Duq

How about putting the second motor under the first carriage behind the engine? No need for a polarity switch, no need to run a cable the length of your train (which would make it tricky to lift it off the track). Not sure if you'd need a single extension cable in that scenario.

For the XL motor the answer is simple: forget it. That motor is 5 wide and most of this model is 4 wide. The L and M motors are 3 wide. You can get the M-motor between 1x4x3 panels but that means less detailing on the side of the body. For PF you'll also need to put the 4-wide battery box and receiver somewhere. Your best bet may be to put PF train motors underneath...

Can't remember which was _the_ first but it would have been one of these: And I still have all the pieces and the instructions.

Flex tube, hands and flex tube: 6400 driver by Duq, on Flickr Couldn't find a better picture but you get the idea. The 'wrist' of a minifig hand fits into the vertical flex tube and the hand then holds the horizontal tube. The vertical ones stand in hollow studs (jumper plates on mine).

People say it's 6 wide because the rails 'cover' 6 studs; 1 for a rail, 4 in the middle and another one for the second rail. If you measure from the distance between the centres of the rails you get 5 studs or 40mm. Track gauge however is measured between the inner faces of the rails which would give you 38mm for Lego standard track or L-gauge. For standard gauge (1435mm) that gives 1:38. For meter gauge it's 1:26, for Irish gauge (1600mm) it's 1:42 and for Iberian gauge (1668mm) it's 1:44.

Indeed, building Lego trains for minifig layouts is not like normal scale model building. It's a game of compromise with many conflicting parameters. For a start there is no fixed scale for 'minifig scale'. Minifigs also don't have human proportions; they're much too wide. As Peter said, the combination of track gauge and radius is all wrong. Even at around 1:40 carriages at scale length look ridiculous in the curves. You said the EMD would be 88 studs long. That's the outer diameter of a Lego track circle... Available wheels are another issue. Big Ben XL drivers aren't big enough for the big German steam engines at 1:40, nevermind at bigger scales. When I build a train I fiddle with the scale around 1:40 - 1:45 for the length to fit the wheel arrangement. The height then follows the length and the width is usually 8 just because you get more details in. With all that they don't look out of place in a layout with minifigs although sometimes a minifig driver won't actually fit in the cab.

1 = Technic connector block, used in a few sets around 2000: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemIn.asp?P=32137&colorID=14&in=A 4 = Mindstorms light sensor: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=2982c01

Lego trains + DCC has been done. I don't know about combining with PF; PF is not the best system. If you're going to modify the 9V train motors anyway then why not stick DCC decoders in them? There's a discussion on Eurobricks: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=86855 Also have a look on Flickr: Lego 9V Motor Bogie DCC Conversion 1 by michaelgale, on Flickr

The light at a show is completely different from when you test at home; tube lights, no low white ceiling, and possibly other PF transmitters in the area. Not much you can do about it. Maybe you can have a little stool or stepladder for the kids to stand on so they can aim from above?

It's October. Skaerbaek, Steam and BrickCon are behind us and no Creator Expert train has been announced. Anyone else getting worried?

You can find a lot of instructions through Brickset.com. They would be in pdf format. Why can your tablet not download and open a file? Most devices can handle pdf these days...

I've seen the same in bookshops here in Ireland. I've also seen boxes on the shelves of the toy shop ripped open and one or two bags and/or figs removed. It hasn't happened to me but I've heard enough stories about minifigs and even cars disappearing from layouts at public events. It's sad. The world is a very selfish place. No respect for other peoples property, no respect for rules unless they're strictly enforced.

Nevermind the piece being orange, not yellow...

[pedantic/teacher mode on] There were two classes of electric passenger trains in the Netherlands that are often confused. Mat'54 and Mat'64. Each exists as 2 and 4 car sets. The general public calls all of them 'Hondekop' or dog face but among train enthusiasts the Mat'64 are known as Apekop or monkey face. The dog faces have a longer nose and the shape of the windows is different. Here they are side by side: All the '54 trains have been retired as have all the 4-car '64 trains. The 2-car '64 trains just keep going. 50 years old now there are still around 50 of them in active service. [pedantic/teacher mode off] Nice use of that piece!

One of the most notorious sets for stickers is the Technic Williams F1 8461:

That's right. Number plates usually show the designer's initials. Sometimes there's other ways. On the Technic crane 42009 for example there's a sticker '42009 MK II' that refers to designer Markus Kossmann.

Buy a few sets you like and start building. You'll soon find out what pieces suit your building style and then you can buy more of them. To quote Mark Stafford: every piece is a space ship piece. That's the great thing about Lego: you can use parts for anything. Someone decided a long time ago to do water using trans-blue tiles. That worked well and has been done by many other people. If everyone had blindly followed that example we wouldn't have MOCs now that use trans-blue 1x1 studs for water. Look at Flickr for inspiration but not for building rules. Do your own thing.

This is a typical question for the Ambassador programme; contact the Ambassador for your local LUG and they can contact the community team. When the new LUG Ambassador programme kicks off in November Railbricks will also have an ambassador so maybe he can chase this up too.

For the fees that sellers pay I think it's fairly crappy service to be down for maintenance that often. I work for a software company and our customers would quickly go elsewhere if we'd behave like that. There are enough alternatives nowadays.

It looks impressive but if I were you I'd leave out the middle platform and use those parts to just have longer platforms on either side of the double track. In reality you rarely have a platform on both sides of a track.

The bus runs only once an hour. We took the bus just after seven and only just made it after the mile long queue in the park shop... The Windsor bus arrives just before the Slough bus and that took care of most of the queue. The food was expensive but nothing like the €7.50 for an ice cream I seem to remember from Billund...

I've visited Legoland Windsor last week with my family and I can't say I was impressed... Trouble started at the door. I had a '1 kid free entry' voucher from the Lego Movie DVD. I hadn't read all the small print and it turns out you can't use this voucher if you book your tickets online. Which meant I had to buy the full price ticket for junior instead of the 25% discount tickets I had bought for the rest of us by booking online a week in advance. I was there five years ago and back then I thought miniland looked tired and dirty. My theory at the time was that with the sale of the park to Merlin the focus would shift to more generic rides. Unfortunately this visit seemed to support that theory. There were a few new models (I particularly liked the new Paris section with the Moulin Rouge and the Louvre) but overall it was a disappointment. A few trains were derailed, one didn't even have wheels! The carriage just sat on the track: Netherlands - Koploper Oops by Duq, on Flickr The other Dutch train was running but manky dirty. Everywhere there were cars with missing wheels. In the French section a sign mentioned the Tour de France passing through town but there wasn't a cyclist to be seen. Part of the Dutch section looked unfinished; town houses in a field without any roads: Netherlands - Delft by Duq, on Flickr The queues for the rides were long, up to 75 minutes. After paying I think around 35 pounds per person I didn't feel like paying almost the same amount again for a Q-bot. The queue for the Laser Raiders was about 45 minutes, mostly in a dark tent, and there really wasn't enough there to keep us occupied, nevermind the children. The ride itself was also disappointing. I seem to remember that in Billund the scenes you shoot at were all made of Lego but here they weren't. I also didn't like the fact that the Kingdom of the Pharaos section is sponsored by Egypt Air. Speaking of sponsorship, the driving school is sponsored by FIAT. After about 3 minutes (my son barely made it around the layout once) the sponsored fun was over and he could collect his license. Collect? Well, not quite. The ride is free and sponsored, but to get the credit-card sized license you need to hand over 10 pounds. We had lunch in the City Pizza and Pasta buffet. The food wasn't bad but not great either. The drinks were all the typical fast-food options; Coke, Fanta, 7-up and apple juice. With some effor I found tap water but sparkling mineral water wasn't available, nevermind milk or other healthy options. The kids loved being there and we had a fun day out but for the money it cost me I had expected better... P.S. If you want to go but don't feel like paying top dollar for the park hotel then Holiday Inn in Slough is a handy option. It's beside the railway and bus station in Slough. You can get day tickets for all public transport in London and they are valid on the train from Slough to London Paddington. Bus 702 takes you to the main entrance of Legoland in about half an hour. At 11 pounds return for a family of 4 it's a little more than the parking in Windsor but you save yourself a walk and a traffic jam. Just don't have dinner in the hotel...

I found this thread while looking for something else altogether. From the title I thought it would be about people who have been (back) in the Lego hobby for a long time. Looks like I don't qualify here just yet. If I remember I'll come back in 2020 ;-)

My ordering is a bit of a mix of the various methods. I tend to have a handful of wanted lists; one for generic parts I'll always use, one for missing parts (things I need to complete sets) and a few for current and planned projects. When I place an order I first look for the best store based on the current project, then I use the 'show everything from my wanted list' option to see what else the store has. Finally I look through some categories like minifig utensils and printed tiles for interesting bits I might use some day. Here in Dublin I don't have too many options for collection. Because of shipping costs I tend to buy from European sellers and usually end up with German, French or British sellers.

A rererelease of the metro liner would be seriously disappointing. It was a nice set in its day but set design has moved on. I'm not sure the BttF train will make it as an Ideas set (it's nowhere near as iconic as the DeLorean) and it certainly won't be the next Creator Expert set; Creator and licensing don't go together.