peterab

I'm really sad I couldn't make the MUGs* meeting now, since you will be destroying this. I was at the Sandown train show all weekend. Of all the Melbourne MOCs this was the one I most wanted to see, I think the cow and the pig are perfect and the rest of the facade fit very well. *This MOC was built for a photo shoot of Melbourne icons for a Melbourne newspaper at the monthly meeting of Melbourne Lego Users Group (MUGs).

There are a number of things to check. Most technic construction need to be built with precise spacings so you may have built it too tightly. It also may be jamming because you got the quartering of the axles wrong; the drive rods should be a quarter turn or 90 degrees different to each other just as in a real steam locomotive or they will jam. There are also a number of modifications people have made to the EN because after a few hours running it will bind, there are a couple of other threads discussing those. It does sound like this is due to your building rather than the design though, mine had no problems and freely moved when finished.

The trains are greatly slowed when they travel over the curved part of multiple points. I think this is a more literal translation and conveys the meaning better.

It might not be cheaper, since it will be motorized with PF gear and include track while the Maersk train won't. I don't think that will mean it won't sell, the current trains have sold well, and I think a new train has a better chance of more sales than continuing the old one. As long as the greater sales cover the initial fixed costs of the design Lego wins.

Hillside House $99.00 June Lighthouse $69.99 June Harry Potter All July 4865 The Forbidden Forrest $22.99 4866 The Knight Bus $59.99 4867 Hogwarts $99.99 Alien Conquest All Sept 7049 Alien Striker $7.99 7050 Alien Defender $17.99 7051 Tripod Invader $34.99 7052 UFO Abduction $49.99 7067 Jet-Copter Encounter $69.99 7065 Alien Mothership $99.99 7066 Earth Defense HQ $149.99 Kingdoms All Sept 6918 Blacksmith Attack $17.99 7187 Escape from Dragons's Prison $34.99 7188 King's Carriage Ambush $69.99 7189 Mill Village Raid $119.00 There is no mention of a third winter set so I'd guess we wont see it in the next six months, and the first two are definitely exclusives, I had a conversation about them in particular with the Lego Australia staff. If the third winter set follows the pattern of the others I wouldn't expect to see it here till well after the overseas release (it's been nearly 1.5 years for the Winter Toy Shop and I don't think it's been available here before). The first two may get a wider release later I guess like the modular fire station, but that wasn't the impression I got from my talk.

If anybody would like any of the other RRP prices or for upcoming sets, I can check the dealer catalog I was given after having being invited to an AFOL breakfast at the Lego stand of the toy fair.

Sand Blue would be a great colour for a modular, and make it a very attractive parts pack. I'm gonna start wishing for a sand red modular after that :-)

Just because it wasn't at the Melbourne toy fair doesn't mean it won't be a regular city set, just that we wont get it in Australia in the next six months. It is very unusual for Australia to get anything first. I've been told that the red train is designed to replace the yellow cargo train when it reaches the end of its run, and it has been seen in the Lego Australia offices already. the 36XX could all be store exclusives, or TLG could just be using any numbers previously unused in blocks as they find them, which I find more likely.

Nope, and Lego Australia were not at liberty to discuss it. I did ask.

Yeah, that's the point of the toy fair. It exists to get buyers from retail stores to make orders. To do that the buyers like to know how much they will pay for the set and what the recommended retail price is. POTC - Available May except 4184 Plack Pearl - available Nov Cars - Available May except 8638 Spy Jet Escape, 8639 Big Bently Playset - avail June Alien Conquest - Sept Pharoh's Quest - Not in the current dealer catalog Harry Potter - Not in the current dealer catalog(this is wrong I overlooked it see later post) Hillside House - June (Lighthouse too) Hillside house is awesome has doorbell and dog bark sound brick Series 4 April Series 5 Sept City Space - April Diagon Alley will depend on if a retailer gets an exclusive deal. It wasn't among the exclusives I saw (which were there to show the retailers who will be getting them) They included Tower Bridge, Star Wars Advent Calender, The Winter Toy Shop & Bakery. I asked the Maketing Manager about these. Lego Australia gets special permission to get a limited quantity of these sets and offers them as store exclusives because we have no Lego brand stores in Oz. I pointed out the initial quantities of Emerald Night were too low, she said it was an experiment and they had learned from it, and stock levels for future exclusives would be higher. I didn't see any sign of the new trains yet :-(

I liked that helicopter set because of the unique coloured motorcycle and the train base. It was cheap enough here that on of my LUG members bought it just to split up the parts.

I'm not sure all the gloom and doom is warranted. I think the engine will have wide appeal, I like it because it looks like an older German freight loco, so I guess the German train lovers might too, and Germany is the biggest market for Lego, and town is their favourite theme. It also has appeal as a parts pack, purely because it gives a good cheaper replacement for the Santa Fe windscreen. It also has the red battery box which will be useful in AFOL mocs. It has the vague outline of an American loco too so it won't be as foreign to that market as the yellow engine was when it first appeared. I think we should reserve judgment on the value for money till we see what comes with the set. I think the playability will be pretty good especially as the loading facilities might tie in very well with the new grain ship in the harbour theme. Peter

Actually I find this type of teaser really annoying. Is it necessary for a third party supplier to waste my time before they have news to reveal? If they have come up with a 9V revolution they won't need this hype, the product will be very interesting in itself, if the product isn't attractive, all this hype won't save it, but will have pissed off at least part of their potential audience.

There's a few standard responses to this dilemma. a) build a static model to scale, these are normally larger ie 8 wide up, but wont run on curved rails b) build a 6 wide, with scale dimensions though the height gets awkward if you want minifigs to fit, c) use selective compression, so your moc isn't a scale representation, but looks like the prototype and has it's main features (many mocs look too short and tall because of this) Most Mocs use a combination of techniques depending on what the designer has in mind. Looking at the prototype, I wouldn't use the windows you've chosen, they are too square IMHO. I'd start with some sideways 2x2 tans clear panels. That would allow you to fit six wide, but the snot work would be complicated. Actually I'd use a 2x6x2 windscreen and sticker the window frames, that would give you the slope easily and allow you to match the frame shape.

The main problem scale wise will be the size of the wheels if you have designed it to use the drivers from EN. This appears to be a shunter, which would have much smaller driving wheels than the EN which is based on an express passenger train. You could use small drivers from Big Ben Bricks to correct that but it may mean other changes to your design. Since Lego trainheads use many different scales it's not unusual at shows to see different scales running on the same layout, but my club at least tries to run only similar scales at the same time. We will be running 6,7,8 and 12 wide stuff this coming weekend as far as I know. Home layouts tend to be more consistent, for example most of my Mocs are 7 wide, and my official sets 6 wide.

I'm assuming from your description you are talking about the old 4.5V battery cars which take 3 C cells. The circuit for these is really simple, and mostly it relies on joining up the end of each battery, but there are a couple of gotchas. The switch is a reversing switch and should point to either end of the carriage, the middle position is the off position. There is also a little knob underneath the car, which when pushed up will break the circuit and stop the train, that's how the 4.5V signals work, it should spring back down and complete the circuit if not pushed. There is also a contact between the roof and the car which can get bent so it doesn't complete the circuit. What i suggest is you hook up a battery and a light or motor in series with a wire at each end. When the two wires are touched the circuit should be complete and the motor or light should work. You can then use the two ends to make sure each section of the battery car circuit works. If you have successfully cleaned all the contacts its most likely that one or more of the metal contacts have been bent and theres a break in the circuit somewhere. The three sections I mentioned above are most likely.

Yeah you're probably correct about the mold cost being a fixed cost, though they do wear out eventually it's unlikely to be in one run of figures. I'd guess that may be why the werewolf uses the same ears. Idoes sink that part of my argument though. The printed minifig parts are known to be pricey, and the elf has lots, and a cape so I still would guess he's not one of the cheaper collectibles to produce.

The 7740 poster is great. You have a good sense of the Art Deco style. If you do use a vector based program, I've just remembered the designer that does a lot of work for the local LEGO convention I help run has access to poster printers. I could check out the cost of a run of a posters if you'd like. I'm in Australia though so shipping might be an issue from here :-(

I agree, but would also probably add to that there is most likely a set budget for each series. The elf had a new mold for its hair, very fancy printed parts, a cape etc. It was probably one of the more expensive figures of the series to produce. You can see how these two facts would lead to not having 5 elves per case.

I'm really looking forward to the silo, they're sort of iconic for a lot of south-eastern Australia. Be careful with 8 wide, it's easy to end up with very heavy rolling stock, and many people build them long and they look odd going around curves.

They look pretty good on group train layouts though. I see your point about them dwarfing a small table town.

Unlike the Combine and Bulldozer though, if anything this model is too small compared to city buildings. These things are huge in real life.

The 500's were bright red but The Overland, and a lot of the other stock were like Lego dark red. I just checked my book of photos of the broad gauge diesels, 500' were bright red, Classes 350, 800 & 830 were brown and yellow, classes 700, 900 & 930 were like lego dark red and silver. I'm not sure about the 600 class since it was narrow gauge and isn't in my book. Yeah this has been done, many of the European steamers work like this, or pushed by their tenders. I'm pretty sure Gambort posted a cool parcel van on his stream with all the PF gear in it. Many long 9V trains had extra motors placed along the train to help push too. The only real gotcha is you wheel sets shouldn't wiggle around when pushed, otherwise they'll derail at points, crossings etc. You should probably look at the Lego Train Mocs group on flickr. It has many Mocs to give you ideas. Also lots of suggestions for things like Co bogies, though the railbricks one I mentioned earlier is probably the best (many of the ones on flicker are earlier prototypes that had problems found later in testing). BTW railbricks is a wealth of knowledge on trains, and is available from their site as a free download.

That's a great score for Australia. These are indeed rare here. Not quite complete 7740's cost around AU$500 here among collectors. Which city are you in? That other 12V will probably have had two bricks with contacts that allow it to use the tracks too (if it's the one I think, like the 4.5V ones). You can probably replace them via Bricklink if you don't find them in the rest of the lot. The most expensive bit to replace of the 7740 tern to be the grey windows on the engine, and the yellow train windows. Other than those there are good cheap replacements for everything else if you are not wildly particular about using the exact bricks from the same era. In Melbourne you could check out the Mugs list, I'm a member there and a few of us have some 12V stuff so could answer any questions. In Sydney there is SydLUG and the Sydney L Gauge Group. In Brisbane the BLTC. Cpt. Zuloo here at Eurobricks would probably be able to help you in Canberra, and Lightning Tiger might be able to point you to a trainhead in Adelaide (he's pretty keen on the newer trains I think). Jonwil has contacts with the Perth Adult Lego Society in Perth too I think.

Oh yeah I forgot they had them. I even bought one I'm hoping next year we'll get a bunch more retailers stocking them like the Fire Brigade this year and maybe a chance to pick one up cheaper.