peterab

Yeah but it looks like its tacked on. I can't imagine a designer making plans for a vehicle and forgetting to include space for the fuel tank inside the body.

Although I'd like to see a train station, I'd be afraid the sales of it wouldn't be good enough. I'd rather see a bank or chemist, or post office. In other words a more generic building with wider appeal to people who don't have trains.

I like the older ones myself, I'm not sure about the pressure tank on the back, and don't like the wide wheels on the new one. Thanks for the great review, especially for the pictures of the older sets.

I voted for the Fire Brigade, although I'm unlikely to keep it built. I view all these as very good value parts packs. CC in my opinion has a miss matched colour scheme, the blue ground floor looks out of place with the other stories. GG is an awsome set, and probably my favourite design, but limited value in multiples because too much green in a town would look odd. The FB on the other hand, is not a model I'm too interested in, but the colour choices for the building are ideal for other town Mocs. My only problem with it is it's really expensive in Australia so I'll be ordering from US S@H.

I hope you are correct. I'm sure I've read that this series was initially planned as three sets (Market street was an extra Factory set). I hope the sales were good enough to plan some more sets.

I think initially the box came without any instructions as it was designed to encourage people to use Lego Factory (hence the 30 model instructions) but so many people complained TLG later produced printed instructions for the main model. I bought 3 MISB sets and none of them came with the instructions in the box. The instructions were sent with the box however.

I also find the proportions of older German steam locos odd, but I think thats because later locos had a uniform look due to the standardised cabs and boilers of the 'einheitsprogram'. I think you've done a very nice job on this. I would not have guessed it was your first steam Moc. EditedToAdd: I just noticed the steps up to the coal tender using 1x1 slopes on your flickr photos. Thats a great technique, I'm sure I'll 'borrow' it in the future.

Get a small loop of track and a motor, you'll feel great when you see your first train running and it'll encourage you to keep going. Don't be afraid to compromise on your first build. Just make something, seeing it complete will encourage ideas for improvement, without being able to see it, its easy to be overwhelmed. Many of the best builders re-visit their models many times gradually improving them over years. After all Lego is never really finished, it can be always be rebuilt. Use the hard won experience of the experts. Many train builder offer Ldraw files or photos of the critical functions of their models. Build a copy to gain experience and learn new techniques.

I won't promise a video, as I don't have the means to make one, but if I can work out a way I'll try. I certainly plan to take enough photos to make it clear how to replicate it. My BR50 could be a long time coming. I've just ordered some BBB wheels as the first step I have looked closely at yours a number of times

I must admit I learnt a lot doing it. In other words my initial plan turned out to have some dumb mistakes and unforseen problems One of the unforseen problems was another member of my train club has some awesome steam train mocs, based on local prototypes, which are too big for the roundhouse and turntable. Apparantlly the prototype was too big for some of the turntables it used too so they would detach the tender from the loco and turn each part seperately. I also miss-calculated the angle I needed for the roof so had to rebuild it part way through. Part of my criteria for this building was that each stall would have its own radial slice roof, and they would all be the same size. I'm about to build a german BR50 which will also be too big. I'm looking at this version as a first prototype at the moment. Now that I've solved some of the problems, I'd like to revisit it to get the size correct, and to improve the asthetics, and break the symetry perhaps by have some long and some short stalls, and adding some loading doors to one side and perhaps a steam driven lathe in a workshop. I think where my entries to the contest lacked was in their livelyness, I need to add minfigs and have them doing something not just standing around. No problem, it may not be quick though, my Lego activities rarely get to be first priority I'll add an update here when I get the photos up. I intend to show all the tricky bits to achieve both the angled roundhouse and the turntable mechanism.

Oh Yeah, pitty no-one told me that before I went on Puffing Billy* as a kid. Not good. *Puffing Billy is the name of the local heritage steam train here in Melbourne.

I'm hopping we'll see them at BV as well. I sat in the cockpit of a 747 when I was 10, but they didn't let me touch anything

Yes, it was a difficult descision. I voted for HoMa's PF freight train. I liked the extra level of detail the stickers on the engine gave, and the brick built Lego logo on the box car. In fact this entry inspired me to build mine. There were many fine entries though, in fact the standard of all the entries is pretty high in my opinion.

That's a nice model, I assume they were mostly rural as I had never seen one before. I might take a trip to Williamstown to see #1. I've been before but that was 25 years ago, so I'm overdue. Australia was a great place to grow up When I was about 8 I was looking through the cab window at a tram driver. We lived a bit passed the end of the line, at the second last stop the driver opened the cab door and asked if I wanted to drive the tram. He pointed to where I should push the throttle to adjust the speed

I think you're probably correct in regards to the regular train sets. I expect to see a freight train and a passenger train with an RC battery box, motor and track. I hope we will get some more exclusives, maybe a new coach for the Emerald Night but I'm far from confident this will happen. I think any other speculation, ie single wagons, a new cargo station is all wishful thinking. I'm not saying it won't happen but TLG has dissapointed us (and esspecially you Klaus-Dieter) before.

The garage is recommended retail price AU$140, the passenger train AU$150. The garage is widely available in retail stores, including those that discount a bit from RRP, I'd expect to be able to buy it today for AU$130. Also these stores will have 20% lego sales where I'd pay approx AU$105 for it. By comparrison I've never seen the passenger train in a retail store. This means I dont have to pay shipping on the garage but I do on the train. I have seen the freight train in a store (and bought it) for AU$200. Later that week it went on sale for AU$160. Generally that only happens when TLG wants to sell off the last of a set, they often offer them to retail in Australia at a good enough price for the retailers to heavily discount them. Retailers use these heavily discounted sets as a lure to their Lego sales. The Australian market is unimportant to Lego so it is safe to get rid of remaining stock here.

Dont use US pricing as any guide. The rest of the world subsidizes your market. Most lego train prices in Australia are nearly double US prices at the moment yet our dollar has been varying between 85-95 US cents for the last few years. Pricing in Europe is similar. Add to that, the trains are not normally available in stores, so to be sure of getting them I'm going to pay $150 dollars for the train and $35 for shipping. Thats double what you're paying. Thats why we think these prices are too expensive.

I'm not sure about the trains being available in every shop, in Australia trains are rarely available, and mostly in limited numbers, and not the whole range. In effect they are exclusives to S@H. Playmobile sells a lot less product than Lego worldwide. What is a worthwhile theme for playmobile may be a marginal theme for Lego. I think you are assuming European buying habits are worldwide, but clearly from their pricing Lego values the US market more, how else can you explain Bionicals.

I've read stuff in the pirate forums on how to make reproduction lego sails, perhaps you could use those techniques to make tarps, then you could permanently print the VR logo on them with no harm to your tent. Us train types have a reputation for not so pure purity anyway

This was a very hard choice, I considered voting for six entries. In the end I voted for Kris Kelvin's Train Station, though I also considered Nexus7's signal box, Nagy Laslo's bridge, Cagri's end of the road, ISC's Zacthan station, and Gambort's warehouse. All these entries were good representations of thier prototypes, but also displayed highly skillful use of atmosphere and detail. I'd also like to thank Macoco for voting for my roundhouse, I'm pleased to get a vote among such skilled competition. I think my roundhouse and turntable are functionally interesting but they are not on the same high level as other entries in terms of there detailing or aesthic appeal.

I think that isnt a problem, I think that is a deliberate configuration choice for new members, it doesnt work for me either. My way around it was to put my images on Brickshelf, and add links to them, _not_ to upload them. Use the insert link button which is next to the insert image button on the edit box toolbar. I hope this helps :-)

Yes thanks for these. The blue plane appears to have the same nose section as the fire helicopter in white. These look like they would make great nose cones for bullet trains to me. I think I like the new fire station even more now with these new photos, I think I'll buy one and combine it with my old one. In the background of the fire picture theres a pizza shop in blue, I wonder if that was a prototype colour?

Hi László, I think I may even have seen this bridge. This is a beautiful entry. I love the mix of old grey technic and bley for the pillars, it adds reality in the subtle difference in the colours.

I love the very clean lines you've acheived with this. It has a very nice colour scheme too which is well captured in your Moc. I realised very early that I don't have the building skill yet to be competitive. I decided that I'd do my best and approach it like the Olympics where taking part is supposed to be as important as winning. My building has improved, I now know I need to work on my photography, and I've learned a lot from looking at all the entries. Everybody wins.

I love your freight wagons. I've been trying to work out how the roof of your Hbbillns works, any chance of adding some more photos to your brickshelf of it partially taken apart so we can see how it fits together? There is a limit of 100K for uploads, so if you want to use more photos you can host them elsewhere and link to them (use the insert link function instead of the insert image). Remember to resize them appropriately for forum use; 800x600 is considered a reasonable size here.