zephyr1934

That train is here. They have a another sample model that might be of interest, a small tram. While there's nothing special about the styling, it shows how little space you need to mount the motor, There's also a clunky motor unit for running on roller coaster track. I'm sure either of those designs could be cleaned up to look slick and pretty.

Excellent, and exactly what I was thinking- there are times when you need a tiny motor. Also thanks for the kind words about the elephant. Meanwhile, my review was strictly unsolicited, the more folks we have filling the cracks between lego offerings the better off we all are. It was my pleasure, it is fun playing with the tiny motor system.

You think the transition from PF to PU is bad, you should have seen the transition from 9v to RC, ugh! Lego is a big company and they are all about making a big profit. So yeah, trains are often lost in the weeds as they pursue greener pastures. A lot of their decisions are driven strictly by profit numbers and in this regard Lego has not helped trains in their own metrics. The Hobby Train was common colors and released with all of the unique parts individually available on the brand new on-line PAB. No need to part out the set, so it sold poorly, must mean trains are unpopular. Then the HE came out in a semi-common color, eliminating most of the folks who parted out the BNSF, EN, Maersk sets. Again, trains sold poorly, must mean trains are unpopular. In this context of working with a slow to react battleship, yes, it is unfortunate that the BL sets do not include any train sets (I consider a depot a building rather than a train, not to say there is anything wrong with depots). But the fact that the BL sets seem to be moving towards an annual event, I take that as hope for an actual train in the future. Now by all means, come and complain to us about Lego trains, we're your people and we know your pain. However, the fact that Lego is doing any AFOL outreach like this is a fantastic step in the right direction. So I would suggest you do not go too nuts about complaining outside of train circles. If the response to AFOL outreach efforts is a lot of upset people who did not win the theme lottery, they will stop the AFOL outreach and they will never deliver a train via this route.

The EN design has a few minor mechanical flaws, but most of them are easily fixed. See the article in RailBricks 7 for details.

And I bet this is also Lego testing the waters to see if they have the capacity to start offering small run, pack-on-demand sets. I think Lego is trying to get to the point where they can support niche sets. They can't take everything on ideas and turn it into a set because they need a lego designer in the loop, but if this works well it could become fairly common for ideas submissions to become small run sets (including trains). Lego Factory 2.0 if you will.

That is an amazing build with a lot of difficult curves. Great job fitting it all together... and then making it able to handle R40's is simply over the top! With the receiver and battery in the tender you might want to think of just using train motors under the tender. That keeps you from having to string a cable between the engine and tender. Just a thought, I could see it working well either way.

Whichever route you go, I'd suggest joining a club so that you can run on a large layout. ARRRRRGH!!! So sorry to hear, but glad you are rolling with it so well. Make frequent backup copies (at least one per session) so you never lose much. When I build digitally I am continually saving my revisions with a slightly new name: v10, v11, etc.. That way I can also easily undo some experiment that eventually turns bad. And if you know stud.io could cause problems, make a backup before launching it. All of the extra backups might seem like a hassle at first, but it quickly becomes a habit you don't even have to think about and the next time a file gets corrupted you will be so happy. And storage space really isn't an issue the file sizes are puny compared to modern drives.

Welcome to the forums and it looks like you have a good start on a nice MOC. Indeed, follow your interests. If you are not sure, maybe buy the crocodile set recognizing that even if you wind up going O the set makes a nice display piece. Then see how you like the building experience. I would say a lot of stock O scale trains are similar in detail to some of better lego MOCs (but that's an opinion call and obviously you should make that one yourself). Lego builds will not reach the high end of O scale detailed models. So if you want hyper realism go with O. On the other hand, if you like the building experience, Lego might ultimately be more to your liking. Especially if you like the design process but are not to the point where you want to kitbash O scale trains. One of the things I like about Lego trains is just how easy it is to customize them.

I remember the days where the dark green palette was essentially the bricks found in the BNSF loco, a real challenge to build without ANY 1x1 parts (except the newly released cheese brick). So for me the dark colors keep exploding with new possibilities. Then again, I remember when orange was brand new and something to be skeptical of. It was one of the first of the "new" colors (tan and brown were about the same time). Given the huge spectrum of colors, it makes sense to me that not all parts are available in all colors. Lego seems to have a few tiers of part availability in various colors. At the top of the availability are red, yellow, blue, black and white, which are the core colors from the beginning of time, so those should always have the largest selection of bricks. Meanwhile, grays, black, tan and brown all seem to have a good selection of clips and such probably because they are neutral colors that can go with most other colors. It seems to me that Lego views a lot of the clips as specialized pieces that if they were to release in many colors would open a floodgate that they want to keep closed. Don't worry what other people think, it your hobby, do what you like to do with it.

Agreed, I didn't say it was always possible and even when it is at times it can take months to years to figure out solutions using the existing palette. You definitely cannot simply rebuild a model in a different color. And your challenge is greater than mine. I generally do not detail the inside, so that gives me space to build hidden assemblies to get around some of the aforementioned challenges.

All of the comments about the difficulty of building steam engines are spot on (and to go a step further, best to start with an 0-6-0 for your first steam build). That is why I said patron rather than a buyer, someone who does not mind sponsoring the development process and is not looking for the cheapest alternative. There are a few of them out there (no, I don't know where to find them). That is also totally cool that you don't want to go down that path, it is a bunch of work. Every time I build a Lego set I am amazed at how easy it is, no pulling parts, no placing bricklink orders. Everything you need comes in this one box.

That's an excellent build, can't wait to see what you turn it into. On my end I've dropped the elephant down to one motor and was able to lower the height by one brick. It seems to run fine.

That's crazy, even the whistle lets out a little steam. Trouble with something like that is that you'll start hating your existing models because they don't steam.

Great work, and cool that LGB has a lego-car, I bet the wheels run better than most Lego alternatives too.

A great build all around and the detailed backgrounds in the photos really make it pop.

Nonsense. You just need someone with enough faith in you to give you an advance on the build at an accurate estimate of the parts cost for the two engines. They pay first, potentially supplement with final costs paid before shipping (or better, charge a little more than 2x at the start so you have a cushion for overruns). With cash in hand you can order all of the parts (including expensive PF if necessary) and you just need a building space. You can get fancy and even work with OKBrickworks for custom stickers. Your work looks like it is more of a "word of mouth" type venture, i.e., no need for much on-line presence. All you would need is to add something like, "if interested in purchasing this model in real bricks send me a PM" to one of your posts. This gives you a very low risk entry- no one sends you a PM, you spent nothing. You get a job, you already know it will not cost you anything out of pocket. The one challenge that will take some trial and error is estimating what the additional shipping costs will be if you have to order from 10 different BL sellers including a couple of international ones. But maybe you also have a retainer of $200 for all shipping costs. However, (1) it will make your designs more difficult since you will be constrained to the limited color palette of available bricks. (2) It will take up a lot of your time and your hobby will shift from building digital versions of what you are interested to acquisition and physical building of a lot fewer models (most of the money I "earn" from making rods is really me not spending money on Lego because all my hobby time is taken up managing the store). But it could also work out that instead of 2x it turns into 5x with three of those being strictly profit. I'd start with 2x to see if you like it, if that works, next time you get a 2x supplement it to build 3x and sell the 3rd on ebay for the same price, giving you $ for the time you put in.

Yes, perfectly fine... but it does so because I put larger O-rings on the two outer axles. So the middle wheels are lifted off the track by 1-2 mm, just enough so that the flanges do not bind on the curves. I first used this technique in this build (gasp... 11 years ago).

You need a patron. I bet there is someone out there who would pay 2x (or more) for the locomotive. So if you did not mind building two copies of the locomotive you could get yours for free. BMR, BrickTrainDepot, BT and Brickmania have all shown that there is a market for $700-$1500 steam locomotives.

Glad the review was helpful, I tried to share what I've learned so far. As long as you know about the clearance issues you can work around them, but it would totally suck to build to size and then discover it wont fit (which actually happened to me while prototyping, but since it was a prototype I shifted and worked around). There is another, even smaller system that is a little less plug and play by lifelites, and they probably do international shipping. I have only seen the web page but here's the all-in-one set, and full line. Neat thing with these is that it is PF controlled. I said don't mention the elephant in the room (grin) but seriously though, thank you. I'm still wrestling to get the height down a bit, but it is turning out to be a fun unanticipated project.

Now add104 more and it will look realistic (grin), seriously though, good job

It was a great time to be a buyer... Exactly that (the entire post), I was on the Ambassadors group when they were streamlining. When asked all they would talk about is keeping the SKU's down. ... and that

I was manning a display at the NMRA National Train Show a few years back and the NMRA president came up to me to shake my hand and thank me for bringing my "toys" to the show. As he looked down his nose at me I couldn't help but think, as opposed to all of the other toys around this massive exhibit hall? All model trains are toys, but nothing wrong with that. Lego was actively pursuing the model train angle in the 1980's and early 2000's. They don't dislike us, we are just a relatively small fish. According to legend, Big Ben gave his blessing and sent samples of the steam wheels to Lego in the planning stages of the EN. They still invite us to parties (by tossing us a neat part or an old part in a new color) every now and then and that is deliberate. But no, we are not Lego's best friend... >>sigh<< Lego requires a huge profit margin to be interested in anything. There's still plenty of money to be made between the cracks. The main business for the Chinese companies is simply making knock off bricks that they can sell to families who want inexpensive Lego-like things. Once in that business, you can sell more of your cheap bricks if you steal neat builds and pack them up in sets. Another angle is to single out some of the most in demand parts that Lego isn't producing. It all makes business sense. One of the things that caught my attention in some of the nicer looking clone trains is that the old style magnets appear to be in production somewhere in China. Bluebrixx is figuring out how to pull the clone makers to the train builders, I wonder what will happen if/when one of the large clone makers decides to actively court the train market.

Oh, my comments were mostly in general. If you are going to build, build something YOU are interested in. I only mentioned the Rocket because somewhere in the thread someone said it was impossible at minifig scale. As you can tell from my recent post, I too have taken an interest in early steam locomotives, but I am not aspiring to be an expert. At any rate, don't worry about building for Lego Ideas, even a perfect MOC probably will not get picked. If you build something you like and then put it on Ideas, no problem. But if you are building FOR Ideas, you'll probably wind up disappointed.

Garden railroading!

Almost two weeks ago I saw this post. What really caught my attention was the tiny motor used to power the monorail. The video shows that it is circuitcubes, and it sounds like they sent out samples to several high profile builders. At any rate, the gerbil in my head quickly woke up and started franticly running on his wheel. I knew I needed one, so I pounced. Circuitcubes have two $40 sets, one with a dumb rechargeable battery box, motor block, and LED block, all 4x4x2. The other has a Bluetooth rechargeable battery box 4x4x2, and two small motors 2x4x2 ea. I wound up buying the latter. The set arrived, with all of the motor parts and a handful of clone bricks. I set about building the robot on the cover, it was fun zipping around using the app controller. Meanwhile, the gerbil was torn: hi-rail truck or steam elephant? I rode behind the 2002 reproduction of this 200 year old locomotive at Beamish while I was visiting North East England. If you like history, it is an amazing place and I highly recommend a visit if you are anywhere in the neighborhood. At any rate, the elephant has some amazing motion to it, if you google "stream elephant" you can find many videos of the real locomotive (and foreshadowing, the video of my MOC in this post gives a rough idea). 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. So I decided to go with the steam elephant. I tore apart the little tank robot and the clone bits went into the hazardous waste disposal, then I started into the elephant. Ordinarily I would not post pictures of such a rough work in progress, but this post is about the circuitcubes rather than the model. You've got to promise me that you will pretend you never read this review of the circuitcubes when you see my actual release of the steam elephant. This review is really based on the disassembly of the 3rd prototype to scavenge parts for the 5th prototype. But more on that in a moment. Let's meet the components. You can get a gist for the parts on the box or the circuitcubes web page. I want to show the functionality (and slight disfunctionality) here. Two motors and the battery/controller fits in 1/2 the space of a PUP Hub, costs $10 less than the PUP hub alone, and this has an integrated rechargeable battery In addition to normal studs on the top and receivers on the bottom the motors have holes around the side and back that take a stud for more mounting options. Each motor has three different sockets for plugging it in (in practice pick only one) The plugs require one extra stud space, but given the three directions it shouldn't be too hard to find one direction to squeeze it in The axle socket in the motor is one stud deep and is a little tight. I have to pull harder than normal to pull out an axle. It makes me a little nervous that I might break the motor, but so far no problems and I've pulled axles out at least a dozen times. There are two minor problems with the components. First, the axle socket is not a perfect stud deep. Instead of 8 mm, you can probably stick an axle in only 6 or 7 mm. That can be a problem if you have to perfectly fit a construction on the other side. I've been able to work around it, but if you REALLY couldn't live with it you could cut /file down the axle by a few mm. The second problem is that the original blocks appear to be designed to power on contact, without wires. The contacts on the battery box stick out enough to prevent putting a brick right next to it (note the gap from the yellow bricks being pushed away). Reversing the disassembly, here's the model rising from the ashes to show how I integrated the motors, Okay, you've put up with my rambling this far, now for a treat, here's a video showing the motion of the pistons, I have not attempted to push the motors to their limit. I suspect this MOC would spin its wheels before the motors ran out of power. I have not timed the life of the batteries, but I suspect it would be between 30 and 60 min of run time. The set has a free companion app for control. It seems to be bug free and works as expected. The features suggest it is still in its youth. None of the active controls allow you explicitly pair two motor outputs together. There are four control panels, on each one you can choose which single output (A, B or C) goes to which slider or joystick axis. The controller steps from -250 to +250. There is no software option to flip directions, but it is easy enough to do by rotating a wire 180°. Here are the active control options: There is only limited customization options: swapping which column is where on the GUI and changing which output is controlled. The real hint that this controller is in its youth is the programming environment. It consists of exactly three different control blocks, as shown in this program, However, the programming environment proved to be the most useful option for my MOC. It will power two outputs at the same speed for the specified amount of time. So I can use this control option to set the model to run for N seconds and just choose a large number for N. The only problem is that the train will stop when my phone goes to sleep. Ultimately the Bluetooth proved very handy for debugging my builds using the programming environment (as did the overload protection when you get the wires wrong), but it seems inconvenient for running the train at a show if you already have a separate app for your SBrick, FxBrick, PUP and/or what not. Fortunately, the battery can also be switched to dumb mode. In which case it behaves like a PF AAA battery box without an IR receiver. I think it runs at full speed, but if you design for that speed it won't be a problem. Once I'm done debugging, I plan to run this train in "catch and release" mode using the dumb battery option. Not that the smart battery is inferior to the dumb battery. The dumb battery looks like it is incompatible with the smaller motors and it seems like the cost is comparable, with both starter sets at the same price. The smart battery also has studs across the top where the dumb battery does not. Here are the kits: Dumb battery Smart battery There are a few other sets with the dumb battery, but the prices are similar to buying the extra power blocks independently. The only extra thing you get is more clone bricks.