peterab

You should be able to build a US style diesel, but as your first MOC i'd steer away from anything with 6 wheel bogies, that way you can use the train motor from the set and still have the correct wheel arrangement. With a single motor you should be able to pull 5-6 LEGO cars easily, but you can add a second motor to most engines without too much fuss. You'll need a Pole Reverser to run them in opposite directions. Also nice to have is Lights I suggest you look at the instructions of the BNSF and Maersk trains (they should be available from the service section of the LEGO website), and a bunch of pictures of US engines on Flickr (their are lots of groups for trains). If you pick a red one your set will be the most helpful. There are also instructions for custom trains at Railbricks which might be helpful, and the LEGO Train Mocs group on Flickr has a whole bunch of inspiration. It does store more juice and can be a bit more convenient to recharge depending on the design of the engine. There is a thread on here about fitting the red cover from 3677 to the rechargable battery if you want to go that way, but it wasn't really designed with that in mind. If you do buy one be aware that the lego recharger, is just a 10V supply (and is quite expensive). The battery contains it's own protection and charging circuit, so you can use any generic 12V supply you can find that fits. Testing has been done on the battery and it 's safe up until about 18V. Don't bother buying an extra controller, if you ever buy another set you'll get another one, if you really get hooked on trains, you'll have too many after a while. Hope some of this helps, and maybe there will be a Brazilian Lego Train Club in the future :-)

Well, it is bigger, but then again compared to the width of the track it's probably more closely prototypical too, it being a standard gauge shunter it should probably be wider with respect to the track. To some extent the limitations you are experiencing are of your own choosing; because with LEGO we can model in whatever scale we wish. That scale will impact on which power source is most effective. It doesn't make one or the other better in general, just better for a particular need. Here is an example, these are narrow gauge prototypes, but Alex chose to build them about 12 wide. As a clear example of where PF is the best choice, many large US steamers are now being built with a pair of XL motors because they will pull huge rakes at prototypical _slow_ speeds. Looking at your Tank Loco I don't think you would need to go much larger to fit in the receiver in the firebox, an M motor underneath the cab as in HoMa's BR80 and a 9V battery (not a lego battery box) in the boiler. If you wanted to remove the circuit board from the receiver, and trim the wires to fit, you'd definitely have plenty of room. I'm pretty sure it would be doable in 7 wide, with a five wide boiler. You may even be able to hide the M motor in a four wide boiler, and the battery under the cab.

Yes, this may stress the transformers. It would be more likely to damage the transformers (or at least blow a fuse) if they were set to opposite directions, but it's probably not a good idea. They are likely to be designed to be fairly robust since they're designed for kids, but why risk shortening their lifespan? Yes, that's the safest way to use them.

Trains with complex wheel arrangements like the Emerald Night or three axled bogie tend to get stuck at the change of inclines because they lift the driving wheels off the track. Heavy trains tend not to have enough power to go up the grades. Since the members of my club build all sorts of rolling stock we try and avoid grades so everyone can run their trains. Also long grades are difficult to transport and set up so we have avoided them so far. Our limitation is not normally space, but set-up time and ease of transport for our large club layouts. I was surprised that most people recommend only one plate rise per track piece for 9V trains. 4.5V trains can easily climb 1 brick per track piece, but you need to be careful of downhill speed. Good Luck with your tests.

My standard response to this sort of claim is Holger Mattis' BR80. It is an 0-6-0 tank engine, includes full PF gear, and is self sufficient. It is no doubt a very clever model, and is eight wide, but it does prove PF does not have to be as limiting as most claim. Using LEGO's rechargable battery, while it is expensive, helps to remove part of the trouble with having to disassemble engines to recharge, you just have to allow access to the power plug. Given it's storage capacity and the fact it has its own protection and charging circuit it's not bad value for money if you can get one at US prices. The use of a 9V motor as a pickup allows you to recharge from a small section of 9V track overcoming all the issues. The PF sensor can be hidden behind windows, though it restricts the line of sight somewhat, but it still works. For slow running it's hard to beat the PF XL motor since it has much lower gearing than any of the train motors, granted the 7 speeds of the PF controller isn't great. Even the M motor is pretty slow. While I do own a bit of 12V track, I find the centre conductors to be very non-prototypical, and PF gives a lot more flexibility for powered wheel arrangements so my choice has been almost exactly opposite yours. I guess having four systems allows a lot of choice, and it allows us to pick whatever suits our chosen prototype best.

As I said before if the train can climb one section, as long as there are sufficient connections so there is no great voltage drop between them, it will be able to climb the whole way. The ramp is the big unknown for me too, but I don't think the wiring will be the problem. I don't have a lot of experience with ramps and 9V, because my club avoids them, since we've had problems in the past with traction issues. My suggestion is to build one ramp section (or maybe two with a 180 degree curve between them) and test it. Then you can experiment with how many motors you require for the ramp, and how many connections are needed. You mentioned you had a Santa Fe, I'd use that for the test since it is probably heavier. If you get that working reliably everything else should work too. If it doesn't work you can add more motors and controllers, but turning 3 controllers in sync is difficult even with extra people, and it's almost impossible to turn them all off quickly in case of accident. I'd probably try and reduce the weight of the trains instead, perhaps by reducing the number of carriages. I'd guess 4 motors in your Horizon Express should be fine though, since 1 motor can pull the standard set.

I guess it's a tire.

Not by me. The LEGO 9V controller has a max output of 9VA which is about 1A at maximum speed (9V). This is not true for LEGO trains with four motors. Each motor draws about 300mA at top speed, which means a four motor train requires 1.2 A, which leads to my recommendation of two controllers in parallel for each section.

'Somebody from the US' sounds like an expert Of course I'm also just someone from Australia. Here's a video of the club layout that I contributed to where we use some of these techniques; As far as we know this is the biggest layout ever built in the southern hemisphere.You need to connect the two controllers to the track close to each other and with the same polarity (each controller should make a motor move the same direction when turned the same way). By turning them in sync I mean you should make sure both controllers are set close to the same positions at all times. You will cause a short circuit if you have the in opposite directions for example, but you will also put unnecessary strain on them if they are not set at the same speed. The reason this is helpful for a four motor train is the standard controller is able to put out about 1A at 9V from memory. Each motor draws about 300mA at 9V. Four motors draw about 1.2A which is more than a single controller can deliver, the result is you can overheat your transformer and your trains wont run with full power. By adding an extra controller in parallel you add more current solving both potential problems.

In theory there is no limit, in practice the connectors stacked on the back of the 9V controller become quite high and likely to be knocked off after a while. 5 is fine. We use the standard 9V track connectors http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=5306c01, and extension wires http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=5306bc162 If the distance you need to cover is really long you can also use thicker wire (less resistance), we used the connectors off a short extension wire to build a couple of 11 meter wires. You probably only need two connections each, but more won't hurt. As long as the two transformers can pull the train up part of the incline, it should work the whole way if the distance between connections is short enough. 20/5 = 4m should be no problem at all. We normally see no effects of track resistance until over 10m. It would most likely be fine with just two connections, maybe 3 for safety. Having fewer transformers means it's easier to react to problems too, just turn both off. And if you're going to run 4 motor trains, you need to have two transformers in parallel for each block, so 8 transformers in total. To control the train you just turn both controllers in synch.

You don't really need all these transformers. You can eliminate a lot of them by using multiple connections from a single transformer (or two for the four engined trains) to the track to overcome resistance, instead of connecting a whole new transformer. You only really need separate transformers where you need independent control. As an example you might use one transformer on each of your high speed loops, but connect them on opposite sides of the loop (across the skinny part so you minimise the length of extension wire used). In effect wherever the train is it's always no more than 5 meters away from the nearest transformer connection.

The design is by a German AFOL who's brickshelf name is Ben. A lot of his models including the coal tower include LDraw files and parts lists. While they are not quite as convenient as PDF instructions you can use them to step through the model and build it. They are also free. You could at least try and have a look and see if it was worth it to you to spend the money.

Many technic pieces are colour coded to help kids distinguish between them. The black ones are from before this was introduced and probably won't be coming back.

There has been a few reports of young kids enjoying pushing trains more than operating them remotely. Perhaps its some thing about developing hand eye co-ordination that draws them to want to touch stuff rather than watch it from afar. I guess LEGO probably want a range of trains across many price points, and adding electronics to every train will pretty much rule out the cheaper end. Movie fans probably don't care about motorisation either, since most of the movie tie in trains are not designed with PF addition in mind. While I agree that _I_ don't want a train you have to push, I've got a lot of trains, and I can't run them all. I have a few steam trains, most of them are purely to look pretty on the club layout. Secondly railroad fans are a small potion of a relatively small hobby (among adults at least). What we like or want is not influential because of the huge scale of LEGO production. Wanting a push train set is a completely different thing, since it gives access to the wheels and couplings we need without the added expense of PF gear, though at the moment I want more of that too.

I've always assumed that the cylinders were a suppressor to avoid radio interference. My electronics background doesn't really extend to antenna design or radio frequency suppression, but it's at least within the realm of possibility that what you describe might attenuate it by acting as a crude capacitor. If you run your trains while others are looking at TV or listening to the radio close by you might cause problems, but otherwise it's probably OK to leave it out. Adding a smoothing capacitor to the circuit to replace it would also work. Perhaps LT is able to add more real world advice, and even a simple circuit diagram and suggested cap value and type.

My personal opinion is this is a more realistic design than either the Toy Story or many of the Harry Potter trains, though all Western trains look childish to me since I associate them with cheap Xmas train sets from the US. As you say there is nothing wrong with that, in fact it's a feature. Adults will never be the prime market for LEGO, so for LEGO trains to exist they need to appeal to kids. In the end you should think about what you want out of the hobby. My guess is you would enjoy prototypical US LEGO trains, but you'd probably also enjoy watching your son having fun with any train, in fact he'd probably enjoy playing more with a train you are less protective about. My train club runs everything from official TLG sets, through simple mods and childish Thomas Mocs to highly detailed and accurate models based on real prototypes. I'm under no illusion that most kids like Thomas far more than the DB trains I slave over to create. There's a real danger that 'negative' reviews by adults on public forums influence kids not to enjoy what they would otherwise, Mark Stafford said early leaks for some themes had slowed sales. No set will be ideal for everyone, and that's OK, we don't all need to like the same stuff.

The RC trains 7897 & 7898 were both affected, and any RC train motors, later than this it depends a bit on when they were produced. The current good traction tyres are clear when clean, and have a more rubbery texture, the older RC bad ones are black. There may be other ones between these, but since Australia gets LEGO mostly shipped in big lots at the start of product cycles, they probably didn't make it out here so I haven't seen any. Perhaps a European or USian can help. Another solution to increase the locomotive traction is to increase its weight (used on real trains too). This provides an easy test to see if wheel slip is a problem, just add some small weights such as coins to the loco. If it pulls better then you know you have a problem, and the solutions are either better traction at the wheels, ie better tyres, or just add more weight, or both. The disadvantage of more weight in the loco is your motor has to move it as well as the carriages you want to pull.

Or use two motors up front and swap out the technic axles at the rear with the two wheelsets you gain by adding a Jacobs bogie to the centre. That's my plan for the time being, next will be a couple more carriages to get a more prototypical rake, and then I'll look at designing a TGV logo and replacing the black window stripe for dark bley. I'm really enjoying the modification potential of this train.

The price looks OK too. They were a lot more expensive when I bought them. I might buy another bunch myself. Does anybody know of anyone selling black tyres at the moment?

It's too American Doesn't come with power functions, or instructions to motorise. Comes with lots of curved track I don't need. Should be a passenger train like the movie excerpt ... etc etc. Seriously though, it looks like a nice parts pack. I'm always up for more dark green, the minifigs mostly look useful for town (anybody want to buy a Lone Ranger?). As long as it's an OK price, I'll buy one or two. I just noticed there are no train baseplates which make it even more attractive to a seven wide builder, since I normally don't use many.

Original ones will be very pricey since any that have been exposed to air are most likely dry and warped or cracked, and the still sealed ones are a limited and shrinking resource. There have been a few people who have made after market replacements from the inner rubber sheath of European phone cables (or so I was told when I bought some), which come in both grey and black, and have exactly the correct diameter. I've seen them both on Bricklink (in the custom section) and on Ebay, a few years back, and while they were still not cheap, they were a lot better than the original ones.

It will be quite interesting to see what we get. In the last few years LEGO sales in the US have doubled every year, which means the US finally overtook Germany as the biggest market. For the first time that means US prototypes might make more financial sense than European. It could still mean Germans buy more trains (they are train mad) but it's hard to tell without more info. Anything we get will have been in planning for a couple of years so not based on recent sales just to add to the uncertainty. While I still collect most official LEGO trains, I build my own to scratch the particular itch I have for 60's and 70's West German stuff. Perhaps that's a way to get your US diesel passenger train. If you based it on the Santa Fe set with a different company paint job, it could be quite reasonable in price (by avoiding rare parts and colours) and something unique.

City themes get refreshed every few years. Police and Fire every year or two, construction every three etc. In the past Trains have been replaced every four years or so. There are occasional hick-ups; for example there were delays surrounding the retirement of 9V, and the introduction of RC. The last revamp of trains was 2010 (if we don't consider the somewhat odd release of the red cargo train). There are many markets where after a couple of years retailers won't restock older designs, particularly of trains which have lower sales than other city sets. Australia is one, I rarely see trains at retail anymore, and if so it's old stock, generally a single set just getting dusty on the shelves. Once the large US and European retailers start to run out their stock, either they can't get any more stock, or they're preparing space for new trains. In both cases it indicates they will probably be replaced eventually. It's apparent from the preceding that the old trains are on their last legs. I can't imagine that trains sales have been really bad, all the indications appear to me to suggest they are pretty good (exclusive trains on a two year cycle, the unexpected release of the red cargo train). It then follows that there will be a replacement for the old trains, the big uncertainty is when. My guess is we'll either see new trains for Christmas 2013 or 2014. I'm not sure what rumours are like for second half 2013, but I guess we would have heard by now from past experience, so 2014 seems more likely.

Yeah, I'd love to know for sure too. I was told just after release (from an impeccable source) that it was intended to replace the Yellow Cargo Train. Given what has happened since I'm not sure if 'replace' meant purely in the Australian market since we didn't get any more local stock of the Yellow train, or fill the gap that unexpected high sales of the Yellow train would leave in the later life cycle if the Red train had not been made. It will be interesting to see what happens for next Christmas since it is very apparent by 2014 we'll have a bunch of new trains I predict a least one awesome new Cargo train

Hi raised, This looks really sleek, and I'm glad to see it finished after watching your flickr updates for so long. Definitely worth the wait. I really like your bogie detailing, and the vents on the roof.