Duq

Unfortunately, as Cagri said, carriages on their own have never sold well. I guess Lego had a few options: Just an engine The current set Engine with two carriages An engine set and a carriage set An engine with two carriages would have been a lot more expensive which would have had an impact on sales figures (trust Lego to have done their homework on that). Two sets, one with the engine and one with one or two carriages, would have 'cost' another slot in the Lego Direct catalogue. As Cagri said they simply couldn't justify a train carriage vs Medieval market, or Fire brigade. If they had only released an engine there would have been an outcry for carriages which would bring us back to the previous point...

Thanks for advertising your (closed) Bricklink shop. Did you have anything to add to the discussion?

If you have the space inside the easy solution would be to use one of these on one of the motors:

Isn't this the conversion wire: http://shop.lego.com/ByTheme/Product.aspx?p=8871 ? If not then order this and get a 9V wire from BrickLink and create two conversion wires yourself. Alternatively, wait a few months for the release of the new trains. They will have PF trainmotors (and I assume they'll be available seperately from S@H as well then).

Never had Lego trains as a child. Dad had (and still has) an attic full of Minitrix and Fleischmann so 'we had enough trains in the house'... My first train set after the dark ages was 4512: It's still the only complete set I have. After that I've only got the Santa Fe, Hobby train and Emerald Night.

The new trains are on display at Legoworld in Copenhagen: Flickr set

I guess I forgot to add my sarc-mark...

You're right. The proportions are all over the place, and the drive gear is really bad. Did you see the cargo? A dino! You know what, the whole thing looks more like a toy than a proper model train.... In the mean time the mothership seems to have done a good job removing the picture again. Can't find it anywhere.

Wonder what the final set and box will look like. In the first picture we saw they put the coupling rods on wrong, and now they're missing altogether. Or is that bit of grey between the wheels a coupling rod on the floor? I hope the red drivers will come in a pack of six with two blind drivers as well, like they do with the black ones. All in all a set that looks worth buying, even if it was only to get Buzz and those red drivers...

Yeah, you'll find that most countries here in Yurp have trains...

High degree for me as well. Be fore I moved to Ireland my trains were all Dutch. I just built trains that I was familiar with, or trains I remembered from my childhood. I've since built a Baldwin and a German steam engine for challenges on Flickr and there's another German steamer in the making. I've yet to build something Irish though. Not easy as the older trains are orange while new ones are silver. Not the easiest colours in Lego. The fact that I've yet to find a pretty Irish train doesn't help either...

That's a really good looking train! Those window decals are very well made.

From this post on Brickset: An eye-witness report from the toy-fair is good enough for me...

Missed opportunity. I was looking forward to a red sister for the Emerald Night but this looks like a theme park train, not a steam train.

Boxcar, hopper, tanker... take your pick!

I think he meant changing [ ] 4 [ ] 6 [ ] 4 [ ] to [ ] 3 [ ] 8 [ ] 3 [ ]. Same overall length, but a bigger gap in the middle. By the way, if you can still edit the title of the topic you might want to fix the typo (asthlom -> alsthom)...

That's a nice model. We've a very similar engine class in Holland (1600/1700/1800) so I'm very familiar with the design. If anything I think the light at the top is too big...

The set you're linking to is not much use; it contains the wrong motor, the wrong battery box, a switch you don't need and some gears you don't need. I'm afraid you will need to get the list on the Emerald Night page: #8882 Power Functions XL Motor #8878 Power Functions Rechargeable Battery Box #8887 Transformer 10v DC adapter #8884 Power Functions IR Receiver #8870 Power Functions LED Lights #8879 Power Functions IR Speed Remote Control The flexible track is not necessary, you'd be better off with 2x#7896 Straight & Curved Rails.

It's whatever you're used to. To me most American diesels are quite ugly. I like the 7898 as it looks like a classic German train:

8879 is your remote control. You missed 1 item: 8871 extension wire. The 8866 is not a PF motor so you need the 8871 wire to connect the motor to the receiver.

Hi Segambit, I think it's quite simple. If you don't have any trains at the moment then just go for PF, especially if it's for your son. The only reason I could think of for starting with 9V now would be if you're joining a club that has a big 9V layout. Lego will not produce any new 9V sets or parts. That means you will have to buy everything used. The trains that will be released later this year will have a train motor like the one on the RC trains, only with a PF cable/connector. That means they will be easier to build and motorise than the Emerald Night as there are no gears involved. The 9V system has lasted about 16 years. At the moment Lego is building the PF system across all product ranges (Technic, Creator, Trains) so I would expect it to be around for at least the next decade.

Yup: Only problem is that you need a motor with a gear on each end. They're not as common.

There you go, problem solved.

There's also the Toy story Western train coming this year. Lego have done a good job getting most leaked images removed again but you can still find them...

Still, if you build something from instructions you should mention it. The way you said you 'chose to make it 7 wide' and you 'chose to use SNOT for the nose' makes it sound like it's your own design. Oh, and of course it's not a MOC...