peterab

These are very nice coaches, similar to what I have in mind for a future project (when I can afford more tan windows). Have you ever looked at German trains or catlogues? That could be why the colour scheme seems right. It's the colour scheme of the first class TEE (Trans Europe Express) coaches, used for a few decades by DB the German Federal Railways. It's also most likely one of the influences of 7740. Most of the other grey era 12V stuff also looks similar to German prototype colour schemes.

Nice Mocs/Mods. I hope nobody was expecting hobbit carts when they read shire vehicles I'd guess only the UK has shires, and maybe Canada, apart from Oz. I like how you have adapted official sets, since I think the official sets are well designed, but rebuilding them in other colours allows you to model your own local area better. The wheel arches and wide wheels don't make the car look much like an Aussie ute though, more like a Ford F100. I've also built a couple of cement mixers that are mounted on trailers, mine are blue and white to match the large cement truck though, I'd thought of perhaps building a cement yard at some stage, or a building site.

Thanks for the great review. I quite like this set and will probably buy one, even though I have the last city fire station. This one is less asthetically pleasing to me, as the shape of the building seems a little haphazard, although I do like the white pillars at the front. For me this review has highlighted how good this set is as a parts pack though; the white pillars are made up of 12 of the 2x3 windows, the skylights over the garages are 4 of the new windsheilds used in the city corner bus, the windows in the tower are 4 6x5 panels. By combining the two fire stations, you could end up with a very cool four garage station with realistic interior, and end up with extra windows left over, which are always in short supply in my experience. The net piece doesn't really excite me, though I'd like to see it in grey, as it would be usefull as a fence.

In Australia there is a certain set of riders, who having grown out of trying to keep a Harley on the road, but still dont want a Japanese bike, gravitate towards BMW tourers. Those bikes often end up outliving their riders, despite being heavily ridden two up with gear, over large distances, in extreme terain for decades. They're far better than the shitbox 3 series cars which seem to be all we see here.

You're joking right? That face is hot

Yeah, hindsight can be pretty good like that At the time I didn't ride so I didnt have any appropriate boots. The bike belonged to my housemate who was having trouble getting it started. A few of his friends were taking it in turns to see who could start it. I was larger and heavier than the others, and rode pushbikes a lot so had huge thighs, so they wanted me to have a go. I must have primed it because it started next kick.

I don't think the retailers refuse to stock stuff just because it's old, but once sales start to slow down. Popular lines such as power miners are restocked, and even expanded. Retailers probably have a reasonable idea of how many of each set they will be able to sell. They will probably aim to order slightly less than that as it far less damaging to miss a little extra profit than be stuck with a loss on goods that wont sell. While 7239 is available on S@H, I haven't seen it in a retail store for a long time. It will be interesting to see if it re-appears with the new fire range next year.

I don't know how fair this is. If Lego tells us that single wagons don't sell well we have to believe that. I can even form a reasonable argument why this might be so for the children focused sets. Given the choice between an engine and a wagon, most kids will want the engine first, since it has more play value on its own. Some of those kids may well get the wagon later but not all, hence the engine will sell better. Consider the Super Chief and its cars, which I'd argue were aimed at adults as well as kids. They seem to have followed that pattern, as the wagons were available at heavy discounts toward the end, which I guess was to clear the remaining stock that didn't sell. It appears to me that kids buying patterns dominate even for sets aimed at AFOLs. I'd love to see the rarer parts for the wagon on pick a brick though, particlarly the tan windows, and the grey roof curves.

Being a Dirty Hippy type I'm sort of interested. It doesn't look like it has much space devoted to batteries which means it either has very space efficient (and expensive) ones, or has a very short range. All the electric roadbike conversions I've ever seen had at least the equivlant of four car batteries to get useable range. I've always looked at the noise and smell of dirt bikes as disadvantages. I also noted that there would be no need for a kickstart and think thats a good thing. I'm biased though, I once slipped off a kickstart and my ankle was pierced by the bear trap foot pegs. I pretty much went straight into shock after seeing arterial blood pump across the driveway and spray the fence. I have a physics degree and I've always been puzzled by the assumptions of economics, which to me appear only to be valid in an open system, ie one with unlimited resources. Unfortunately it appears humans are starting to touch on those limits both in terms of pollution and finite oil reserves. 'Normal' behaviours will eventually need to be changed. Hopefully we'll find an efficient way to make biofuels or perhaps hydrogen so riding dirt bikes remain affordable.

I'd imagine this point about the retailers is correct. As for rehashing, it's all fresh as far as the target audience goes because every few years there is a new bunch of kids. I'd be very surprised if Lego was doing the three year cycle out of habit rather than knowledge that it's a good period to get the best return on their design investment.

I'm pretty sure Lego has a far better idea of what kids want to play with than any individual fan. It's not that some kids don't want to play with more civilian sets, but far more want to play with fire and police sets. There is a reason that the 7239 fire truck released in 2005 is still available (and looks like it will continue to be next year); it is one of the best selling sets. When considering a new set the descision they make isnt 'will this set sell', it's 'will this set sell better than anything else we could add to the product list'.

There are those that believe talent is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration, in which case either way you have it It also bodes well for TheBrickster and myself, as we can at least hope to improve through practice. I've just started playing with my first steam engine, and am very thankfull for those who have posted their Mocs before me, as I can also learn by observation and imitation.

Congrats to the winners, who I'm sure are pleased with their coverted train tech tags. Thanks to TheBrickster for running this amusing contest.

I agree with Svelt on this. If I wanted vehicles, there are plenty of official sets already. If I wanted vintage ones in particular, and the Indiana Jones and Adventurer ones are not enough, then I'd look to Flickr etc. There are far more good vehicle designs out there than good modular house designs. When I buy a modular building, the building is important to me. I'd hate to see future modular buildings simplified just to include a vehicle in the piece count.

There is an newsgroup aus.motorcyles which you will find if you google for it. There's likely to be way more people who can give you good local advice on there than on a European Lego group

I've always thought Buell were neither fish nor fowl. If you wanted a Harley they weren't it. If you wanted a road bike you could get a more reliable, faster, better balanced and most likely cheaper bike from any of the Japanese companies, or probably the German or Italian or even British ones. I've never understood who bought Buells and even less why.

You should also resize your picks to avoid slow downloads. This forum has an 800x600 limit. Here's a tutorial

You could take a look at the roof and nose pieces used in the last couple of passanger trains, they're six wide and might get you started.

While I wont buy the Fire station to keep it built, as the American architechture doesnt fit my European layout, I will buy it as a parts pack. Dont lose sight of the fact that the modular range are rare colours in significant quantities for a great per piece price. I dont think I can think of a better colour combination than dark red and grey for buildings, lots of tan tiles doesnt hurt either.

Im a little late for this party but I thought I'd add my 2c. I've been riding for about 11 years, but have only had the one bike. Its a 1997 Suzuki Across. I bought it second hand when it was about a year old and have done 93,000 kms on it. I haven't used it much in the last three years though. The weather here is OK for riding all year, though it does get wet at times. I can imagine how sad it must be to put your bike away for months at a time. I've wanted to get a bigger bike as 250s are generally regarded as learner bikes here, but haven't had the money to do so since buying a house was my first priority. I'd probably buy a 600 sports bike if I could, and like Cam I'd choose based on how comfortable they felt. I'm 183 cm or 6'1" with long legs so that's also how I chose the Across, as most 250s were too small. The Across has turned out to be very reliable, with only minor problems in the last few years, pretty good for having done over 100,000 kms.

I'd guess that the number of exclusive sets is fixed up front to limit how many are in the market at once. TLG must have a reasonable estimate of the ammount of money AFOLs spend per year, so it seems reasonable not to have too many sets aimed at them at a time.

If anyone hasn't listened to it, in the Train Tech forum, Cpt Zuloo has posted an interview with Jamie Berard the designer of the Modular Buildings and the Emerald Night. In it he says that while he isnt able to discuss particular products he is working on, he is working on Exclusives (as well as Creator). I think thats the closest we'll get untill we have an official announcement or leaked pics of further modular buildings. He could just be working on other (non-modular buildings) exclusives but I hope not.

Fair enough, it's proabably just that I'm unfamiliar with propane powered equipment. I'd guess thats because we don't have them in Australia much. We do have LPG (liquid petroleum gas) powered stuff, often converted from petrol engines, but given the explosive nature of that, all conversions must have the tank within the frame of the vehicle, behind the crumple zones. That tacked on tank looks like an explosion waiting to happen to me Our tanks are often slung low behind the rear axle, or mounted in the boot. Forklifts and such are not often converted here.

Thanks Zuloo for the great interview. I'm happy that Jamie Berard is still working on exclusives, because hopefully that might be another train or modular building.

I voted for the Superchief. I like the streamlined front. The BNSF is just another boxy diesel to me.