peterab

This is also a nice entry. It's interesting to compare the design choices with HoMa's crocodile. One of the things I like about looking at others mocs is getting ideas of how to convey details in minifig scale, seeing two different approaches to the same prototype is very helpful.

Welcome to Eurobricks Nexus7. I've admired your buildings on Brickshelf for a long time. I particulaly like the bollard/fence technique on your Manekin Pis house.

Well both your points have the same answer; I want to photograph this with a friends camera, so I get better images, then I'll post more on Brickshelf, Mocpages, ANZFOL, Flickr and add an update here I only posted here since this is what motivated me, so I wanted to take part before the competition ends

Teunis, one of the members of M>LTC (Melbourne Lego Train Club) has a B and and an S class in VRlivery. So far they are both static but I think he is trying to get them motorised. I'm sure they will be at Brickvention as we (M>LTC) will be taking a layout. If you bring a rake of these we'd love to give them a run :-) You can find Teunis' Brickshelf folder here

ENTERED A roundhouse and turntable. The turntable is powered with a 4.5V tecnic motor. My apologies for the poor image quality. The camera I have access to isn't very good and I couldn't control the lighting

ENTERED This train includes an class E44 (later 144) electric loco of the DB, a flat car, a tank car and a beer wagon. The train is all seven wide except for the tank which is eight wide. The tank car is heavily influenced by one on Brickshelf by Monteur. My apologies for the poor image quality. The camera I have access to isn't very good and I couldn't control the lighting

I'd guess the answer to that could get the dealer who allowed him to see the catalogue into trouble, so if he ever wants to see the dealer catalogue again, he won't tell you on a public forum.

Some kids might get one of each, but I'm sure others get all of just one theme, for example all the fire sets, and they may be spaced out over a couple of years. I'm pretty sure that TLG has a better idea of what will be profitable than we do. I collected lego for about ten years as a kid, so three firestations with exactly the same features wouldn't have been much use to me, however three with slightly different features each time might have been more tempting. In this case makeing the 'new' airport different in functionality means there is some sense in sitting it next to the old one, ie the old one is the departure lounge, the new one is the customs and waiting area. I think the control tower and the plane are the 'sort of' distinctly airporty parts of the set I can see why you prefer the curved panels, but I'd argue that due to the size of most airports their architecture is generally quite utilitarian and therefore flat and boring, so the flat panels are more acurate. I agree that this is a nice plane, but you are glossing over the huge stickers over the <insert that tiresome argument> trans black hull. I cant see this is a better compromise than the large plane hulls, those pieces once they have the stickers on aren't going to be any more usefull.

This Picture show what looks to be a new piece. Are those 3x3 quater round panels? That would make me very happy. I'm a train builder and these would be ideal for six wide tankers. I like the fire helicopter, and the new airport sets. The new airport has different features inside to the old one, some of you have complained that it's unrealistic, but I think this makes it a good add on for the old one. For kids this might mean they buy both. For AFOL's its always a question of if the parts are a good addition to what you've already got.

I'd say so since it's towing a horse trailer. Well I'm not Klaus-Dieter, but I probably won't get so angry or use a million smilies either. Here are some of my ideas; Farmhouse - I guess we could just use a creator house, but an extra house is always nice. Plough - something more for all the tractors to tow. Sheep/Goats - A farm battle pack would be nice so we could get a lot of them easily. Livestock Truck - To take sheep/goats/cows to market A windmill bore pump - They had one of these some years ago as part of the outback theme, farming in dry areas like most of Australia is completely dependant on them. Grain truck - to go with the combine harvester. As a child I spent one summer on a wheat farm and 'helped' with the harvest. Huge fields, three harvesters, many grain trucks. Later I learned to drive plowing the stubble back in to the fields while the Farmer watched the cricket in the farmhouse :-)

Nice review, I also like your choice of grouping stuff together. I quite like this set, I may have to get one. As the review notes it's nice to get civillian minifigures.

I've considered using non lego scenery, but mostly to emulate the 70's catalogue pages. They often used spraypainted boards and card surounds on the train layout pictures. Since the introduction of the modular houses, which I feel represent a jump in the detail of town models, I'm more interested in building totaly from lego elements. I agree with others that this adds to the sense of achievement and the ability to change things later.

Thanks for all the suggestions, I have plenty of ideas now to play with.

I've been stumped by a problem for the last few days. I want to build some seven wide carriages but I cant think how to attach the bogie plates to the carriage floor since the pin and hole would end up aligned with a row of studs. I'm sure this must be a known problem and has solutions so a link to photos would be very helpful to me.

Im a classic space set. Not my thing but nothing to complain about. http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemPic.asp?S=6893-1

Hi Holger, this is also a nice entry. I have a question about the colour; I've only seen photo's of green Swiss crocodiles. Did they also come in other colours? I've seen lego models in grey, red, yellow and blue but I'm not sure if thats because dark green bricks are rare and the modelers made a compromise, or if the real prototypes exsisted in a range of colours, or had different liveries over time.

This is a beautiful entry. Its exactly the sort of thing I'd like to build for my own home layout.

I really like this, I'd be very proud if that was my first train Moc. The colours are great and it has a shape and details very reminiscient of American deisels. My only sugestion is it's a little small, it could stand to be taller and wider, but since you havn't followed a real prototype I could be wrong :-)

The 9V motors are far stronger than the RC ones, so using the RC motors as a guide will probably mislead people into being overly careful. I read the recomended number of cars for a motor thing also, but it was for the RC motors (it was four cars per motor) and it caused a stir because those of us used to 4.5V, 12V and 9V motors were surprised it was so few. The RC motors are the least powerful of the lot. In HoMa's post you can see two 9V motors pulling 60+ cars, so one should be able to pull 30 on flat straight track, add curves and safety margin from overheating and it should cope with 10 short cars with no problems, or six to seven longer ones, as is my experience.

Thre were a couple more at least from the 4.5V era http://www.peeron.com/scans/342-1/ http://www.peeron.com/scans/148-1/ And from the grey 12V era; http://www.peeron.com/scans/7822-1/ http://www.peeron.com/scans/7824-1/ I think the 4554 metro station is my favorite.

... when you stay home from work to finish a Moc ... when your cat will disturb you while you're eating, sleeping, working, cooking and every other activity except while building, because she knows you won't respond while building. ... when you feel torn between your best freinds (who you havent seen for two years because he lives overseas) invitation to his daughters first birthday and your monthly LUG meeting the sad part is they're all true

You should be OK with a couple more, I've run trains with five or six large passenger cars, like the ones in 7740, with a singel 9V motor at shows with no problems. The more weight you put on the motor and the longer you run it, the more likely it is to overheat and shut down. Just let it rest and cool down and it'll be OK.

Hi hyphen, This is a nice idea, if the competition is judged on smiles per brick you stand a great chance. I cant help but feeling it need flames belching from somewhere though

My first train was 171 to go with my 4.5V motor. Until after my dark age, I had a simple loop of track and two points. It was still the highlight of my lego town. I agree with vgo, 133 is a sweet little loco. It was one of the trains I've bought since my dark ages ended. 725 is my favorite though

peterab stands for Peter A Bastard, which has been a nickname of mine for about 20 years. I had a freind nicknamed John the Bastard, we got on so well when we met, and had the same sence of humour, John started calling me bastard too. Others picked it up, and it stuck. Since it's not always appropriate, it's abreviated to hide the profanity.