peterab

You're really enjoying your bike aren't you Without wanting to sound dodgy, I enjoyed the girl & bike photo. Are they your kids? Peter

GE is showing sold out now :-(

That looks really good, I liked the old curved arch too, but the new angular one is very stylish.

Well Perth is a long way, and you did come last year, so perhaps you should try for next year. I'd certainly like to see your bus up close.

This is a very nice engine. The colours work very well together. I particularly like the blue hose over the cheese slopes, that works very well.

I'm intrigued as well. As others have said I'm pretty sure there was never an older train than 10173 which was officially called a holiday train. That suggests to me smittyfan remembers something else and associates it with a holiday train. I suggest smittyfan goes to bricklink and does a search on train sets by year and looks at the pictures. For the suggested time period the bricklink catalog will be complete. If it's not there perhaps you are mistaking someones Moc for an officail set, there have been a few that have included presentation mirroring official sets, but I can't recall seeing one from that long ago offhand. Hope some of these suggestions help in your search.

The limitations of just getting back into Lego :-) Although the more I buy the bigger my ideas seem to get.

My pleasure, I'm pretty good at shameless when in promotions mode ... Oh and by the way if you are a train fan it appears that we will have layouts from Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and trains from Brisbane coming to Brickvention this year. So far I count 5 layouts and an extra yard area to display rolling stock. And I know of another layout that is unconfirmed at this stage but is likely to be there. Brickvention 2011 looks like it will be great for trains. Peter

No Lego don't see religious models as part of the Lego 'ideals'. They specifically request Lego Certified Builders to avoid religious and military themes. I'm pretty sure they want to avoid being divisive, since the founder of Lego was a religious person.

I really like this, but I think you should tile the stud at the top of the facade. I don't have anything against studs as detailing but in this case you have too many different forms of detail and I think tiles would tie in better with the stone work on the edge of the walls and the overall neo-classic look. Still a very good use of the tan town house pieces.

Hi All, The Brickvention website has been completely revamped and is now open for registrations for 2011. If you are intending to come make a post in this thread so we know who to look out for. This year we will be in the huge main hall of Melbourne Town Hall, so hopefully we won't have the long lines and crowded spaces we had last year. If you have any questions on the registration process or about Brickvention feel free to ask them here, or use the contact form on the BV website. Ryan McNaught's Airbus is already disassembled but the newest (and Australia's only) Lego Certified Professional is planning something awesome for this years display so be sure not to miss out. Peter

I really like the shape of the roof, it has a real ski slope feel for me. I think the upper roof section doesn't work well though, I think it would be much improved if the lower roof section was just continued up in one piece, and the connections below the roof hidden with a wall. At the moment they appear to be unrealistic. You could use the new wall for some purely decorative detail if desired,

There's a few on bricklink. You mentioned in another thread you wanted to motorise the Toy Story train using this one. Be aware this set doesn't include a motor or track.

A good place to start is to build the running gear first (that's the motor, wheels and rods in case it's not clear) if you can get that to work correctly you can add the rest in stages and test to make sure you haven't broken anything. It can be very frustrating to get an otherwise complete steam engine to work correctly because you don't really want to change the boiler and other details, but a wheel design change can have a huge impact. Front boggies that can twist too far can get jammed, there are some photos on the Flickr train ideas group I think, pushed with technic parts in a triangle pattern which restrict the movement to an arc which avoids the tripping problem. In your case it appears your boiler sits quite high and I'd guess it was because you were unsure how to sit it lower between the wheels, perhaps because they were still in flux. A lower engine is obviously lighter. You picked a great prototype and your boiler looked good from what I remember (brickzone isn't currently responding here). Some projects just end up as static displays because the kinks can't be worked out, it happens to all of us.

I think you make some valid points about long term support, but in reality the train line hasn't changed that often. The 12V line was backward compatible with the 4.5V line, and grey era and blue era track was interchangeable. 9V was a bigger change, as was RC & PF. But thats only four changes in 50 years. The average kid who builds with Lego for 6-8 years is unlikely to even notice. Also part of the problem is retailers who only stock the new sets, which means trains which seem to be on a cycle of 4 or so years disappear in my market (and I assume others) for three years in between. I don't think TLG can do much about that. I've seen suggestions that TLG should stock smaller train specialist shops as well, but that doesn't address the fact that TLG actively tries to avoid small retailers by setting a quite high minimum order. I doubt they would do that unless the smaller retailers are marginally profitable due to the added effort to actually supply many small retailers rather than large chains. Many of the opinions I see expressed about how TLG doesn't do the right thing with trains fail to justify why they should do anything at all with trains given police sets sell better and they don't have to do anything special for those higher sales. At the scale of enterprise that TLG now is I really doubt anybodies gut feel about how trains should be marketed is going to be helpful to TLG since they are so large that anything that diminishes returns probably has a very rapid affect on profitability at that scale yet is easy to overlook if the huge scale is not your central focus. I think the best we can do is express what we'd like and make the best of what we get. Since AFOLs are only 5% of the market it makes sense we won't get everything just as we like.

Carl gets great results but some of his techniques go beyond what I feel comfortable with using myself. The red vinyl is one of those. On the other hand his experimentation is pushing the boundaries and has resulted in some great new techniques such as string to hold on diagonal tubes to give the effect of bracing.

I read through this thread thinking exactly the same thing. We don't see new police or fire themes every year (even though it may feel like it :-) so we shouldn't expect a new city sub-theme like Farm to be repeated every year either. I think we might see it with the same frequency as something like Harbor. I like your idea of seeing more animals in the Castle theme. It could also work well in the new girl oriented theme.

I think the difficulty TLG has is in meeting the needs of a large group of children buyers while at the same time meeting the needs of a small vocal minority who are just a bit obsessive and have quite different needs. It seems that to meet the needs of production/retailers and kids combined packs are a solution that works. Perhaps the mix of elements could be changed around a bit. The current switch (points or turnouts) set with a right and left switch and four curves could be extended to include eight twelve or sixteen curves perhaps. The straight pack could contain sixteen straights. If there needs to be a pack with the flexi track why not add a 90 degree crossing to make it more attractive and add more track options.

This list sounds pleasing to me. A few sound really good like the Kimono girl. Many people seem to think the monster fits into the horror theme, though I think it could just as easily be a space monster. The sailor doesn't necessarily have to be military, there have been sailor figures released in the past in the town theme with little anchors on their chests. In all it sounds for me there may not be any particular figure want lots of, but I'll probably want a couple of each. I'll wait and see how useful the torsos and accessories are for train and town uses. Peter

I have to agree with you LT, that van looks like it has lots of potential, and it come with a yellow crate and an orange dirt bike, and the new sack piece. The only way it could get better is if it includes the new crow bar. The more I think about it the more likely I'm going to get it. I also like the new helicopter, I think the colouring would make for a good paramedic vehicle, just add some star of life stickers and mod it for stretcher access and Bobs your Auntie.

I'm pretty sure I've seen a wreath in a Moc but I cant remember where. If I recall correctly it was hung on a door in a Xmas Moc. You could try getting a bunch of the flower stems and stack them and then bend them to join top to bottom.

LT was perhaps a little flippant in his reply, but his Moc is quite accurate. In country towns the war memorial will be in the main street, often near or in a park perhaps with some play equipment. Since they are centrally located and are ideal places for travelers to stop many towns have built car parks, tourist information booths or public toilets nearby.

I almost totally agree except for the legs, which I think are unnecessary. I think changing the 1x1 bricks for 1x1 round plates would improve it. A clever little detail.

Thanks for the info Duq, it always helps to start from a working design, the motor gear idea looks very useful. I look forward to more post war designs from you.