peterab

Oh I see what you mean, I was thinking of the engine only and assuming the cars would stay in the same consist, which for passenger trains can happen, but for freight you want to shunt individual cars. Perhaps we need a bit of both :-) There is some picture of this on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/18414760@N02/4714957167/

I've had a theory for a long time to explain why the US missed out on the Pirate and Castle advent calenders and certain impulse packs. We know printed minifigs are the most expensive part to create, so it follows that the margins on sets with lots of them are lowest if the set is priced similar to others (from a price per part view). The US has the cheapest LEGO prices worldwide, so they are most likely to miss out on the sets with the lowest margins. This would explain why there were limited Series 1 released in the US, and why now the demand is established the later series have had a price rise in the US. Everywhere else in the world has blind packages and similar prices to the new US price. Australia was paying more than double the US price while our dollar was briefly worth more than yours. The US shouldn't get it all three ways; cheap prices, non blind packaging and wide distribution.

I have been toying with this idea for some time, my plan was to retract the engines magnet (using the buffers to hold the carriage at bay, but I didn't get further than daydreaming. It's great to see someone actually try it out. It's also a credit to you that you managed to incorporate it into one of you great Mocs without changing the looks too much. I think the onboard system is way more flexable though.

In theory Bluebrick might run on a Mac, as there is a library called Mono which should allow it to do so. In practice last I heard it was untested, so I'm pretty sure it would be buggy. If you are really keen testing and reporting errors might spur the Bluebrick guys to support it.

Some exciting news! The LEGO Community Overseer for the Australian region, Jim Foulds, will be attending Brickvention 2011. He'll be available for questions and will give a short presentation on a LEGO topic of his choosing.

I find it sad that TLG puts so much effort into undermining projects that already exist in the AFOL world. At least with LDD there seems to be a reason (they needed control to integrate it with parts purchase from PAB) but this just seems to be a slap in the face to Bluebrick. Would it be too much effort to work with the community rather than in competition?

One of the things that distinguishes the ute from pickups in the US is the design is so flexible. You can order them with just the cab and rear chassis, with a pick-up style tray, with a tray and canopy etc. Some even come with dual rear axles to allow heavier loads. This allows a lot of variations from one vehicle rather than many different designs that wouldn't be economical due to our low population. Designing in the flexibility probably costs more, but in essence they are just a stripped down sedan, with custom panels for each rear treatment, so not as much as a complete new vehicle for each function.

I'd add to this that over time you could sell off your 9V track and motors to finance cheaper PF stuff. PF hasn't started to hit the second hand market in large amounts yet but it should eventually. RC stuff seem to me to be starting to. Since the price of 9V doesn't seem to be coming down anytime soon it's a reasonable investment for the near term at least. I'd imagine the price will eventually fall a bit again, since the number of people collecting it will probably taper off, much like the grey and blue 12V stuff now. That could be a decade or two off though.

I don't think it sold very well at full price. I still see them on shelves at TRU in Australia, probably because they don't sell well. I picked up a couple heavily discounted on clearance a year ago. I'd search bricklink if you want one. They did have a problem in that because each pair of points were linked together you were restricted in which directions you could get two trains traveling around separate loops.

People sell them on eBay and Bricklink. Or if you buy an extra passenger train you can make two from its parts.

I don't have a camera so I don't often take photos myself but there are a few here I found some more here

I love your idea for this MOC, a bit more traditional fairy tale with dark overtones. I really like the toy train too. I actually wondered if these are the dead mum and dad

Hi admDaggett, I have a modular train layout that I take to conventions to form a larger layout with others in my lego train club. There are a few different methods people use. I have modular tables like in Ralfs photos. Mine fit 3 x 6 32x32 stud baseplates and can be bolted together in a variety of ways. Large Lego building will move around when transported so we tend to lift these off the layout and pack them seperately in tubs along with and cars and trains and smaller details like minifigs and trees and lightpoles. If there is not to much weight on them, many baseplates which are all joined together will not move too much, and this can be further restricted by adding temporary bricks over the edges on the table to keep them in place. Some of the larger US train clubs have a trailer that has shelves to fit the tables to make transport easier. Some people glue down the baseplate but that almost certainly means they will be damaged if you ever try and remove them. There are holes in the train track which can be used to screw it down, but that would also damage any baseplates underneath. I've toyed with the idea of using double sided tape, but the only type I can find is the thicker foam which would be too thick and would result in bumps under the base plates. For larger buildings it's a good idea to have a board or box of the right size to help transport the building while it is not on the layout. Setup tends to be a process of i) tables (maybe with baseplates and robust scenery) ii) add the buildings iii) add the details such as figs, vehicles, trees and signals.

I still think your missing the point. You stated 'they have already cut out the circus line' without any suggestion that it was speculation. The harm in this is while LEGO may be trying to keep interest by mixing themes, anybody reading a believing your post who is only interested in circus figs may stop looking out for them in future series. As Aanchir pointed out it could be argued the Gorilla suit guy might fit into the circus theme anyway so there may not even be the trend you're seeing.

The official response to pricing inquiries in the past has been that they price according to the market, by which they mean they charge whatever they can get away with. I will buy more of my LEGO wherever I can get it cheaper. Sometimes that is from US S@H and sometimes that's from US or European bricklink stores.

It seems to me that MOD is mostly used by posters to mean modification and thats how I've always interpreted it. I have seen MOC changed to MOD by moderators, and up till now couldn't explain why. In fact in a few cases the poster has asked why because they also didn't know why. I'd go with LDD or LDRAW MOC for virtual MOCs, MOC for brick MOCs, and MOD for modification of official sets. That seems to me to be what most posters to the town and train forums thought was happening anyway. I don't like the use of MOD for my own design for a simple reason; it re-defines a word used by the wider community to mean something else so it will always cause confusion, because people will assume they know what it means. MOC isn't the same since there is no wider meaning, so newbies will know to search out the meaning. My perception is that there hasn't been many virtual models in town until recently (since the LDD forum has been promoted) so I would argue that any historical use of MOD as my own design can't have been very long, and it caused confusion. I actually don't really care if a MOC is virtual or not so would be happy if there were no distinction in the title, but I do like to be able to distinguish between modifications and MOCs.

If I remember correctly it was estimated to be about 5%.

When you make your order, there is a link that will appear on the confirmation page. It will list all the items in the order that appear on your wanted list. From there you can just delete the number you ordered from your wanted list. It took me ages to investigate that link and it's annoying it appears only on the confirmation page as it is very useful and you cant get back to it after you leave the confirmation page.

I don't think Aanchir was saying that at all. In fact I think he made the point that there are many different correlations and because of that it would be sloppy thinking to suggest that because one particular correlation no longer exists in series four that we can draw conclusions from it. In this case it's clear that correlation doesn't imply causation. I think you are probably correct that there is some patterns guided by marketing underlying the choice of figs, but Aanchir is definitely correct that the relationships and possible sub-groupings are not clear enough to draw any reliable conclusions from. In fact his post stands out as a rare example of clear thinking in an otherwise speculative thread.

I think you are missing the point. It's not because they couldn't do it. They _don't wish to_ offend. Their values are that LEGO should be free of overtly religious symbols. While I agree that the advent calender is an inherently religious custom many people see it simply as a countdown to Christmas which they celebrate without thinking too much about the religious meaning. In my mind freedom of religion includes the ability for you, I or TLG to decide how far to take freedom from religion too.

I'm surprised so many people find this series better than series three. I don't think this is a bad series but it doesn't have many figures I'd like lots of. On the other hand I really like series three. In fact IMHO it has far more figures than any previous series that I only want one of. To put this into context, I'm a town and train builder, so the monsters are not very attractive, the geisha is beautiful figure but I cant imagine a use for more than two identical geishas, there's a limit to the number of different sports teams I want, and I think the tennis player from series 3 is far more useful. I really like the new surfer but hardly need lots of wetsuits after the series 1 diver. Some of the other figures like the skateboarder and garden gnome look like they might have use as generic town torsos, but not in huge numbers. For me the standout figures for army building are the radiation suit and the sailor. The sailor is ok in multiples as is, and the torso would make great asian schoolgirls too :-) I'd love a radiation leak diorama somewhere on my layout.

It's mostly just department stores, though each tends to have its own pros and cons. The CBD Myer has a newly renovated toy section with a large Lego area. There is also Moore educational which has a good range of Lego and often has stuff that is not otherwise available (it had some of the exclusive Lego factory stuff, and has Dacta stuff). Other than that there are a few shopping centers with a number of Lego sellers. Chadstone, Highpoint and Northland all have four or five. Target, Myer, TRU, KMart, BigW, Toyworld are the sorts of places that are good for Lego here. I've seen them at Myer and Target, but I'd guess also Kmart, TRU, Toyworld. I think they're pretty much all over. Target and Kmart are probably the best prices, but that may mean they run out of stock.

One plate or one brick lower? The only concern I would have is if you will have enough clearance with the track. You need to be able to clear the top of the rail so your cars wont foul on crossings and switches. The buffer with the plow used on the Emerald night and yellow cargo train has very little clearance to start with, so I wouldn't be lowering those.

Mine was Bricklink says it was released in 1969, but I think it may have been a bit later that I got it, since I was only three at the time. It was probably available for a few years.

We have two grey British Shorthairs. They both like to get inside empty LEGO boxes. Neither really takes much notice of LEGO but they will both run through the middle of it to try and get my attention when I am building with my LEGO spread out on the floor.