Ashi Valkoinen

However I haven't built anything new train in the recent months (founds, founds...), but I participated a model railway exhibition last weekend with my own layout. The full layout is around 17,28 m^2, including my 6-track train station, a little rural environment and a double loop of track around. But the main focus is on the trains and the train station itself - the station can handle now even my 4 metres long railjet train and also coupled FLIRTs (3,2 metres) can be parked at four tracks of 6 (some others all still shorter, but it is just matter of 9V straights). Plan of my layout in BlueBrick: (Higher resolution: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/AshiValkoinen/Exhibitions/2019-03-Szolnok/layout_plan.jpg ) Speed regulators control the 9V track - two speed regulators for outer track (the station is one section and the upper part is an another section), one speed regulator for inner loop (not divided into two sections), the last speed regulator gives current to the platform lights and the SBrick controlling the motorised points. I switch poins with hand where I am sitting (next to speed regulators) but the other side is motorised so I don't have to walk there to throw those points. :) Motorised points: I also managed to keep the layout modular, the throwing mechanism is above the point but the motor is connected to the neighbouring baseplate, but the axle-connection between motor and point is easy to dismantle. PF-cables are hidden almost everywhere under the tan sandy part. This was the whole layout: And my trains: Railjet moving through the station: FLIRT3 entering the long straight: At level crossing: Triple FLIRT: Storage building:

I used plates with vertical clips, bars and some 1×1 tiles with clips and some technic parts to create this.

Maybe there is a way to do it better, but I designed this in 2014 and 2015. Some really nice new parts appeared since those years, I'm pretty sure that the curves slop 1×2×2/3 would be useful in this case. Looking at Michael's train with real bricks however I'm fine with that design back from 2015. :)

I'm sorry moderators and admins for raising this topic from 2015, but I recently got some photos from a Danish builder which makes actuality to this topic. Since these Koncar EMUs are really out of my fleet (Hungary-related rolling stock and actually they will NEVER run in Hungary) I decided not to build any - the only reason I designed them in LDD was that they looked really hard to be modelled by LEGO and at those times I had a Croatian girlfriend. Girlfriend is gone by now for years by now and I extended my fleet with other trains, but I uploaded my LDD-plans to my LDD Brickshelf folder to share (for free!) the building techniques I used in this MOC. And recently I got an e-mail with bunch of photos from Denmark - an AFOL living there built the train with REAL BRICKS following my LDD-file. So, here are some photos, shared with the permission of their owner, Michael Rehorst:

Ahh, fines, it will help by now. The Hungrian word "tömítés" means a water resist thingy you put by the joints of the water pipes, but I never thought that "O-ring" will be this. :D I'll look up in local stores to buy some and try it with the tram, really thanks for the advice!

Well built and played the BMR contest. :D My hopes are gone. :D It is nice that such a monster deals with r40 geometry smoothly but those dark green cars are screaming for to be built in 7W or 8W, the short video footage shows how narrow they are compared to the loco and LEGO track!

I'm really happy that someone entered the OcTRAINber competition with a Hungarian MOC. The Lencse unit is a really modern and nice track maintance vehicle produced in our country - back under the socialist era our country produced thousand of trains for the "friend" countries and now only ruins of this industry remained with some remarkable products like the train you modelled. And you made a fantastic work and created a solid design. My favourite is hiding the IR receiver in an aesthetic way and the window cleaners on the front. The wedge plates 2×2 and 2×4 also worked nicely together for the sloping front design.

Really nice progress, fits very well to the competition, both the model and the WIP photos, descriptions. My favourite part is above the roof - I like the paralel bars which are so close to each other, this technique could be very useful in many other non-trains MOCs as well. Looking at the interior may I suggest the old 9V battery box and a short Power Functions extension cable? It could make all your driving systems based on unmodified LEGO parts at a little cost of interior space. Also maybe the motor PF M could be suspended under the carriage to win some more space inside. Just ideas. :) Your bus reminded me to a prototype they tried in Hungary for marginal lines - converting Ikarus 260 buses to trains. Tests were unsuccesful, but we had a yellow bus on train tracks for a while. I'm wondering in how many countries they made a try with such a combination to cut costs... https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/MÁV_Ikarus_260#/media/File:Ikarusz260sinautobusz.jpg

I'd like to say a big thanks for your kind words. I worked quite lot on this tram in a short period of time (and I had a full-time job and one of the biggest LEGO-events this month) so I sacrificed many sleep hours to complete this MOC. But it was worth. I try to use as less non-LEGO parts as I can, but I'll consider your trick, maybe it will give the little more I need to make it run better. However I had seen many people talking about this "O-rings", what the hell they are for real? I don't know the good hungarian word for it to google, and can't be transleted nicely, so where can I buy these, what material they are consist of and what size do I need for a LEGO train wheel? :)

And finally it works and this morning (3 a.m. in Hungary) I posted my entry to the BMR's dedicated Flickr-group. I'd like to also share images and story of the tram here. When I noticed BMR's contest I thought I might participate with my fresh Stadler Citylink design but BMR's contest stated that it should be some foreign build - and Citiylinks will be running in Hungary from 2020. So I looked around on the market of possibli low floor and modern passanger trains/trams (I prefer these instead of diesel and steam engines) and than I remembered that read an article in Hungarian about the ultra low floor, ULF tram of Wiener Linien. I have also seen the prototype in Oradea (Romania) when I travelled through the city to a Romanian LUG's event in Cluj. So, what do we know about this tram RL? Ultra low floor entry: 18 cm top of the rail. Shorter trams (there are three sectioned and five sectioned) consist of three cars (two ends, one middle), and these cars are suspended on 4 pair of wheels - but there is no axle between the wheels to grant 18 cm floor all over the tram. This first image is the comparison of the LEGO MOC and the official technical draw published on Siemens Mobility. At my MOC the first and last "articulation" is rigid and there is no turning around neither forthe wheels nor the suspension point, but the two middle ones work as ridicolous 1 "axle' Jacobs-bogies, while the neighbouring cars are suspended by the top. Only the first pair of wheels are driven which caused... problems when powering the tram itself. The real thing is 2400 mm wide and since I built it in 8W it results in scale 1:37,5 (1 stud = 300 mm). This image shows the moving articulation with the axleless wheels and shows how the tram is accessible between the two wheels. The floor level of the tram is 2 and half plates, which goes down to 1,5 plates at the doors - the real thing has entry level of 180 mm and 1,5 plates (4,8 mm) upscale is exactly 180 mm. Unfortunately something has to hold the bottom plate level together, so after the doors I used 2,5 plates floor level height. Tram on curved track - note how the middle and side articulations work. I am quite lucky with this build - I couldn't put turn signal on the articulation's side or even complete the articulation without the quite new tile parts: -2×3 tile -2×2 tile with two studs on one side. All tram doors could be open by hand, this method is not too complicated to do, but caused some brainstorming when it came to the first and last module - the 1 stud wide tower of bricks and plates between the first (last) articulation and the doors should have a gap for the droid arm to make the door opened - but what is holding it together? Of course, the light bluish gray bar inside (the other end of droid arm), which connects the bricks with 1×1 plates with horizontal clips. All doors opened. Note the battery box in the first compartment - it was the only place to hide it in some aesthetic way and it gives enough weight for the first (powered) wheels. The tram driver's back is connected to the studs of battery box so there remained a small room for him! We do care for the disabled passangers in our LEGO City and the small platform I built aslo shows how low floor is the tram, the height of the top of the tiles is 4,5 plates (1 plate + 0,5 plate + 2 plate + top tile), and this 4,5 plates should be decreased with the value of 3 plates which is the height of train track. And finally, powering. It was a really strict condition for me that I build this tram with no axle connecting the wheels. This was easy with running ones, but quite hard with powered ones. First attempt was this (designed in LDD and build for real): It was a nice idea for first and I used mostly system bricks for the powered articulation, but the two perpendicular gear connections meant a lot of energy loss and neither PF M, PF L and PF train motors couldn't do anyrhing with it under load. So it came to buy a PF XL quickly, but with its torque I was pretty sure this thing will blow up. It did. So I redesigned the gearing, replacing bricks with 11 long beam which holds the gears: This design holds better, but some gears I should have doubled to avoid some undesired forces turning out some gears from the desired direction. This part was the most barinstorming part because I'm really unfamiliarwith technic, I hate it, everything I tried blowed up or didn't work - but after some tests this started to be good... ...until I connected all cars and it didn't move again, but the driven wheels were slipping. I figured out this first wheels need some weight so I moved the battery box (AAA one) from the roof to the place of tram driver to give more weight. It worked a little better and moved very, very slowly, but wheels were still slipping. And finally I remembered that I am using PF train wheels as running wheels so I took them our from the tram and removed the traction rubber from their surface. Magically after this it started to work, still slowly due to the characteristics of XL motor (and I did really have no time to gear it up keeping enough torque), so it shall run on a LEGO city sightseeing line. I posted a video to my FLICKr album linked below. Two more images: Overall look. Disassembly for turning on or changing batteries. Driver minifigure is mounted on the batter box! Check my FLICKR-album for better resolution images and a video showing the tram running: https://www.flickr.com/photos/150200265@N08/sets/72157700704620731/

I'm getting out of time... BL orders were delayed during the time period of early and mid-October, now I have the parts but no time to build. Long days I'm looking forward. :)

I'm also, because only 4 days left and I'm still swearing at the powering of the tram. It is incredibly hard to bring down the motor's power from the roof to the wheels (the articulation between powered wheels will be accessible!), train motor in the top or M, L motors doesn't have to torque, XL has the torque to pop all the tram to parts. For me Technic is a totally unknown and hated field of LEGO, I think it maximizes the "out of comfort" factor for the competition!

Yes, the plan is to equip the tram with working doors. They won't work on any technic mechanism, just able to be opened by hand and that way I can reach every seat inside and place figures into the tram. The (now tested) door will look like this: I used droid arm to connect the 1×2 plate with bar part, and inside the tram there is a 4L light bluish gray bar holding it. Thank you for both of you. Opening doors, red flags, but the articulations' suspension and motorising still a secret. :) Soon I'll move one with these details as well and hopefully she will run before the 31st day of October!

RED FLAG for my project!I spent a little more on Bricklink orders than I thought for first I will, but now I grabbed almost all the needed parts and my entry is only matter of time which I don't have too much. Fortunately red flags are not involved in a financial term and abandoning the project, but I used 2×2 square flag LEGO parts to get the right detail of my entry. This is the base of my tram's suspended cars, and the edges should be built with SNOT tiles to leave space for the wheels (see my images above) on the articulation pieces when the tram enters a curve. The horizontal black and red pattern (5 plates height and 3 plates height) should be continuous. It is easy to build 5 plates in SNOT 2 studs, but 1 brick (3 plates) height is 1 stud + half plate, which is not that trivial to build. 1 stud is given by red tile, and half plate with the edge of red flag part - fortunately it is placed high enough that it wouldn't conflict with the tram wheel. Tram module - make a guess, why are there those one plate high gaps in the red pattern:

Thank you very much. I did yesterday and today a great progress in LDD, however I'm not satisfied with the result yet. At least the proportions in 1:38 fit the prototype, but the inner stuff just as the aticulations, seating and floor level needs tons of more work. Fortunately I have a solution for the articulation by now, after the second row of bricks it will be wider and will have similar look to the prototype. I'll shoot some photos today after work. The "articulation" with the driven wheels will be narrower, with the gears inside I have really little space to deal with. Thank you! Keep an eye on the topic, I'll post photos of the progress every two or three days. :)

Today I almost finished with the two rotating articulation of my tram, which is my entry to OcTRAINber contest!This is an axleless articulation, which allows a low floor through the tram at the level of t.o.r.* + 3,5 plates. If I can make to upper (roof) suspension strong enough I can leave the bottom 2×2 turntables and make the floor at level of t.o.r. + 2,5 plates (in this case t.o.r. + 1,5 plates is also possible, but 2 plates height is needed to make the plates connected to each other...) The design of inner wall will be surely altered to make it less narrow, but I also have to consider that the articulation should look as closed as I can do and it would be unhappy if any of the minifigs could fall out or touch the rotating wheel underneath!*t.o.r. = top of rail

Steam engines have bigger wheels and most builder who drives these big wheels used Power Function M,L or XL motors and powered the wheels through gears (instead of using a single train motor we are get used to put under electric and diesel engines with usual wheel diameter). The problem is that the 5th and 6th wires in the Powered UP cable (remember: Power Function had 4 wires) serve as identification, so the hub (battery box with integrated bluetooth receiver) knows, what you have plugged in, and the physical remote buttons (+ and -) act differently with different motors connected. If you connect train motor, it acts like the old Power Function train (speed) remote control. If you connect technic motors, it acts like the old Power Function technic remote control (which allowed no speed, just full throttle until the remote is pressed). So according these you can't speed remote control a steam loco powered with NOT train motor in the new system, since the physical bluetooth remote will act as a technic remote, allowing only full throttle. --- And my bug is that my hub's left port identifies the train motor as technic motor, and allows only full throttle which is totally useless for the passanger train.

Yes, and or LUGs PUP passanger train is buggy now and if the train motor is connected to the HUB's left port it identifies the motor as a technic motor and works only on full speed while the + or - button is pressed. Even after disconnect, reconnect, turn on, off, etc. I plugged the train motor to the other port of the HUB and now works as expected, but left port still thinks the train motor is a technic motor. Annoying. (And what about steam builders? There will be no speed control for them in PUP, just continuously pressed buttons, nice... )

Hello all, I start this topic to show the planning and building progress of my OcTRAINber's contest entry! Where did I start with it? I was just lurking around at Eurobricks Train Tech when the OcTRAINber contest of Brick Model Railroader just popped up. It wasn't the original topic, but a WIP entry, the words "Hungarian" and "Lencse" caught my eyes (I'm Hungarian and I have a lot of Hungarian rolling stock). I was wondering why someone I don't know and surely being not Hungarian builds a track maintance vehicle of my country, then I have read the terms of the OcTRAINber contest. So, here I am, and after carefully reading the contest rules thinking about what to build which is definitely NOT Hungarian. Stadler vehicles, CAF Urbos tram, CKD Tatra generations and many European locos and passanger cars are out since I own some of them or they run in Hungary, so I tried to find a special vehicle. This special vehicle I would like to entry in the real buildings contest is a secret right now. I can tell you that they are running in Romania and Austria, they are urban vehicles - and they have no axles between the wheels. My LEGO MOC also won't have any axles, which will make it especially hard to make it run. But hey, this is OcTRAINber, for some challange! Here is a part of a technical draw of the real vehicle, my aim is to make it possible that minifigures are standing between the wheels where originally axles should go.

Less than two weeks ago the first renders of the new Hungarian tramtrain got online. It is a really important point in our railway history - until this point we had tram lines and traditional train track lines quite separated with no passanger trains switching between the two different networks (until the end of last century traditional trains however used the tram network to serve some factories in the middle of Budapest, check this video about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRZdV-2jTZ4 ). The new tramtrains will operate between two southern cities of Hungary named Szeged and Hódmezővásárhely. They will run in diesel-mode on traditional train tracks between the cities, but when reaching the urban area they go off train tracks and start their run with 600V DC on tram tracks, between "tram-only" cars, giving a better connection to the inner cities, which previous trains couldn't offer. The vehicle will be the Citylink type train of Stadler, the design itself belongs to the former company Vossloh which were bought by Stadler recently. Similar tramtrains run in Karlsruhe, Chemnitz and Sheffield. This is the overall look of my trains which exactly shows the two compromises I had to deal with. First is the cover of the train bogies - the single Power Function train wheel is too large for this model, but the tiny train wheels can't be powered and they are noisy with big rolling resistance. Since all the bogies look the same on this train I preferred to hide them with two of the 2×4 tiles - but this makes the bogie cover too tall, a single 1×8 tile on the bogie bottom and an another 1×8 tile fixed to the cars itself would be better. Unfortunately, with the latter design it allows only 8 degrees turnout, but I need more on R40 track geometry (articulation, which looks closed when train stands on straights enables 45 degrees, bogies 20 degrees turnout). The other part I'm not satisfied but I can't get more accurate detail with LEGO-bricks are the lights - I have three yellow lights and two turning signals on the front, but the real thing has much more and smaller lights there. But still, a single transparent plate or tile has the 8 mm lenght in two dimensions of 3 possible ways. Besides these things I was not able to give back as accurate as needed I'm quite satisfied with this model. The entire thing is 7 wide which allows to proportional to my 8 wide train stuff (remember, this is a tram with less width compared to trains), and the angled sidewall makes the width decreasing to 6 studs on the top. The 5 studs wide doors could be opened by hand and both two wings of each door could be mover separetely. Note that they have different height (two plates), inner doors are for train track platforms (higher), outer doors for tram platforms. The two differently sized doors enables the step-free access for both operation modes. The tramtrain has a cover at her front's bottom - it could be moved by hand upside and a singe coupler mechanism could be turn out. The magnet is stored on the top and could be easily assembled to the coupler mechanism, which is basically hidden underneath the driver's cab. Comparison to technical draw: You can see that PF train wheels makes it a little taller than needed however with other dimensions it fits nicely. The exported LEGO-image is also a little false - the edge of wheels make look it even taller without a train track sitting underneath. Left side shows coupler mounted, right side with closed front cover. The front is also narrowing from 7 wide to 6 with a little stressing of bricks. I used some curved and round sloped where LDD doesn't allow me to fit some parts but this stress could be applied to real bricks without the danger of any explosion of the model. The white part next to windscreen is held by old hing plate 1×2 (with 2 and 3 fingers), which is much better part than nowadays bulky hinge plates. One last image of the front, driver's cab has a door on the right side with glass. Also mirrors could be set to the proper direction. --- I'm planning to build this in the following month, so I can try how these thing work and look for real. Please leave comments & critics!

Thank you for your replies so far. I went quite for a while, because I was working on my next train MOC :) :)

With experimenting with different, long, any heavy train I found that on longer term or running the train on strict R40 based station geometry it generates issues that the train drives assymetrical - direction A pushed, direction B pulled. Of course we know tons of MOC-s with loco-car-car-drivercar setup, where the full trainset is pushed in one direction, but the forces awakening at the coupling magnets and the magnets' suspension to the bogies are really different in pulled and pushed mode. I think a second V2 IR and two motors under rear engine (or the same with 2 SBricks) will give better and smoother run. IF you send me a PM with your address, I could send you one SBrick, I have 2 laying around for months by now. Just keepthe forum occupied with your good builds :)

Very nice build with lots of good and unique building techniques. How do you drive the 3 PF train motors to be synchronised? All of them ar plugged on the same IR receiver or you have more receiver and battery packs? If it is 2,5 metres long, one IR receiver with 3 train motors can't make it move due to current limitation, so maybe two IR with 2-2 motors gives better traction, OR non-LEGO SBrick.

Hi all, most of those people who know my LEGO Train works (following my topic at this forum or my Facebook page) know that I am building LEGO-replicas of real rolling stock running in Hungary and some neighbouring countries. Through the years I have built four different Stadler FLIRT units, a Bombardier Talent unit, Siemens Taurus and V63 locomotive pulling InterCity cars and a full set of Railjet train (Taurus locomotive + 7 cars). I also own some rare Hungarian trainset like BVmot and a real dual-voltage GySEV Vectron and also some trams. For this work the aim was always the same: give back as many details of the real thing as I can, and I never tried to build my own MOC. Last week I designed a crossover of the new Powered UP train and Stadler FLIRT3 EMU - putting the wonderful color pattern of the new train set to one of my existing MOC trains. Three days ago I made a step forward finally and designed my own electric motor unit with unique color pattern and design. For first I thought that it is really unique and the freedom of building whatever I want was really nice - later my friends in our LUG reminded me, that whatever I build finally it will look that Stadler have built it. So maybe I wasn't good enough to create something really unique, but at least this is my first MOC, with - as I have to acknowledge - a big influence of the Stadler railway vehicle manufacturer company. --- Since I enjoyed the planning of this three-car electric motor unit I decided to launch a train series built by the fictional company "AshiRAIL" (using the first part of my nickname which I use for 13 years by now). The first member of this series has the name VELO - a perfect solution for suburban and regional transport in LEGO City. 1. Overall look: The color pattern is based on different greens - lime, green and dark green, separated by white lines. White lines go up to cross each other at every articulation, but to make it more fun pattern is not the same at all car endings - the short, 4th car containing all the Power Function elements have a different pattern, which influences the neighbouring cars as well. 2. Front design with a big bulky part - but no gaps in the curved and sloped part! Maybe Hod Carrier's (EB-member) Desiro ML's curved front inspired me for this front - but I really wanted the big 6×6 curved slope to be built into my model. Also please note the hinge tool an the driver inside the cabin - the mirrors can be opened but when they are closed they line up with the side wall of the train making her aerodynamics better. Horns and GPS-antenna is also placed on the top, just right above the top-light, which could be enlighten by Power Function led lights. 3. Front view: The big bulky curved slope caused a lot of problems and many hours to find a good design for the glass - take a look at the next picture to see why: Basically the train - as my other builds is 8W. 8 studs can be easily built with 20 plates in SNOT (1 stud = 2,5 plate), and since the curved slopes are in SNOT, they consume 1-1 bricks (3-3 plates) from the total width. So I was left with 14 plates remaining in the middle - 15 plates are equal to 6 studs which would mean a really easy build for the windscreen. Suspension of windscreen is indicated on the top left of this image. Other problem was to little black and lime cheese slopes next to the front light containing transparent cheese slopes - since the curved slope is 0,5 plate bigger, making a stud connection to those cheese slopes is very hard. As a previous version I used 1×2×2/3 grilled slopes and led light should have given light through the grilles - than I rememberd the part indicated at the bottom of the above image - it simply can hold both the big curved slope and the cheeses. I'm glad LEGO introduced this SNOTting part one or two years ago. 4. Front view 2. The thing I don't like that much in my previous MOC builds that the Stadler trains have completely flat sidewall. So I decided use the 2×4×2/3, 1×2×2/3 and 2×2×2/3 curved slopes to make it more elegant. The front's big curved slope almost passed for this, where the side pattern needed, 1×2×2/3 curved slopes were repleced with cheese 1×1×2/3 and tile 1×1 part. 5. Interior This is a low entry train with step-free interior - we can see here the middle car with a standard toliet inside. 6. Power Module I learned in my Stadler FLIRT units that a big AA battery box (AAA emptied too quickly), an SBrick and the cables for 4 functions (interior lights, front A lights, front B lights, driving) needs a lot of space even in a 6 wide space. So to avoid consuming too much from the place designed for passangers I inserted a power module with Jacobs-bogies, which was introduced for real by estonian Stadler FLIRT diesel units. This is a good way to keep axle-load low, and I can spare every stud at the interior for the minifigs. With all the small details and SNOT-techniques part count went up to 5129 bricks - the four-car long Stadler FLIRTs have around 3500. So it would be fun to build and especially to motorise it, but I think SBrick and 2 or 3 Power Function train motors can do the job. Please tell my what do you think, best regards, AshiV

It is really funny, because I know lot of FLIRT-designs across in Europe (I really love these trains and also the representatives of them in Hungary gave me a lot of help when it comes to build, display my LEGO FLIRTs), but this one in Germany I missed and have seen for first time after reading your comment. Seems a classic FLIRT-design for regional lines (only three doors / side), with a little less orange compared to my design. For me it seems it is a new trends in modern electric motor unit's color pattern that there is a dark color (or black) line between the windows - this horizontal pattern starts at frist window and breaks by doors and carrieage ends - and it seems even TLC applied this to their train (dark blue in the line of windows).