peterab

My first train was set 171 as a child. My dark ages were brought on partially by my growing interest in HO model trains. At first I collected Lima, but later wanted to collect Fleischman. After about a decade only accumulating a few complete trains I realized they were just too expensive in Australia for me to hope to ever have a complete layout. A few years later I got back into LEGO and started buying up a lot of mixed themes, but over time I found a local LUG and some LEGO train nuts. I'm pretty much hooked now, mostly because they are more affordable and I like the creative challenge of modeling real prototypes with the course LEGO medium.

It's actually red and silver, but I agree it's a nice livery. The silver doesn't photograph well so it's easy to mix it up.

The SydLUG guys are planning a con at the start of June at the Powerhouse museum. I'll be trying to get there myself.

I wrote a reply to this yesterday but in my post convention daze I forgot to submit it The gist of it was I think LEGO trains can be model railways depending on the intent of the builder. At Brickvention over the last weekend we had two layouts that IMHO should be classed as model railways. One was based around the Puffing Billy railway, the other was Tim (gambort) and Mike's layout based on rural Victoria in about the 70's. I think the distinction between toy and model is made easy by how successfully a real prototype is reflected. There are limitations to the LEGO medium, but over time the AFOL community is getting better and better at it. I partially agree with Tim's argument that the scenery and buildings add a lot, but I don't think that stops a single engine or train from being models, just that only one element has been modeled.

Hi All, I thought it might be useful to share who's coming and when just in case we'd like to meet up, so I've added a list to the first post. Please post if your exhibiting, registered for the convention, or coming to one of the public days and when and I'll update the list. I'm exhibiting on the Melbourne Lego Train layout, and will probably be wearing my red 'Official' t-shirt. I'll be the long haired guy so come and say hi.

Hi Garry, feel free to introduce yourself to me at the MLTC Brickvention layout. I'll be the long haired guy most likely wearing a red 'Official' t-shirt. Peter

This question was asked of LEGO by AFOL train fans some years ago; The answer is they are supposed to crash because kids like them better that way. Just don't use full speed if you don't want them to crash.

Whacking witch hunter - My guess is it was given by Hinckley after this exchange I'm quite chuffed it suits my grumpy online persona I think.

Promotional sets are marketed to companies and retailers who want to run a promotion with a LEGO set as an incentive. As such it varies widely from year to year, set to set and from region to region where they will be found. The most reliable way of getting them is from Bricklink, but because of their limited availability they command higher prices. Otherwise you just have to hope you'll be lucky and find them in your area. It may be that these sets are more widespread than other promotional sets since it's likely LEGO will be wanting to promote the Friends line themselves, but that's just guesswork.

This is particularly misleading advice. As others have stated before in the thread IP is a catchall phrase and doesn't mean anything. You need to file patents, but as I've said before in the thread this wouldn't really be a situation where that was useful. In most countries copyright is automatic, and the artistic work entailed in the design would most likely be covered there.

I'm a little like this from my goth days. I hate glitter, it's nearly impossible to get it out of carpet, one babygoth girlfriend and my house was covered in glitter for 10 years ... though I still think Ramstein needs to be loud

Jamie (or maybe TLG depending on his employment conditions) has the IP of the town hall design. The instructions are copyright the original author, so even if Jamie gave permission you couldn't publish them, you'd have to make your own to legally publish. Depends on the type of design, if for example it's an engineering idea, where the reverse engineering wont work without using the idea (which most likely rests on some physical principal) then you are correct, but in other areas such as knitting patterns where the design is more artistic, then copyright may be more appropriate. And all this will vary from region to region to some extent. I'd expect the design to be copyright here in Australia rather than patentable. Patents tend to need to be unique and non-obvious too whereas building with LEGO would be the obvious use of LEGO bricks so it couldn't be patented in any reasonable patent system IMHO. I think TLG probably does hold copyright to it's designs so original Mocs designs are probably also protected by copyright. More problematic is protecting those rights. The author of the instructions probably holds copyright on those, but not the design, which is where it gets tricky. Ebay is notoriosly hard to get to act, so report it if you can. This guy seems to be linking to others copyright images, which is against eBay an Flickr terms of use so that might help. Persistence will help here, there's a woman in knitting circles who republishes out of copyright knitting patterns, who now has good success getting illegal copies of her updated instructions taken down, but it took her a long while to get there. I could follow up further if anybody wanted a link to her blog where she discusses how she manages it. On a slightly more serious note perhaps a co-ordinated witch hunt against his Ebay account might help - bring your own thwacking impliments

Prince of Persia is pretty much a video game license (granted also a movie license too). If TLG didn't like video games licenses before, I cant see POP sales helping change that. Please can we get back on topic.

This is just beautiful. I hope you keep posting updates as this grows. Even the freight cars are great models individually. I'm going to try and recreate your crane for my own post WW2 German train yard. It will look great in my coaling facilities. There must be a strong AFOL community in Poland because what we see coming from there is almost uniformly of the highest standard. Are there Polish forums for those of us who want to spy from afar?

Have you considered 2x3x2 containers; http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=4532 http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=4533

According to the Lego Australia staff at last years Melbourne Toy Fair; sets that are Lego Store 'exclusives' overseas become store 'exclusives' in Australia because we don't have a Lego store (yet ;-). Lego Australia has to negotiate to get a limited number of them and then set up a store exclusive, and that tends to take time so we don't always get them immediately upon release. Going by past form the joust set might be available at retail here but I wouldn't be surprised if it takes a while. MMV was a target exclusive and pretty much sold out in Melbourne on the first day.

a) is not so much a concern, since reviewers academy exists to improve the quality of reviews rather than police it. b) is more a concern, while we're all happy to see a new set in whatever quality, if you are not the first review it's probably only worthwhile to post a second if you're adding a different viewpoint, or providing a higher quality review

I'm getting pretty hyped up myself although I know it will be a lot of work. Come and say hi to me if you can find me; I'll be the longhaired guy in the red official T-shirt, most likely in the Melbourne Lego Train Club layout.

Generally you cant upload images to Eurobricks (well you can but the total upload limit is very low) so you need to host them on another image hosting site such as Brickshelf or Flickr. Once you've done that you can deeplink images so they show up in your signature. BY the way all this is disscussed in the tutorials which are a good idea for new members to read to avoid asking the same questions over and over again ... oh too late.

Yes you can join them but it requires using a half stud offset. Most people use a jumper plate. If you search around for on brickshelf you should find pictures.

Less with the schnitzel more with the roo steaks. And since those dates are Australian, going on past form the rest of the world will already have them by then.

I think the older 70's ones based on panel vans look a lot more like an intentional design. I agree the covered ute designs look very ugly but that's cost cutting for you. I'm quite fond of the industrial look of the rear door of modern divvy vans (stands for divisional van , ie each police division has one (or more in some cases)). I'm a little worried what the need (or perceived need) for such reinforced doors says for our society though. On the other hand they used to park a huge riot van outside the cricket here in Melbourne in the 70's and I haven't seen anything like that since then. It used to be full of drunks and streakers by the end of the day, and it could hold about 20 people.

Cale has given one solution, but you can also improve traction depending on which traction tyres your wheels have. The RC wheels (from the Green RC cargo train and white RC passenger train) had quite hard black/grey traction tyres which were not very effective, these are still used on some un-powered trains like the Toy Story. Over time these have been replaced on powered trains with a softer transparent tyre which give far more traction. If you are not already using the clear traction tyres you might want to replace them (I think if you contact Lego service they should be able to help you out). As others have said you may also need to add weight to your engine if you plan on pulling long trains, and make sure the friction on the engine and cars is low particularly in corners.

Will you be coming to Brickvention? It's pretty much the highlight of our year, and I'd love to have someone to geek out about German trains with. By the way why do you start in LDD if you are going to export to LDraw anyway wouldn't building in LDraw to start with be easier?

Hmmm, I have an IT background, and am active in the Lego fan community ... I don't speak the languages mentioned, but I do speak German ... Working for TLG would be great fun ... but I've just started a new job here, and really couldn't move to Western Europe much as I'd love to. Good Luck Siegfried :-) I think you have a good friendly personality that should suit you to the job.