peterab

Hi Benny, I can't wait till the brickshelf pictures become public, I had to say how well you've captured the original.

Is this a re-issue of the old Sopwith Camel or a new model. I got the Red Barron tri-plane last time and will probably get a Camel either way, but I'm curious to know.

I'd take that as a compliment, this is a good looking design (from a technical as well as asthetic viewpoint), and something the rest of the community was bound to find interesting

I like the delivery part, but the sorting part is still a bit stressful. It's in the top ten most dangerous jobs in Australia and about a third of the incidents in a year involve posties in car accidents. Very few people look out for posties on the footpath when coming out of their driveway. I'm trying not to think about that part. I've had my first crash a couple of weeks ago when someone pulled out of a parking spot in front of me in the wet (I was on the road on the way to my round). Heavily loaded postie bikes don't recover well after swerving to miss cars. The handlebars started slapping, and the one I was still holding on to was the throttle so I was making it worse. I didn't think to let go fast enough so ended up coming off. I was a little bruised and sore for a while. The motorbike training we were given was pretty wild. One exercise was deliberately locking the front wheel and then recovering. We had to lock up over and over again till we we confident about it. Doing it the first time was really scary, since every other training course I've been on pretty much said 'Don't lock up the front or you'll crash'. The front is pretty quick to slide sideways when it locks up but it rights itself pretty quickly too if you release the brake quick enough.

There's a joke that's told about postie bikes; Postie bikes are like fat girls; fun to ride but you don't want your friends to see you doing it. And while I'm in my wet weather gear I look like I'm wearing a flouro yellow banana suit. Not really the bad biker image

I started a new job as a postman at the start of December. My new ride is a Honda CT110. It feels oddly naughty riding on the footpath :-)

This is a really well made coaling station. I've been wanting to build one myself but have too many incomplete LEGO projects to start a new one just yet. I'll certainly be taking a very close look at yours when I get around to building one myself. I really like the use of the black diagonal mesh fences as walkways, and I'll probably use that technique myself now.

I would probably use http://www.bricklink.com/search.asp?colorID=85&itemID=1383 for your roof with a flat middle section, though it does use a lot of parts. Very nice Umbauwagon, I've built a few of the longer version so I'm always interested to see someone else's. I like the idea of the slopes to represent the bracing, but I agree with Steinkopf, the actual wagon frame is vertical set back from the body edge, with only thin diagonal bracing. Perhaps use only a few slopes to represent them, and I'd choose the black same as the rest of the floor. I'd also love to see the design of the wheel articulation.

It's almost certain he will, Dave is a very active member of the Sydney train community.

Just a note to add Reinhard "Ben" Beneke on brickshelf.

That's a very clever use of the RC train base. It's notoriously difficult to use well but this makes it look easy.

I'd be very happy with this. Green 4x3 train windows would be very welcome here. I'm surprised pick a brick online hasn't explored this. It seems to me that they're not much use to me in Australia with their shipping costs unless the parts are significantly cheaper than Bricklink or they have something otherwise not available. Special colour runs of common molds seem an obvious draw. There are a bunch of usefull colours for trains like reddish brown that I'd like a lot more detail parts in, such as 1x2 plate with rails, clips etc. More dark green parts would surely be popular. I'm sure this is true of all themes. Just realised how off topic I've gotten, so sorry, but still think this is an interesting topic.

Any 12V transformer that can supply the required current should work the same (I suspect the reason yours don't is one (or both) can't supply enough current). Reading from this image the current you need is 200mA at 12V. You can buy a US transformer on Bricklink for about $5 if you want a LEGO one. Many train clubs use other transformers which will supply more current, which allows running more motors at once and therefore longer heavier trains. I'm pretty sure the French and Germans who play around with train speed records are using higher voltages, so that may be a place to look for more info.

In the context of the conversation I took the comments to mean the recently revealed mining sets, but it could have included just about any following theme I guess.

I'm pretty sure the My Own Train and BNSF/Santa Fe lines were the result of feelings like these coming from LEGO train fans in the US. Unfortunately it didn't work. Part of the problem is that with the poor sales of trains in comparison to say Star Wars retailers don't stock a lot, and don't want to restock 'old' slow selling sets. At least in Australia that results in having to buy all the trains in the first wave or missing out. It's a lot more likely that parents will buy a complete train in a set than four individual cars and an engine all at once, so overall sales of complete trains are better than individual cars. I personally hope that sales of the Maersk and Emerald Night have been sufficient to give TLG confidence to do bigger train sets aimed at AFOLs, since I see that at far more likely than a range of sets.

I've been wrong before, but that doesn't mean I won't be surprised if I am in this case. It would be a pleasant surprise though. In my wildest moments of fantasy I hope we get a replacement for the Emerald Night which is a complete train (or at least a few carriages). I'm not sure about the engines, but the Santa Fe carriages appeared to be not so good, since they had a lot on sale at about one third the original price at the end of the run. One of the guys in my train club tells me three pallet loads were bought and shipped around the Australian train clubs. Those trains were an experiment which it appears failed, so we now pretty much only see train sets, rather than individual engines and cars.

I'd dearly love to see an answer to; How do I get those cool train images in my signature, with a link to this thread perhaps.

I'd be guessing you're correct. Our guest from TLG this year at Brickvention was a designer. He's currently moving to be responsible for the city range. While he didn't discuss upcoming sets, he did make a comment that he was concentrating on the themes that were about to be refreshed and hadn't looked at trains yet. Which suggests to me that new trains are at least a year away if not more. That wouldn't include any special trains like Maersk or Emerald night but I'd be surprised if we see a new one till the Maersk is close to the end of its run.

Mark Stafford made a comment on Flickr that Jamie was not the primary designer on the Town Hall. I can't imagine, that if a modular building were running behind schedule, it would be quicker to bring another one forward, than just finish the problematic one. I guess we won't know unless someone with close links to the design team comments.

Yeah I think it was a strange choice to release a a flying V before a strat. I hope we get a strat and maybe a telecaster too :-) </guitar nerdism>

There are a number of ways to build stable 7 wide bases. My preferred option for carriages is six wide plates beside 1 wide plates for the base, followed by 2 wide plates on each side for the next layer. This allows the trucks/bogies to be attached with 2x2 turntables since the studs will fit within the anti studs on the train base.

Oh yes, and now just to tip me over the edge I can't enter because I haven't got a Maersk train yet. I'm off for some retail therapy post haste ...good luck to those Maersk enriched among us.

Hi Dave, I was going to post this when I noticed the thread had been revived, then I noticed you were posting here :-)

Licensed sets tend to be more expensive outside the US.

It's more like metallic grey in real life. The restored engine is definitely not white, and the photos of them during their working lives look even darker, though that could be because they were mostly pretty dirty. I doubt they would have been washed very often since they ran in mostly very arid areas where water is precious. I've been considering building 'The Overland' which had the same colour scheme and if I did I'd use one of the metallic greys if I could, otherwise light or even dark bluish grey.