zephyr1934

Oh man, that does not look like an easy job to pick winners from so many fantastic builds.

The 4.5V and 12V trains were designed to go up steeper grades, I think the official guidelines were one brick per 16 studs (rather than one plate of the 9V era) even after they went to rubber tires on the motor wheels.

Yes, these cars are very tricky to get the trucks correct, they are exceptionally low to the rail and almost all lego train wheel options are disproportionately large. I managed to lower my design for the cars by integrating part of the "flatcar" into the trucks. I was able to make the gap between the trucks and frame as small as possible using cheese bricks at the end of the car frame.

And you never cease to amaze with your builds. Another MOC that looks like it could have been a traditional model railroad locomotive. The rake of coaches pushes it over the top. Incredible work.

Those are some crazy prototypes you are building off of and then at such small size the amount of detail that you pack in is unbelievable. Great work!

That first post only took you 6 hours? Wow, even more impressive then. Another excellent build, but you have to slow down, you are making the rest of us look bad (grin)

Wow!... Wow! Wow! Wow! An incredible build... you pretty much went over the top in all possible directions. Detail upon detail (and lots of creative part usage). A true thing of beauty. The running test stand is brilliant! So have you also included a sound unit? V1 was an exceptional build, but V3 has blown it out of the water. Definitely one of the best locos I've seen in a long time How were the Boxpok drivers, did you have to carve out the axle hole or did they slip on just fine? I've been wanting to get some of these to retrofit some of my engines... oh, wait, I see you answered that here. What about the builder's plates, are those just blank circles? If so, remind me next time you place an order. I never got around to listing these in my store, but I could toss them in at no cost (as long as I still have some in hand, I can do this for anyone else, too)

Here's an old old post that I made about the issue...

I'd beware of the small train wheels on the pony truck like that. I've had them pop off at speed and cause a table dive. But if you are only running on the ground the impact will be much less spectacular (grin). Now have you tried building the caboose sideways to get the slats to go the right way?

The one problem with that M-motor truck design is that the motor will torque the truck to one side. You will probably want to set the gearing so that the motor torques to the left when running forward (the right rail has a slight indent at the joints that these motors can climb when they torque to the right). The problem is more pronounced on 9v rail, but I think it is also there on PF track. If you operate where the impact of a derailment is small (e.g., on the floor) then probably not even worth worrying about. It is only when a table dive is at risk that you have to worry.

Couldn't you do half stud spacing? I think BBB medium overlap with half stud spacing. So a normal technic brick, then a 1x1 technic brick or a 1x2 with two holes for the 1/2 stud offset, then repeat. You do not even need unusual spacing between the holes, you could use a technic beam and only pin the #1 and #3 drivers (or #2 and #4), just make sure they are the flanged drivers in either case.

That looks really nice, with all sorts of great detailing (the hoses and piping coming up under the cab, etc.). One suggestion, for the sides of the fuel tank on the tender you might want to use this new piece to eliminate the studs on the side. As for colors, I THINK the roof should be closer to dark red. And when I made my GN Northern based on the one in Havre, MT in my research it looks like dark green or possibly olive green would have been closer to prototypical. But I too went with sand green because it looks cool and is less likely to be mistaken for the EN. (nothing is wrong with the EN, I just wanted my build to look different from it)

Nice... but of course now you need to make a 2+ deep mock-up of the real rail at full scale (grin).

Another great narrow gauge build!

you are a wizard, keep up the great work

That looks really nice, the nose pieces seem so much more appropriate for a monorail

Great build with an over the top amount of detail per square brick

You really packed a lot of detail in those small models, excellent builds!

That was a brilliant improvement to the EN, putting the motor inside the boiler instead of consuming all of the cab. Meanwhile, I feel your pain about learning the meaning of "clearance"

What a fascinating little prototype and while it is small the MOC clearly had a lot of hard work to get so many details with nowhere to hide the snot.

Excellent and resourceful solutions

Nice little goat you have there, creative use of the battery box to get it to be so small. Definitely has the look of a British shunter. Is the green battery box is tape of some sort? What about the 1x2 grill tiles on the front, how are those staying on?

That looks really good for the era and far better than any of the MOT steamers. There are actually a few parts from that era that are no longer available but are better than many of the current alternatives (e.g., the palm tree segments for a stack).

It is not mine, just an amazing build I found, definitely worthy of praise though

I have a few friends who work at tourist/museum railroads in the US and have heard that at smaller RR without much non-railroad infrastructure (e.g., paramedics on staff, tents or shelter areas, etc.) that the mandated requirements for DOWT were quite burdensome, to the point that it was often a loss.