peterab

It's beyond a rumor now, it has been officially shown by lego, confimed by their staff at the show, and also confirmed by others, including Ryan McNaught LCP at my last LUG meeting. It is definitely a new set.

Welcome along Bernie56, Take a look at the older topics, automation of switches (points or turnouts) has been discussed many times. There is no ideal solution, but is a recent topic of someone who intends to sell 4 electric switches in a kit which do look very good. His solution is also very compact, which a lot of others aren't. As far as track layouts go there are a few good resources on the net, have a google and you should find some. BTW if you are finding the crossovers problematic for running two trains on two loops connected with a crossover, try running the trains in opposite directions. You can set the switches so each train will run around it's own loop without interference.

It's actually not that hard mathematically if I understand what he's asking correctly. It might not be practical for other reasons though. Imagine a selected area that contains a few bricks that you want to flip in the x direction (around the y axis is another way of saying the same thing). Now choose a co-ordinate system with the origin placed in the position you want to flip around. Negate all the X values of the part descriptions and position of the parts in the selected area. That has the effect of flipping the parts around the y axis, and works fine for parts that are symmetrical around two axis. For parts such as wedge plate you will have to swap from left to right etc. To do this effectively you'll need to know if a part is symmetrical or not, and if not what it's mirror image part is. I'm not sure if the Ldraw library has that info, but in principle you could at least test for the symmetry though it's probably a lot of work.

I would have bet against any new city trains for at least a couple of years but this certainly appears to be a new set. I think this has some very nice aspects and other I don't like. I'm not sure about the box car and ballast car. I don't much like the colours, and the ballast car looks odd to me. The low loader seems OK, and I think the crane is quite prototypical, intended to lift small loads like the pallet that is near it. I quite like the look of the European engine. The huge plus for me is the return of the red windshield, seen only on the Super Chief before

Momentary switches come in a few types, either ones where the current flows only while you hold them in place, or ones which only allow a pulse of current while the switch is being thrown which I think are the type being used here. In any case its one of the technical descriptions used when describing a switch. Momentary normally implies a longer pulse than say electronics would produce, somewhere between 1ms and 1s. I agree, I'm still interested in how they work.

It's not so much about the technical complications, as the economic ones. Trains don't get as many sales for Lego as Police for example. By adding monorail, TLG wouldn't double their total train sales, because many families would buy either a monorail or train, not both. So then they'd have more sets and overhead and less sales per train set. They're much better off designing a new action theme instead. This I understand is why every time TLG is asked about monorail they say there is no plan to release any more. Generally they will not discuss upcoming sets before the release, but with monorail they have been very clear. There are no plans to release any new monorails. The old molds have been destroyed and it's probably not worth the expense of building new ones.

Thanks for your efforts. Ouch, I don't think I can afford that. It appears to be a nice system though, so I guess some people will. I'll pin my hopes on a more open community development.

Holodoc, would you mind emailing him, his email is in the video. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks this is important enough not to be allowed to escape. I'm sure there are a lot of train fans that would love to know what he's using. Ask him for some internal photo's and the parts he's using.

As purely a matter of form one should never remove existing functionality completely unless it's very broken, since there may be users who rely on it for some reason. I'd guess a 16 offset might make laying straight track very easy. Changing it to a customizable option is not much more work, and allows both current behaviour and the new requirement; seems like the obvious choice to me, with a default of 0. BTW I haven't mastered WINE to get Bluebrick running on my Linux system yet so I'm not actually a user (yet) so I'm not likely to be upset either way.

My local pet stores tend to stock cats, dogs, rabbits, birds, fish, rats, and guinea pigs. Except for the guinea pigs and fish all of those exist in usable forms, some in a few variations. You could probably add monkeys, since _some_ people have had stranger pets.

Transport has been used since the sixties well predating Octan. It was used on the original 6 wide trucks, and on the blue era 4.5V & 12V trains. It's even been used as a 'subtheme' on the lego shop website.

Hi MXLPT, Welcome to Eurobricks, I have a suggestion you might want to consider. The quality of images from Youtube isn't the best, so while it's good for showing off moving trains and layouts (your's is really nice by the way), it's not so good for seeing the details of MOCs. You might want to consider joining either Flickr (there's an active community of Lego train builders there too) or Brickshelf to host some static images, and then you could include a couple in your future EB posts. Read the tutorials and follow the guidelines for including images on Eurobricks, though as many new members get this wrong. It will allow better examination and better feedback if that's what you're after. Your Moc looks good, though I'm not overly familiar with the prototype. It does remind me of an engine in the old Fleishmann catalog I have so I think you've done well. Peter

As far as I know the only Maersk loco's belong to US railroads and are painted under co-branding promotional agreements, so apart from Maersk being a European company there isn't much more justification. The containers themselves would be justified all over the world. I hope to buy a couple, use the containers as is, strip out the Maersk blue from the flat cars, and convert them to something justifiable on my German layout (probably by including more black or reddish brown) and use the rest as spare parts. Though they will probably be run on my clubs layout in their set form for a while first. Peter

They are on the seal at the bottom of the pack, but be aware that some people have reported; some packs don't have them (from people who have found them on other packs so probably reasonable to assume either they didn't get embossed or not enough to show), the code may vary from batch to batch so the current cheat sheet won't necessarily work.

While Jim Foulds was at Brickvention, I asked a bunch of direct questions about how pleased TLG was with the sales of the Emerald Night and if we would see more AFOL focused exclusive trains. Jim said as far as he knew the Emerald Night was considered a success. He very particularly said he wasn't at liberty to discuss upcoming products, by which I inferred at the time there must be at least one, and I guess the this train confirms that. He did say that if I was happy with the Emerald Night, just wait and see whats coming. He was pretty sure train fans would not be disappointed. He has a background in trains himself so I'm pretty sure he is well aware what would please us. If we get an exclusive train of the quality of this one every couple of years I'd be well happy. Even every three to four years would be OK if we get city trains in between. We have been very well served lately with licensed trains as well.

How have you priced them? If you use LDD that is pretty much the most expensive way to buy the parts. If you create a parts list (I think I've heard that there are apps that will do this) and use the pick a brick on the lego website it's cheaper, and probably cheaper still for most parts is Bricklink. They'll still be expensive since they have a lot of parts but maybe not $300. I hope this info helps to speed your ability to build them they look good as LDD renders, but I always like real brick better.

It's hard to guess. Modular houses tend to be pretty good price per part and have a high part count, trains tend to have a higher price per part though. I'd guess somewhere between the Emerald Night and a Modular House. Perhaps US$130 as a guess. Looks awesome. The price will determine how many I get but I know I want at least one. I'm pretty sure the whole of Europe is now served by a warehouse in the Czech Republic, I read about how that was one of the cost cutting measures that partially offset the rise in oil price.

In a discussion with The LEGO Community Overseer for the Australian and US region, Jim Foulds we discussed the clone brands. I dismissed them as inferior quality and his reply was interesting. He asked how long since I'd seen them, and that some were becoming quite good. He also said it took many years for LEGO to achieve their quality and they see it as a huge competitive advantage, so they avoid public discussions on how they've achieved it. In fact most parts of the company won't correct false stories in the AFOL world because although most AFOLs only speculate about production issues because they are interested to know as much as they can about the inner workings of LEGO it can act as a great misinformation source for competitors. Anyway the short version is many of the clone brands probably don't choose to create inferior products, they just do the best they can. It's not necessarily about creating a cheaper product, just the inability to create one of the same quality standards as LEGO. I have some of the pre ABS Lego bricks from the sixties, and they are pretty inferior, they dont hold their shape well and are hard to click together solidly, and even harder to get apart. Most clone brands have probably had to deal with similar issues while competing with TLG, which can't be an easy thing.

My last set before my dark age was 375 the yellow castle, and it was a Christmas present. I got distracted by high school and computers, and it took me till 1995 to get back into LEGO. I'm glad I still have my old stuff but I missed a lot of nice sets while I was away.

I really like how the various pieces of your roadtrain match each other. Its a great build AussieJimbo I'm in Victoria, so the south eastern more populated end of Australia, but I used to ride my motorbike to and from work along one of the freeways where the only B triples were allowed here. Those things create a huge backwash of air and riding a bike anywhere near them was exiciting, and not necessarily in a good way. However the drivers were some of the most predictable on the road. I doubt anybody but the most calm and experienced drivers get a license for a triple. They would almost invariably signal me when it was safe to pass. I think they probably got used to seeing me trying to struggle past them on my 250. I always tried to stay where I could be seen by the driver too for everybody's peace of mind.

Easily the best Lego train layout I've ever seen. All I want now is to get Mike more involved in the M>LTC so I can glom on to his detailing techniques myself :-) Depends which bit you looked at. They used a different scale towards the back to achieve a forced perspective so the facades at the back were probably smaller than O scale. And don't call me Shirley.

To connect 9V/PF track to blue and grey era track just use a jumper plate under the 9V/PF track, which results in a half stud offset. A train will easily cross the from one to the other. These issues are well known and there are many pictures of solutions online if you care to look. Before flaming LEGO for changing needlessly perhaps you need consider what they were trying to achieve. The 9V change encouraged better acceptance of Lego trains among model train clubs, and hence a huge growth of the US Lego train fan base, but it wouldn't have happened without conducting rails, and they needed more surface connection (much like the male/female ends of the 12 conducting rail) hence the interlocking pegs. Also the newer track is far more robust, I can still remember the frustration of the blue and grey track coming apart while a train was running and derailing it. You can buy a single straight piece easily on Bricklink if the half stud offset really bugs you. I hardly think it would be worth Lego making a new mold for the few people who would care about this, especially since you can join them reasonably using two 3c parts.

Reading between the lines of talks I had with Jim Foulds Lego takes leaks very seriously because they affect their ability to sell the sets to retailers at toy fairs. I'm sure you've noticed there can be a very vocal negative reaction to preliminary pics, and sometimes the problems were simply due to misinterpretation of the crap pics. Why risk having to overcome a negative first impression? Worse still how do you combat a retailer coming on here and seeing a negative reaction, and then not ordering that set? I can fully understand TLG not wanting to take that risk if they can avoid it. I'm sure they'd rather have control over what is seen, and I'm also sure they're putting hints out for AFOLs like the trains in the backgound of the 2009 Xmas interview, and the POTC figure in the toy fair display. I'm not sure how Grogal is getting his high res images but I have to assume TLG is not too upset since they're final images, and they don't get them taken down. He may even be getting them semi officially just to control the process. For example they may know how he's getting them (ie scanning their image folder for the store website at a guess) and don't put the pics their till they want the first pics to create some buzz. I'm sure you've noticed how once the series 4 minfig pics leaked a few people said they'd skip series 3. That's another example of how a leak can damage their sales. I'm all for leaks myself, but I can see why TLG might not like them, and even if it has a half percent effect on sales thats still huge amounts of money when you consider TLGs sales figures. My wild speculative guess on the next modular; Grand Emporium sounds like pour and includes an gelati cart, so the next modular will include a margarita bar. I'm as serious about this as I am the methodology used.

According to TLG company report Lego sales have improved in most markets in the last year (and from memory the last few years). The speculation is that in hard times people are turning back to quality products and Lego has benefited from this. I'm not sure where you are all seeing shelves full of Lego either. After Christmas Lego shelves looked like locusts had been through in Melbourne, and from hearsay on the SLTC/SydLug mailing list it was similar there. Give a huge chunk of the population are covered in those two locations I'd say Lego is doing pretty well here, hence they won't feel much price pressure. Given that there appears to be many people buying up Lego on sale and selling it on eBay even above RRP in Australia I think the price must be OK for the majority of customers. On the other hand since I'm building a train layout, I want lots of Lego, so it makes sense to me to buy as cheaply as I can to stretch my limited budget as far as I can. Buying from the US is a good way to do that. I think AFOLs have a different perspective to most customers since we have a better overview of global prices. Most people who are just getting a gift for their kids won't be bothered to get it from the US unless they can't find what they want or something close to it at there local shops. I'm sure places like Bricks to the World wouldn't survive if most people found RRP too high.

My 4.5V and 12V motors have no trouble climbing inclines of 1 brick per track length pulling a few carriages on 4.5V track. Your observations suggests the traction on your engines is not sufficient. Are your rubber tires on your motors old and hard? If so you should buy some replacements which will make a huge difference without requiring more weight.