of R104. I've recently gotten trixbrix R40 yard ladder switches that I'm looking forward to trying, those look to be a huge space saver. Though I'm not completely convinced I like their switch mechanism.

That looks really good

Sure, the battery box went from $15 to $50, but it has a lot of great control options. "Just do not use it with a train motor, okay?" Sigh, if they are going to charge so much for the battery box hub, why can't they make the train motor take advantage of the power control. Sigh...

The elephant is finished and has been set free in its own thread.

I'd like to present my version of the Steam Elephant. The original locomotive was built around 1815 for the Wallsend Waggonway, near Newcastle England. That's 10 years before the first railway opened. The locomotive is believed to have served at least 10 years. It was the subject of one of the first color paintings of a locomotive and a working replica was built in 2002 for the Beamish Museum. It is there that I rode behind the replica and was transfixed by the motion of the rods. I've been wanting to build a MOC of this locomotive for some time, but never had a good way to drive it, so it sat on the back burner for a few years now. When I saw the Circuit Cubes micro motor and controller, I had the solution to my power problems and started into building many prototypes. I've already documented some of this prototyping in my review of the Circuits Cube found here. My build has progressed through many more prototypes, and I ultimately completed the final model last week. The proportions of the model were constrained by the space necessary for the motor (2x4x2) and controller/battery (4x4x2) and the minimum length necessary for BBB medium drivers. I made the height as short as possible given these constraints. Of course the internal cylinders had to avoid the electronics inside too. The Beamish replica is all black, but appears to have a wooden jacket around the boiler. The original painting shows a nice silver locomotive, probably out of artistic license. I decided to take a little liberty of my own and went with a brown jacket, black for most of the front and rear, dark gray for some metal components on the boiler and light gray for the running gear. Today I took advantage of the weather and got a few videos of the running locomotive outside. I will take more photos soon, but in the meantime enjoy the videos,

great job!

I think the SBrick lets you program a power curve so a linear input of 0-255 will give a non-linear power output that climbs quicker or slower at first and then reverses at the end.

Not really, typically the sides can hold the roof on just fine. Also, the roof does not need to be held on too tight since you have gravity working in your favor. Historically they've been good as a parts pack... though with the new train wheels maybe not even That's why I almost always start a build digitally and keep the bricklink prices handy. There is usually an alternative build. If you look closely at some of the posted MOCs, there are people who paint, people who cut or glue, and there are even people who openly use clone bricks. As long as you are not boasting of some off brand I don't think most people will care. As long as you are respectful of others I think this is a pretty accepting forum.

If you go from 6 wide to 8 wide, do not worry about preserving the look of most of the train sets, just look at it as an opportunity to take the same bricks and make a better build (which it sounds like you are doing). For your flat end, either go studs up and use a modern 1x2x2 window frame Or if you go studs sideways remember the 5:2 ratio (plates to studs), which is also a 2.5:1 (where most brackets and the headlight brick give you 0.5 plates). So at 5:2 the easiest thing to do is a tile + brick + plate to fill a 2 wide gap like you have on the side. If you want to do a 3 wide gap you could do that with a bracket, unfortunately most options are two wide and so they would consume a bit of your interior, but there is this relatively new piece in limited colors, That would then give you 7 plates to work with = 1x2x2 panel + 1x2 tile.

Amazing work, all of the trains are fantastic. its as if I just opened a brand new lego train catalog in the 1980's, or perhaps a 7778 book (grin). The crocodile is brilliant, those 12v motors are a great find, just one question, is it slow because of the friction or is it slow because you geared down the motors? If the latter, perhaps it has a strong pulling power.

Assuming you have a pair of HE, on the unpowered cab unit replace the tecnic axles with normal train wheels. The technic axles cause a lot of drag. As for flipping the polarity, if you are comfortable working with electronics probably the cheapest solution might be to cut a PF extension cable and swap the wires. You can also align the motors so that they are faced the same direction, but then you have to find a path for the wires and probably need an extension cable anyway. Returning to your original question, you just need a normal PF receiver, it should happily power two motors. The V2 receivers are very expensive, at which point an SBrick, BUWizz, etc. might be a better bet. Another option would be to rebuild all of the trucks to use roller bearing wheel sets, then it would probably run well with just one train motor.