zephyr1934

With the round end dome observation cars the Canadian is the finest regularly scheduled train running in the world today. This would make an excellent "update" to the Super Chief as an official set. I would hope for the blue engine with Canadian cars since the coordinated colors is more cohesive as a set (an important feature for non-train heads). The specific winning design is kind a moot though, if the submission is chosen, Lego could take great latitude with the design (even turning it into an Amtrak or no-name train). If it were ever to become a set, I would expect it to be a single set of a loco and some number of cars. Hopefully the number of cars would be 3, but that would be massive for Ideas. I fear just 1 car would be their target, which would be horrible. A compromise of 2 cars would be okay, you could have a nice train with three sets. As for new train wheels, I doubt you would see new parts made just for an Ideas set.

I thought a bit more about this, I guess my sensibilities were shaped under 9v era constraints. With the wide radius curves of ME and then BT et al. I started building longer trains in terms of the number of cars rather than longer cars. On R104's without roller bearings my double stack train hit its limit below 17 wells (some of the cars would pull themselves apart if was not careful about which unit I put first). Now with roller bearings life is completely different, e.g., I can toss in 5 autoracks with the 17 wells and no car starts to fracture. But I've only started to explore the freedom of roller bearings. Totally, when I run the Genesis + Amfleet I can't help thinking to myself that I've just modeled one of the ugliest trains in the world (grin). Actually though, when they are not mixed in with normal cars I'm starting to warm up to the Amfleet.

Another excellent steamer, great job

The lack of any official documentation is stunning given the amount of functionality Lego is building in to the PU app and the price they are charging for the hubs.

Amazing achievement! Congratulations

There are several reasons why I build 6 wide. All of the trains in this thread will navigate R40 track. Until this month my home layout had R40 curves. Since most of my trains are 9v I still want a 9v loop. Meanwhile my club's track is all still 9v, so I need to handle R40s. These long cars look silly enough in an R40 curve, imagine an 8 wide car if it could even handle the curve. I am also locked in to historical path dependence- almost everything else I have is 6 wide. While I am envious of the detail that can be built into 8 wide, building 6 wide probably saves more than 33% on cost. On the flip side, whatever size layout I might be running on, I can fit 25% more cars in the same space, so for the same unit distance of Lego track the trains have a larger number of cars and a longer scale length (N vs. HO). As for being prototypical, I am not attempting to build to minifig scale. So that removes the biggest constraint on scale. All of the cars are scaled proportionately for 6 wide. The one major dimensional constraint is that the height of the Lego train wheels is way out of proportion for 6 wide.

The new cars (and now completed train) looks fantastic. Then the shot with the slip switches is great too, I really like your club's layout but I thought guys were all 9v

A great build on its own, but truly amazing when you think how small the package is.

Thanks you, and I agree (but they are all too long for Lego standards) With the gentle corners, that prototype is a killer (especially in 6 wide). What you don't see in the photos is the fact that I design for durability too. If I went to 7-wide I probably could have gotten the gentle taper at the top of the sides. To tell the truth, after getting the nose to work, I was hesitant to mess with it any further. I'm still amazed the nose works as well as it does. Coming from someone with a username like Bogieman that is quite the complement (grin)

Holger Matthes's book is a great place to start, details of the German version here, and if you scroll down to about the 3rd blog post you can find other language versions here.

Thanks all for the kind words, It needs beveled corners to be spot on, but that adds four more planes. It was hard enough to get three planes where the constraints of Lego dictates that there should only be one (grin). I really wanted to get the small tilt at the top of the sides, and if I didn't include power functions inside it would have been doable. But after a few dozen iterations I finally gave up on that aspect. After I started in to the Superliners one thing that was killing me is that I thought that the Superliners and Amfleet were never mixed. There are a few shots of Superliner coaches with Amfleet cafe cars from the period when the Superliner I's were being built, but that is Phase II paint and the wrong cars. Then someone pointed out that the Pioneer often had Amfleet coaches with Superliner sleepers. Of course that only lasted into Phase III paint, but don't tell anyone that. I hope you work for the railroad (grin some more). Not my photo though, the nearest Amtrak comes to me is about two hours away and does so in the middle of the night. As noted in my post, the prototype shots are from this website of roster shots, a comprehensive list of almost all active Amtrak equipment. Thanks! Those are probably the one thing in this post that I worked on the most. They are now available on TrainedBricks.com, but unfortunately not cheap. Thank you. And I've been slowly working on instructions for the Superliners, so who knows, you might be able to have a set of your own someday (but definitely not before summer) You are too kind. The truck sides are held on with a clip and then prevented from twisting with a few plates at the bottom. Instructions for the trucks are here. The thing I like most about the truck design is that you can see through them, just like real trucks.

The half technic lift arms are 4mm, half the thickness of a normal technic lift arm 8mm, and a normal technic lift arm is the width of a 1x brick, i.e., also 8mm. It takes a while to get used to the technic dimensions. But to the problem at hand, what about putting this part on the underside of the fuselage and connecting the cars with a technic beam loose on the ? If so, you probably want the older version of this part (4623) because it has an extra mm Another thought is using a string element You could mount it on the underside of one car, thread the string through the technic holes on both cars and secure with a bar or ??? on the underside of the other car. It would be a PITA to attach and separate, but it would be low profile and out of the way. ... oh, wait, another one that would be a PITA for connecting but would achieve your goal of close coupling would be to thread a rubber band through the holes in a manner similar to my suggestion for the string.

That's tricky, I would suggest staying away from the mounting style of 2927, those holes are higher friction and the wheels can pop off too easily. My first thought would be a solid wheel with a technic axle hole, but even if you can get a technic axle hole in there when supported with normal technic bricks there would be little clearance to the track below. But it should work perfectly fine with technic beams or either of these: After my bad experience with 2927 at a show, I've stayed away from all small wheels. But I could see this size being a good option for steam engine pilot trucks, smaller rail vehicles, etc.

Take that... I remember this (or something very similar) being all the rage on the teletype

When I think of passenger trains my thoughts usually drift to American streamliners of the 1930's-1960's. As such, Amfleet never really caught my fancy, the egg shaped profile borrowed from the Metroliner (PRR/PC/Amtrak) didn't really match the prototypical passenger train in my mind. Then a few years ago one of my friends sketched up a Amfleet car in LDD. That got the gears working in my mind, culminating a little more than a year ago with my setting out to take my stab at them. I found this website of roster shots invaluable for my studies (all reference photos in this post are from that site). I settled on the Amfleet II. From the outside the main distinction between I & II is that Amfleet I has vestibules on both ends and Amfleet II on only one, but Amfleet II also has larger windows. While I was at it, I wanted to make a "modern" train that can still be seen running today. So I went with the current Amtrak paint scheme (Phase VI). The most challenging aspect was to get the right shape to the sides of the cars. Not only are they rounded, but they are widest just below the windows. That took a bit of engineering to get the right shape. Meanwhile, Amtrak's blue is somewhere between regular Lego blue and dark blue, so I went with dark blue. While I could have built clear windows, they would disappear in the dark blue, so I backed the windows with tan to keep them visible in most lighting conditions. I built two coaches and one cafe. The final cars are a little wider than 6 at the widest point and they are 52 studs long. At this point I was in deep, I needed a locomotive to pull the cars. That lead to the P42DC. With my old school bias of streamlined F-7's and E-9's I can't help but think these poor locomotives had their nose cut off. Whatever the history might be, these engines have some difficult angles. There's a bit of clip snot and a lot of black magic behind that nose. Well okay, why stop now? I went on to update my Superliner I design to Superliner II's. The biggest distinction being that Superliner I's did not have transition cars (they relied on the Hi-Level transition cars). Like the Amfleet, they are 6 wide and 52 studs long. All of these cars were designed to handle R40 curves, which require roller bearings to operate satisfactorily at this length. That was easy for the Amfleet design, since the trucks on the prototype cars had an internal frame, the naturally exposed wheels of the roller bearing wheel sets worked well. But for the Superliners, that was a different story. At 6 wide there isn't space to do a brick built solution. So I made up custom truck sides for the Superliners. I rounded out the set with a heritage baggage car visible in several of the shots. Full gallery once moderated

Part V added to first post in this thread

I suspect the primary customers for this first round (and probably 2nd and 3rd rounds) of the new 9v track will be people who already have 9v trains. As someone with 9v, the wide radius curves are AMAZING. These early rounds are not enough of a system to lure a plastic track builder over to metal rails, nor are they meant to be. In this context it does not make sense to think about R40 9v curves until much later, most 9v builders had more R40s than they knew what to do with. The easiest way to get train parts was from a set, and that always gave you 16 R40s. So the R40 will be readily available at low prices for quite some time on the reselling market (currently starting around $1 new and $0.35 used). Power pickup wheels will probably be the gateway to the plastic track folks. If you can charge your batteries when sitting on a siding without taking your model apart, that will entice some to invest in a bit of 9v straight track. Once there, the prospect of charging while running with half a loop of 9v track will become enticing and before you know it, you might want to (literally) close the loop and buy track powered motors. Each successive round will bring this closer to being a complete system, but each round depends on the success of the rounds before it to provide the development costs. I think it is amazing that Michael is so transparent with his costs. Now it is up to the market to decide. The prices are not to be sneezed at, but if you need 9v parts the prices are very reasonable. And if you need wide radius 9v, they are the only mass produced option to date.

Nothing like punching in 4 pages of two digit hex numbers from Compute's Gazette to get a new video game for your C64.

Excellent work! Great use spanning 1950's to today in your build. In five days or less (grin). Seriously though, most of the interurban lines offered high speed service (60 mph or more) and a few of the interurban companies even had sleeping cars. The route would have been circuitous though, and you would lose time on interchanges. I believe the window when all links were in place was fairly short though (under 5 years?)

That is a difficult curve. For the clerestory itself I would think 1x2x2/3 or 1x4x2/3 curved slopes Then for the rest of the roof, either the family of 8 wide airplane parts, which look like they might preserve the corner between the roof and walls etc. or the classic arches, that would give a non-prototypical continuous curve between the roof and walls but might be easier to work with

Your cars are fantastic, you've really captured the look and feel of Brio trains at full scale out of Lego. Please keep posting as you build more.

This review thread has kind of morphed into an "everything Fx Track" thread. I'm okay with that, but do know that my review is independent of Fx. Though in full disclosure I'm super hyped about having wide radius 9v curves. I suspect Michael is well aware of the chicken/egg (motor/track) problem with 9v and that this first round is primarily targeted at existing 9v users with the recognition that if there is sufficient demand, it will also serve as the foundation for people making the conversion once motors and pickups are available. I also suspect that he will not be in the black until motors and pickups become available. ME did things differently, they jumped in and promised too many things to a small market and over extended. They should have focused on fewer things and should not have jumped in to metal track without first making sure their design worked. So they lost money (including that of the kickstarter backers). But what they did do is demonstrate that there is a demand for wider radius track. That was a huge benefit for the community and I think all of the subsequent track manufacturers have learned from the ME lesson. In this case Michael worked out how to get 9v right (borrowing from Lego's great design that got it right in the first place) before coming to market, and he is only introducing a couple of parts at a time. So the future release of new parts will depend on the success of the current parts. Including countries formerly in the EU like the UK?

Ordinarily sold price is a good measure of cost, but in this case I would take the low end of current prices. In quantity S16 tracks start around $7.50 new and $4.50 used on Bricklink. While the Fx S32 are $8.75 ea (or $4.40 per 16 studs). So the S32 are on the order of the cost for used S16. I believe set 4515 (8x straight rails) was $16 ($20.50 today) when it was discontinued in 2007, but brickset has it listed as $13 ($16.75 today). Which puts the price for new S16 from Lego between $2.10 and $2.60. So the Fx are about twice the price of what Lego sold the rails for. Now keep in mind that Lego was losing money on the metal track when it was discontinued, so Michael has recreated an expensive production system on a much smaller scale and is still able to retail for a fair price. Of course what is fair and what one is willing to pay is a personal matter that varies by individual. I am planning on closing the review with the following insight, but I will go ahead and give an advanced preview. After running the long train tests I rebuilt my layout back to its original double track, only now using the 9v Fx R72 and plastic ME R88 (as place holders for 9v Fx R88 when they become available). The switch to the wider radii on my two track mainline left me with a surplus of 40x 9v S16. I don't think Michael will get rich, as noted above, Lego was losing money on the metal track when it was discontinued, so Michael has recreated an expensive production system on a much smaller scale and is still able to retail for a fair price. I just hope he winds up making at least minimum wage for all the effort he put into it and the massive up-front investment. If we're lucky, maybe he'll make enough that he could quit his day job and focus on lego trains exclusively (grin)

Nice work on both the silo and the trains, they work well together.

One big happy family! And it's all good