peterab

The first half of the year will be busy for us Melbournites. Jan Brickvention, Mar AMRA Sandown, May Sydney Brick Show, July/Aug AMRA Caulfield, Aug BrickExpo. I think we'll need to pick brains about how you guys manage to travel with a layout. Teunis is well on the way to buying a box trailer so that will help.

Why didn't I think of this I'm working on a BR 103, a very well loved German prototype, which has a few difficulties for LEGO renditions. At least by looking at all the other versions I get to copy all the good bits, and stand on the shoulders of giants as it were. If I built local prototypes there are only a few people that even build Victorian Railways. Unfortunately one of them is arguably the best LEGO train builder in Australia, and I'd put him in the top ten in the world.

I'm pretty sure this was just a manufacturing variation, as Brickaroo has said these came in MISB sets. I've also seen them from sources where no replacement or repair has been made. The set photos I've seen only show all black, or all red wheel sets, so I assume the red pins were used on black wheels later in production, perhaps to overcome a shortage of black pins.

I've only got one 12V motor, so I cant say for sure, but the only problem I can see would be drawing too much current for your transformer. Many train clubs using 9V trains either use non lego controllers or modified ones so the can run extra motors, but the stock one will normally handle at least two. I'd be surprised if the 12V one couldn't handle at least two at a time.

I'm not sure if it's this set, but one of the upcoming Creator sets is being redesigned. It's mostly yellow from what I know so it could be this one. Since the shipping from Australia makes it prohibitive to ship the current sets back to a Lego factory for repacking, some Australian LUGs will be given the parts of the existing local sets. At this stage that's all my Ambassador has been told. ETA by the way 5767 doesn't appear to be available in Europe at the moment either. You'll probably just have to wait and see, if nobody responds that mostly means no-one knows anything.

I'm not sure but I think the 13V connector on the 12V transformers may have been 13V AC; OK for running lights, but not good for DC motors as you found out. 13V DC should be OK for a short while, but if planning on running a heavy train for any length of time keep a close eye on it. If the motor heats up you are better to add a second motor rather than higher voltage.

That looks really good now, I like the reworking of the front to hide some studs.

Hi Cpt Zuloo, Do exhibitors have to book tickets for the VIP night? Teunis and I are all geared up, and with a little luck I'll have a newly finished train to display.

Magcloud has a free download for the digital version so you could use that while the Railbricks site is down. You will have to sign up to use it though I think.

I think since the US is 110V and most of Europe is 220V you'll want a step up transformer. It might be far easier and more energy efficient to use a normal 12V train power supply designed for your local sockets. Peter

Funnily enough Jamie Berard was an AFOL before he designed the EN and Piere Normandin was also an AFOL when he first worked on the Hobby Train, before he went on to design the Maersk train. TLG are already hiring from among AFOLs. Oh and if I'm not mistaken Bricktrix works as a model maker for TT games on Lego Universe.

Because people are still buying at the higher prices. In fact it appears the PF trains are more popular. It's not about the cost of the components.

Well partly that's your own fault, I haven't voted because you didn't include this which I've owned since childhood, or this which I always wished for. I bought 325 after my dark ages.

I've had a number of talks with a number of TLG employees regarding Australian prices. Apparently the local sales offices set the RRP in conjunction with local retailers, based on what they think the market will bear. The wholesale price paid by retailers is pretty much the same around the world. There are certain markets in which the wholesale price is kept artificially lower because TLG is trying to grow those markets. In a financial report at the start of the global financial crisis, TLG stated they were keeping prices lower in the US due to the GFC. It appears that US profit margins for retailers must be much lower, and possibly also for TLG. There is a very persistent rumor in Australian AFOL circles that our prices are partly higher due to some bad hedge fund decisions made at Lego Australia at the start of the GFC, which effectively creates a bigger loss the higher the Aussie dollar rises. I'm not sure this would still be having an influence directly, but retailers might be taking advantage of consumers being used to paying more here in setting the RRP. It doesn't really matter to me which if any of these factors make our prices so high, if I can get two trains from the US for nearly the same as one here, guess what I'm going to do? It could be the retailers here are aware that Lego sells best when it is discounted, so the RRP is artificially higher. Also our standard of living has been pretty consistently higher than the US, so perhaps there is a broader spread of people here that can afford our higher prices. Certainly our economy has fared a lot better recently than yours. Most toys, clothing and home wares are more expensive here.

I really like this idea. The sides have a chunky heavy engineering feel to me. I particularly like the vertical rods.

I know a guy who has an LGB/Playmobile train running past his kitchen window, down the side of his house and around his backyard. He has sushi ans Saki trains.

Some TLG employee's have performance criteria in which fan happiness is measured. It would certainly qualify as a total failure in those terms. Many large corporations measure their success or failure on a much broader range of criteria than purely financial, and TLG are particularly protective of their image, since their brand is their most precious asset. US customers perhaps don't understand quite how Europeans see LEGO because TLG is not as successful yet in the US, but having some German fans swearing never to buy Lego again isn't an indicator of a successful move. It's also pretty hard to estimate what the real cost of the move was since it was lost sales, far easier to measure real sales. Yeah this is pretty much how I see it. It was a failure to see the impact of their actions. The yellowing was already apparent in the early 80's, but a similar change would still have had negative effects, perhaps without feedback getting back to TLG. The explanation was part of the public apology afterwards. I have to disagree here. Had they talked to AFOLs before hand they would have realized there would be opposition to the move. That in itself was a turning point for TLG. Also they might have been able to formulate a middle path. There were two aspects to the colour change, a change to avoid yellowing, and a change to a more blue toned palette for aesthetic reasons. Only one of those was necessary, but by the time they realized the aesthetic change would be so unpopular, it was too late. Had they known they could perhaps have sought to mimic the old colours with yellowing resistant mix. While the new colours arguably look better, and certainly don't mix well with the old colours, but that wasn't even a problem till after the new greys were around, there certainly was no push from Lego fans to replace the colours. AFOLs still account for 5% of sales, and this is still millions of dollars worth. Also more importantly AFOLs are a growing market, where many of TLGs best markets are saturated. If the AFOL community were not seen as important we wouldn't see the many exclusive sets catering primarily to us. We are also seen as a marketing bonus, so TLG actively encourages exhibitions through support for conventions and programs such as LUGBULK. TLG are very serious about their relationship with the AFOL community. It may have been a minor issue to you personally, but I think it's highly unlikely that TLG would promise never to do it again if they viewed it that way.

When should they have done it? In the sixties before the yellowing problem was apparent? Any time after that would have caused the same problem, though I guess before the internet it might not have been so public, though their support phone lines would have made TLG very aware of it. The colour change was pushed for by the designers because the new colours look better together, and I agree with that. The problem is the old colours were deleted. The new colours exist at the expense of the old colours, which looked fine together. The old individual colours shouldn't cease to exist just because the "new combinations look good together" either. The fact that the biggest negative reaction has come from Germany, LEGOs biggest market, and that TLG have apologized, and have said they'll never do this again, suggests it really was a failure that should never have happened. Unfortunately for everyone (both fans and TLG) TLG had no idea they were going to cause a problem before they did it. Thats really where the failure lies. This was hugely damaging to their relationship with their fans in their biggest market.

I think this is getting close to a perfect summation of the situation. Consider this thread. It's in the most active community of AFOLs in the world. It probably has a few hundred participants, maybe a couple of thousand, not all who buy complete boxes, a few who buy more. There are probably ten more similar sized forums. That gets us somewhere in the tens of thousands of AFOLs who buy complete boxes, as a very rough guess. That figure would have to be much much larger for us to be having the sort of effect that made a huge difference to TLG sales. I'd guess we have a bit more influence in Collectible Minifigs than themes such as Power Miners or Hero Factory, but I'd be astounded if were too far from the 5% of the total market that AFOLs have been estimated to be in the past, say perhaps 10% tops. I also don't think you can count all Bricklink sellers in the AFOL camp, since they often buy direct from TLG as a business, and not all BL purchasers are AFOLs.

My pre dark age collection is mostly from the 70's. At that time most plates were light grey. Imagine how you would feel if the vast majority of plates in your collection were now relegated to museum status. I never wanted to be a collector, but now for aesthetic reasons I don't mix those 70's parts with the rest of my collection. You can mix old and new greys for effect, but as can be seen in this thread most people don't like mixing the old and new colours. In effect the change made the old greys redundant in terms of new building, since it meant the prices of the old greys would climb, so the natural preference would be to use the newer cheaper colour with a wider range of parts. The real failure here was the designers pushed for an aesthetic change in the name of better design, while actually breaking a far more important aspect of the LEGO system; the fact all elements should be usable together. And it had the greatest effect on TLGs oldest fans. Complete FAIL.

Well the red 2x6 train windows will be very helpful to me. Take a look at the price of the Santa Fe windows to see why I haven't got any. I've been told by someone who's seen this train, and had input during it's design; the battery box is molded in red. Very useful for future MOCs, far more so than the grey battery box. The rest of the set might be a bit plain vanilla, but I'm pretty sure I've heard you say in the past, sets are just collections of pieces we can use to create anything we want. In that case there's no reason to be critical of others excitement of this set, after all if we are both being creative your needs are not likely to be the same as mine anyway.

They only showed the AFOLs they invited to breakfast at the Melbourne Toy Fair the two known winter sets. They might have had the post office hidden only for the retailer who's going to sell it, but we got to see pretty much everything that's shown up so far except the red cargo train.

I agree with this. Part of the TLG strategy is to be seen as an exclusive luxury brand. They do have quite a high profit margin for a manufacturer, but they also have a product with very tight tolerances, which is also built to last. Most of my early collection is from the 70's and still performs it's function well (not so much the 60's pre ABS bricks :-). By the way I'm really enjoying your rational posts of late. I find I'm in agreement with a lot of what you say.

If you're going for a single story pub I think Art Deco would probably allow a more decorated style. If it were me I'd be looking to build a gold rush era Victorian (after the Queen not the place) Italianate pub, but thats probably not appropriate for South Australia. I seem to remember some Georgian style sandstone pubs from my travels in South Oz, and since they're pretty simple they might translate well to brick. You could also look to do a weather board building using the technique in the latest railbricks journal.

Love the pose :-) Clearly you're a very hard man who takes himself seriously.