zephyr1934

Thanks all for your feedback so far. I will probably be buying some of these slip switches in the next few days. But if anyone has more experience with facing point movements I'd love to hear it. I still need to test my older R40 Trixbrix switches with ME track since all of my R104 is ME. ME did something goofy with their designs, it connects fine with lego track but will not connect to BrickTracks. If ME and TB are not compatible then I'll also need a couple of curves.

That looks excellent in brick

Wow!

So I keep wandering back the slip switches listed on the Trixbrix site They look incredible from a geometry standpoint. But I have a couple of their R40 curve switches and the points do not seem secure enough for mainline use at a show. I've used them on a dog-bone track and about once an hour my train would derail on the switch. I don't remember if it was happening on a facing movement (picking the switch) or a trailing movement (running through the switch) though. I'm okay with the trailing movements being an issue for something like the slip switches, that just means the resistance is too high and you have to switch the switch in advance of passing through. But I could not afford to have the trains occasionally pick the switches as they are passing through at speed. Does anyone have more experience with mechanisms on the TB switches in general? Also, anybody have any experience with these slip switches in particular?

I echo that completely (so come and post more of your MOCs in train tech) That is a brilliant piece of work, inspirational. I would not worry about using PF on this, the IDEAS is just that, if Lego liked it they would update it to the current PUP. Just don't hold your breath, they never seem to like trains in IDEAS, but the more great train stuff like this the more we'll get their attention.

Another excellent build (though I bet those wheels would really grind (grin)). Seriously though, you keep knocking out these great builds. I've been stuck on a simple passenger car door for a few weeks and in that time I think you've built 4-5 steamers.

I've never used the BL autofill options, I typically pick what I think are the most rare or most critical parts and find the sellers with those, then add as needed. It is a slower process though, so whatever I save in $ I probably lose in $/time. Probably the biggest cost savings you can do is to take the list of parts and delete anything you already have in hand. Also, buying parts in quantity from BL can get expensive, if you need 60 of one part there might be dozens of sellers with 10-20 for cheap but only a few with the full 60 and they are charging a lot of money (which is why they still have 60). It definitely pays to keep track of rare or expensive parts. As I build digitally I am always checking the price of parts (I think stud.io can do that for you, but I use LDraw). That lesson took me several years to learn. You can do it retroactively, but then you have to redesign large parts of your model. Finally, I think some of your digital builds use parts that are rare or in some cases never existed in sets. Parts can still exist in unreleased colors on BL (e.g., small batches made for the model shop occasionally get out, I've even heard tales of TLG paying coders in rare brick in the early 2000's). That's coming out to be about $0.20/brick, a little on the high side but $0.10 for common brick is not unreasonable. You might be including motors and any other PF stuff in there, which might be cheaper from S@H.

You know, if they were going to decimate the Lego train aftermarket, it would be nice if they at least provided quality electronics, quality wheels, and in general make the parts more available. According to an article in RailBricks, the lego wheels are actually a clone of BBB, but who's counting? No, that is a very lego thing to do. They do not have time to serve their smaller markets, which is why there are so few train sets, etc. They are already at capacity selling other higher profit margin items. The cost/benefit ratio isn't there for them to carefully curate BL. And I think that is why the PUP battery boxes are so expensive- they are gong to sell a lot fewer of them and so increase the price to bring the return on investment in line with sets that sell higher numbers. It isn't malice, it is simply they have more profitable things to devote their resources to. It does seem like a logical business move, but it still sucks for us. Now here's the thing I don't understand, why isn't Brickowl taking this opportunity to step up their game and capture market share from BL? I tried listing some of my custom rods on BO and they got rejected without comment, when I then asked they said that only do lego parts. Yet there is even a spot in the part description to list non-lego makers. Sigh

That's hilarious, great use of the snow.

I put my phone in my pocket and my train went crazy! But seriously though, in an ideal world the app should by default allow you to control multiple ports (and multiple hubs) tied together with a single i/o rather than requiring you to program up your own solution, still good that it is possible and thanks for sharing the simple code

That was no ding on the original Saturn V MOC, it just sounded like the designers had to deal with the various internal constraints Lego places on sets. The sort of stuff that AFOL builds never have to contemplate.

I would agree that it won't happen, but if it were done right it could be a good thing. For example, when the Emerald Night came out it was unpowered (still is) but they also offered an Emerald Night collection with all of the parts necessary to power it. There were a few other unpowered trains that also came in bundles with the parts to power them. I don't like that they bundled so much with the EN, but there is no reason why they could not have an unpowered train and a separate parts pack to power it. But it will not happen because they want to keep the number of sets under control and especially do not want 5 billion specialized sets.

Oh wow! What a beauty. You did an exceptional job capturing the prototype. So many fine details everywhere I look. You may have upstaged your own locomotive though with the cars, those look amazing too. The windows and curtains are fantastic, I like how you did the window panes.

I believe I saw in the PR video for the Saturn V set that the Lego designer essentially said something like, "yeah, we completely ignored the original design to get the size and strength we wanted"

Shhh! Don't tell anybody, but I've been working on that issue. More to come in the near future as things develop.

Oh, I meant where the roof meets the side windows, not the front window. Getting the front window any better than you already have it would be darn near impossible. But yes, it is impossible to get all the angles, no matter what your (virtual) build is impressive.

So I was looking at the above image and seeing a sharp angle right above the cab window. That might be one of those details that gets sacrificed (I set out to do a PCC car and the one thing I wanted to get right was the windshield... the build turned out great but I never did get the windshield right) So here, maybe try black cheese with studs outward? (probably raising the cab windows one plate). I like the roof hatch, but another variant you might want to try is 1x3 curved slopes in place of the 2x2's (this bit seems like an even trade on features, both are good, but can't have both). I'm not sure either of these ideas would improve the situation, but they might be worth checking.

That is a great looking engine. Just staring at the nose I keep seeing more and more detailing oozing forth. There is just one thing that doesn't look right to my eye, how the cab roof meets the windows. In the prototype it comes in at a sharp angle, while the 1x2x4/3 curved bricks don't capture that same feeling with the continuous curve. Even this is just a small quibble though. It has all the right details in all the right places.

That's a great job you've done. I particularly like the shrouding around the stack. The only suggestion I have is to omit the handrail under the cab window. While there is one there on the prototype it is over-accentuated at lego scale.

The UK has a couple of advantages- they ran steam another 10-20 years longer than the US, so the cultural memory is a generation fresher. Also, their rail system is the opposite- mostly passenger with some freight. So the public is interacting with trains all of the time. They also seem to run mainline steam just about every weekend up the west cost secondary line without diseasels, whereas the US railroads largely do not want to have anything to do with steam beyond company sponsored excursions and even then, they have to have a backup diseasel. In that vein, the UP steam program (and NS to a lesser degree) are preserving their direct steam heritage. Amazingly though, I believe I saw something that said the Flying Scotsman only survived the cutting torch because it was on tour in the US when the owners went bankrupt in the early 1970's. That said, a NYC Hudson would be amazing.

Wow, that is an impressive piece of work. I really like how you hid the IR receiver. The side frames are also great.

What an odd prototype, I had to google it, an interesting story with a sad ending. Great job on the reproduction though.

Could it be that the Toronto Subway got so many votes because of "Toronto" rather than "Subway"?

Excellent report, thank you for sharing and thank you Freelug for the undertaking. Echoing some of the subsequent comments, roller bearings make the old axles look like molasses.

That is an amazing build (as is your norm), all of the detail on the platform side really comes alive.