peterab

Lego Australia have invited a bunch of Melbourne AFOL's to breakfast and a look at their toy fair stand. I'll report what I see. I'd be surprised if it gets released here when we've just had the New York and European toy fairs though. Since others have said this will be an August 1 release I wouldn't expect to see it in Australia soon. We haven't had the GE (ETA a lot) at retail here yet, and we really only just got the modular fire brigade just before Xmas. I'd probably expect someone will have the new modular for Xmas, but not that it is revealed here. For those wondering why Australia (and I guess NZ) get modulars and some other exclusives in normal retail stores; we don't have any Lego stores on the continent. Our only other option of buying them would be from S@H and pay our huge retail price plus shipping. I doubt they'd sell many that way, it's far cheaper to buy from BL stores in the US. They seem to sell pretty well when at retail where they sometime get sale prices though.

There's a three axle bogie design in railbricks 6 p62. It requires a few technic pieces but nothing too rare. The red battery box from the new freight train would work but not in a hurry. A red sticker would hide a grey one in the hood till you can replace it. If you want to go old school some of the old Commonwealth Railways stuff might look good, but pricey and difficult part selection in dark red. I've wanted to do the old livery of 'The Overland' for a long time. ETA the class 500 _is_ Commonwealth Railways era despite it's unique colours. The bird emblem jarred my memory just after I posted.

That's also an American thing There were many German steam engine designs with valve gear that allowed the same speed forwards and backwards. They were mostly used on branch lines to avoid the need for turntables (they were simply moved from one end of a train to the other when it changed direction). I'm pretty sure none of the express passenger engines with large drivers fell in this category though, as they were optimized for speed in only one direction.

I'd buy a large print of the metroliner if it were available for purchase. I'd be even more interested in similar products of the 70's blue era trains. I'm sure the 12V fans would like 7740 or 7760. The obvious Lego trains for this treatment would be the Emerald Night and the Santa Fe. Sounds to me there is a business opportunity for someone of your artistic talent if you have access to the printing facilities.

I'm pretty sure your experience is because you live in a less populated state where exclusives don't sell out the minute they get onto the shelves. In Melbourne and Sydney these were instantly sold out, and I was never able to order it from Big W's online store. It's one of the things that really *$^&%& me off about exclusives in Australia. I can't find them unless I check shops every day and am lucky enough to be there the day they are stocked. A lot of the clearance deals on the Aussie sales thread also only happen in QLD etc. Stuff sells out in Melbourne and Sydney. I would have thought the retailers would twig and and stock more here instead of shipping to QLD.

When my train club designs a layout, we try and include two loops, at least one passing siding for each loop to set up a replacement train, and as many extra sidings as we can for static train Mocs. We aim to have two trains running at all times. We normally have three people on the layout at a time for crowd/crash control. The more space and operators, the more loops etc. If you want a more 'traditional' layout look, a back wall to hide your passing loops works really effectively. That would probably work well with your street with the silos and a yard area out in front.

I still think it was a bit expensive at the AU$58 that I saw it advertised at in Oz. I never saw it on the shelves though. I'll get on from Bricklink I think. I don't really need any more trucks but the wind turbine is cool.

He's using the official Lego 12V light bricks. I'm pretty sure the diodes are sitting in the middle of the engine where the wiring starts. The small voltage drop across the diodes probably makes a little difference to the brightness of the lights.

Yeah bricklink is mostly private sellers, but some are quite large. It takes a little while after release till the catalogue on bricklink is updated since it is done by the seller community and they need to be able to buy a set to do it. There will be an equivalent to this for the series 4 box. Bricklink makes it pretty easy to search for the cheapest price, and if need be only from your area. I'm in Australia so for me buying from Europe has worked out the cheapest but it will vary depending on the local price.

Bricklink. Look for the box of 60.

Depends how you think they'll react. As someone who also has depression, there's a lot to be said for making your life easier. If you think your friends would support you then tell them, if not, don't. I'm not sure if you're father remembers exactly how much time and money you can waste on a girlfriend either :-) In the end our whole lives are likely to be a waste of time and money because you can't take it with you, so you may as well choose to waste them in a way that makes _you_ happy. It may be easier to do this by not pushing the buttons of those around you, so now you know your father has a problem with buying you lego, perhaps you need to limit new lego to just what you can pay for yourself.

Read the tutorials. Put simply EB does not have the space to host everybody's images. You need to put the images up somewhere else like brickshelf or flickr and deeplink them.

I've always thought it looked a lot like a DB Class 218 mostly because of the cab, though it's a diesel, and I'm not sure it's ever been in a yellow colour scheme.

He saw the whole upcoming mid-year range. They were on show at the Sydney office, and I believe will be on show at the Melbourne toy fair. Unfortunately he can't discuss anything till it has been officially unveiled. He could answer questions about the train once it had been shown at LegoWorld, but said he'd seen it some time ago. I (along with some other AFOLs from the local LUG) got an invite to a breakfast from Lego Australia, on 11th March, and we will be able to see the toy fair stand, and photograph some of it. I'll let you know what I see. I assume it will be similar to the larger NY and European toy fairs so I doubt there will be anything really surprising. As far as I know this train will not be an exclusive, but a regular part of the city line. Ryan described it as replacing the older Cargo train. I'm a bit surprised because I would have expected the Yellow train to last for four years, but it appears it's being replaced after two.

Thanks for the explanation, I understand what you've done. I'm building in 7-wide and probably a bit higher, and I'll try to include all five sets of vents. I'm also trying to fit PF battery and motor in it. I think I'll have to use bar and clip methods, and just hold the vertical tiles in place by friction. I'm really poor at photographing my Mocs (and in fact finishing them) so it may take a while for me to post anything.

This is a nice colour update of an already nice Moc. I've just started ordering parts for my own Moc of this. Your old one is one of the references I've been using. One of the difficulties I haven't solved yet is the spacing of the vents along the side. I'd be very greatful of a picture or explaination of how they are held in place.

The battery box is red. You can see the grey top and bottom in the hood. This is no fake, or Mocs. It was officially displayed at LegoWorld, by LEGO. I've had it confirmed as an official city train by Ryan McNaught Lego Certified Professional. He has seen it at the Sydney Lego offices as part of this years new sets.

I think you are talking about the Lego 9V track, which is now discontinued, but was around for many years.

I have a Applied Physics degree, and a degree in Computing and Instrumentation.

I've been told that it will be in the regular city line. I assume that means it will be a replacement for the current cargo train. There have been reports the current cargo train has disappeared from the 2011 second half catalog, so that would make sense.

It's also aimed at people who have 9V, the current PF track would be of no intrest to them. For you Bricklink can give you a loop of track for a few dollars.

That's really nice. There are also plugs in the model train world of the same size, so non purists would be able to save some money, but purist could use the 12V leads.

Bricklink or Ebay perhaps, at the moment, but it appears it will be available from the Lego website some time in the future to add to the new train exclusive 10219 that is coming.

He has a link in his sig

Unique non-production pieces also get made for the Legoland park models and for prototyping purposes. I'd guess the green loco is a prototype for the Maersk train. Perhaps the the promotional tie in with Maersk happened after this had already been built, so the design was re-colored.