Matt Dawson

A grounded american railroad coach as a diner? (can't find any pictures of any atm

Since it's an exclusive, you're unlikely to find it outside of the Lego band stores (Milton Keynes, Bluewater or Brighton). Have you considered buying it from Lego online? It adds a few quid for the postage, but you won't have to travel or search for it. Cheers, Ralph Ralph: He said he couldn't order it online. As it's a lego exclusive, it is only available from Lego directly - so you either have to visit a store, order it online, send off a letter to or phone them. the Adress for Lego shop UK is: LEGO Company Ltd. Consumer Services Capital Point 33 Bath Road Slough Berks SL1 3UF And the telephone number for ordering from the UK is: 00800 5346 5555 Hope this is useful.

Version two is more-or-less complete, and I will be showing it soon - as soon as I get a good day to photograph it (my jobs in the way...). Details are: > Bogie design to allow extended hopper body. > Revised mechanism, with possibility for full tipping and re-setting without reversing direction > Now 6-wide body Please also note one major point: Whatever the width of the train (6, 7, 8 etc.) allowances have to be made for handrails, steps and other sticking out detail. The only way to avoid this would be a one-way system.

SNIPPED And how many adults buy Lego sets in shops going "He'll like that" (or she!), talking about themselves in the 3rd person?... And besides, some of us prefer 00 scale...

Congrats! You've been frontpaged!

I thing the whole scale/width etc. issue is flawed anway since an adult minifig is 1/5 head, 2/5ths leg and 2 5ths body repectively (hieght wise). Don't even mention width...

Back in 1981, Lego released a 4.5V Ideas book for their train system. This book was full of ideas, instructions, and layouts that would provide an extra interest in operation or an inspiration, though more likely a request for more lego train sets... In pages 8 to 13, the ideas book showed a diorama, with instructions for a operating hopper, unloading platform, and loading dock with conveyer belt loading system fed by hopper, complete with crane. Pages 10 and 11, with the instructions for the unloading platform and hopper car, can be found here (please note that these images were copied from peeron to flikr to reduce the load on Peeron). ***Please bear in mind these photos were taken at 8 o'clock at night and so were taken under artificial light. My apologies.*** There is a video showing how it works here. The photos shown below show what happens when the hopper unloads: The rake moves towards the unloading actuator... ...the hopper starts to tip... ...nearly all the contents are emptied at 90% tilt.... ...and all contents are gone when the hopper bin is tilted to the full 100 (or so) degrees. Please bear in mind that this is the mk1 design, and the mk2 is in development. The main problems with the hopper are: > Length (1). The mk2 features wheelsets 8 studs apart, and a squeeking sound can be heard from the track on curves. A bogie version might avoid this problem... > Length (2). The hopper overhangs the buffers at both ends (though one more than the other). > Parts. The hopper requires a few rarer parts not produced nowadays, though as so many of these parts were produced, this isn't too much of a problem. > Tilting resistance. As you may have noticed, I has put parts on the technic pins which hold the hopper bin to the underframe. This was in a bid to introduce friction so the hopper body wouldn't return to normal position straight after tipping. Lets hope V2 will be making it to Flikr soon!

No, there's been no examples (excpet for a Monorail example, but i don't think that's what you mean..) Personally (but without any experience of owning the set): It should be pretty easy to rebuild the Emerald Night into a 'Atlantic' 4-4-2, as all that would be required would be a shortening of the boiler and removing the blind driver - it would probably look like a larger version of this: . Conversion to a 4-6-0 would mean that you would have a large overhang at the rear end, unless you SERIOUSLY shorten the boiler/firebox. The closest thing to this would be a GWR 4-6-0 (castle below). Please note that the firebox on the EN is quite wide for Lego Train standards, and that a 4-6-0 would mean a reduction in width for the firebox. An easier conversion might be to a 2-6-2 formation, such as the LNER V2, which would require an overall shortening of the boiler/smokebox and reduction is front bogie to leadign wheelset:

Nice! an internal cylindered 4-8-4... Wouldn't it be an idea to electrically link the train motors?

Plus faster. The main trouble with creating a 'monorail' would be the need to create new track, wheels etc. that work properly and in scale with current city buildings.

My only (true) set was this, save a pack of 9V curved rails and a power connection wire: Shame I missed out on the 9V line...

And while I quite agree that the sets are expensive, they're much better than the City Corner style sets. But Modulars and City sets are two different things altogether - one aimed at Kids, the other TFOLs/AFOLs, and priced/contented (i.e. what's in them) accordingly. Now, can we give it a rest? I'd like the next Modular to be 'modular' in how you buy them - £100 a lot of money to spend all at once. Plus theyre's the box size...

Nice review! Shame lego doesn't know how to produce excellent (save rare/special/AFOL aimed) sets like this one anymore

Perhaps you could use a 1x2 plate with single stud and a bracket placed ontop? Blutack's easier - though it wouldn't be as strong as glue.

It's not a slot machine! Though the City range could do with a nice range of impulse sets - 'civvies' are quite hard to come by nowadays

Have you ever seen the entire ammount of early 9V releases? 9 in 1991 (excluding 3 track packs), 2 sets every year after that MINIMUM - so that's double the RC/PF releases combined.

Whitefang must have a birthday every week then! When Eurobricks came online after the server swap his name was "The Fangster" then, too...

One problem I occasionally find is that "The Brickster" turns into "The Fangster". I didn't realise he was going vampirish...

Nice looking vehicles. Though why the 4wd from the horse/trailer 2009 set is with the SWAT van I don't know... P.S. it's disaster, not desaster

For my bogie shunter, I used a 6x6 black plate with 4 2x3s in black to make a raised section (like putting a 4x6 on the 6x6). I had a Hogwarts Express set (seen in the bottom left of Brickster's pic), so my brakevan uses those. BTW, "Rooves" is the older of the plural words but rarely used these days.

I'll agree on the EMU - though it looks better than TLG's last attempt! The loco looks like a TAURUS (don't know why or how it's called that): but if you look at this Jouef electric, you see a lot of roof equipment. A lot of electric locos feature some equipment on their rooves, especially some of which gets very heated, such as line capacitors (for smooting the supply) or conductor wires before the transformer. Some electric locos also carry their air intake equipment on the roof, so that it doesn't affect the sides; it also means that, if made removable (the latter only), engineers have direct access to the equipment.

There was a discussion about these 'Bricks And More' sets (the other set being 5898), and I decided to buy this one. Brickset page, and Bricklink Page. The insructions include those for the small car, house, dog, chair/tables, The Set Itself Before you ask, here's MY scan of the instruction set: There's quite a lot of parts for £7.99: But most people will be concerned about what's below - the MINIFIGS: The 'Mechanic' (on the right) is the more common looking of the minifigures - the torso has been in 3 farming, Winter toy shop and this set. He is almost the same as the minifig in 7634 Tractor Set, except with the hair piece from 4802 Sports Car. The 'Girl' (on the Left) is quite rare compared to the 'mechanic' - the torso has only appeared in 3 sets, the 7639 Camper, this set and a bricks & more tub set (5560). The hair piece has been in 20 sets in "reddish brown" colour, but over 131 sets in total (in any colour). The Large pieces (i.e. parts in main bag): There are many different parts in the 'large' bag, and some in rarer colours. The same could also be said of the small bag, with some 1x1s in rare lime green! So what do the instructions build?: A large odd-shaped dog (perhaps a stores toy dog for kids to climb on & around?), a rather 'flat' house frontage, a blocky tree (wasn't actually instructionised, but easy to fathom out of the picture in the book), a table & chars set (chairs on the big side), and a loose fence panel. The spares from the build are : Is it of any use to me? Well, yes. The minifigs, minifig accessories (cup & spanner) and table can easily be transferred without modification. Although the 'mechanic' is a bit common, you could easily use him 'hidden away' in an office or shop as another minifig which can be seen but is not part of the main scene. Alternatively, you could use the parts for extending/modifying your resident minifigs. The house, after rebuilding and extension, could become a useful part of suburbia; or alternatively, a construction site! The car, on the other hand, is easily modified to a more realistic design - 2 mudgaurds, 4 1x1 'washing machine' bricks and a few plates are alll that's needed to correct the main errors. The dog, as already mentioned, could be used in a fast food resturaunt or kids store as part of it's play area. The other bricks (mainly green, blues or brown) have many uses for scenery or buildings that they could easily be integrated without too much fuss.

Couldn't agree more! There is but one major detail you're missing - a height sign on the bridge.

The 'Town house' looks european styled to me...

For the side mirrors, you may want to look at my Pizza Van here.