Heppeng

You might want to recover the doors, they are worth a few bob on bricklink!

I'll get one, my intention is to park it up outside the haunted house with the ghostbusters walking to the door. It will hopefully be sufficiently far away from the other vehicles for any scale discrepancies to be not to noticeable.

I was thinking that very shortly everyone would have the very same answer to the thread title!!!

Thanks for that ER0l, I had not thought about the MOC index, there is food for thought there. There are a lot of lego buses on google search, but am particularly interested in a short wheelbase 6 wide double decker suitable for city use. Once you have filtered out all the Knight buses, single deckers, VW micro buses, luxury coaches, 8 wide etc. there is not a lot left. Then of course there is the hassle/cost of bricklinking. For comparison, the bus above costs just less than £15, including free shipping, which means that it even falls under the £15 threshold above which import duty becomes due - so no hidden surprises there either.

It seems that with the lego Movie doing so well that there is bound to be some long lasting effects. The obvious one being greater lego sales - I noticed that this weekend my local Asda has doubled the size of its lego shelf space, including a new section where most of the lego movie sets are represented. I m not sure how this extra demand will impact on the lego community - will demand outstrip supply and allow lego to charge even higher prices in future? And of course will this affect second hand prices? No doubt it will be good for the lego company itself!!!

I dunno, some of the apparantly original non-lego designs look like copies of Enlighten - particularly the double cab diesel looks like Enlightens set 623, except it looks like unlike Enlighten they did not bother to clone proper train doors! The station in 25110 also looks like a copy of 7937

I agree it looks great! I got my scalextric cars today. They look like they will be a good starting point, but might not be so good for the heavier models as they are geared for speed rather than torque of course. Mind you if they do go up in smoke replacement motors are cheap and plentiful. The biggest hurdle will be making the lego wheels fit the scalextric axles.

So I have a dilemma! I do not have much in the way of modern bricks, (most of my spares consist of lego from the '70's and early 80's when I was a kid), so I will need to buy bricks or a complete bus. The current lego one comes as part of a set so is a very expensive option, and also has train doors which look poor on a modern bus. Previous lego versions also come as part of a set and command high prices second hand. So for inspiration I did a google image search for lego bus, which inevitably also brought up clone brands. And here is the main dilemma. There are a good variety clone brand buses, that are smartly designed, available as a single item and of course cheap. I thought that perhaps I could even things up a bit by downloading the instructions and then building it out of lego - almost doing to the clones what they do to lego! I would really like something like this: Trouble is that bricklinking this would probably be rather expensive once postage is added, and I would loose its best feature - the rather cool plug style opening doors, since lego don't make a door that can do this, and even if I tried to be inventive with the bits lego do make it is unlikely the result would be anywhere near as good. And lets face it, this is an original design which had it been made from lego would probably have had every lego fan singing its praises... So I have a choice of a compromised expensive bus made from lego, or buy this....

Are you sure? Photo says Wednesday...

I think there could be a lot of potential in this for lego, you can have racing cars for some fun competition, or the same basic set up could be used to bring the streets of your city to life. A purpose built chassis in two parts - (so you can alter the wheelbase to suit as required) and perhaps alternate gearing so that you can use it either for high speed racing, or powering a lorry trundling around the streets. I have just bought some cheap scalextric cars off ebay which I intend to experiment with. And for a bit of fun I have a feeling that a micro-scalextric chassis is pretty close size wise to do a version of Emmets car...

I like your thinking! It might even be possible to combine your idea with dundarach's for a 100% lego solution - you could use one of the early 12V 2x8 pick up bricks to get the power, and you would have a lot of freedom to build a car in whatever form you desire.

I was not too keen on MS either, but I love the PR, and it needs a low modular next to it to better show off the rear seating area and chimney details. So it was either a MOC, leave it on the end of a street, or MS next to it. I solved the balcony issue by building the top floor opposite hand so it overlooks the alleyway/PR. That really tested my brain following the instructions for that! I am not sure why Lego appeared to design it the wrong way round?

For comparison, I replaced this: (Flexible 8.5L with tabbed ends, average BL price £8.08)) With this:(Flexible 8.5L with tabless ends, average BL price £2.70) When on the building I reckon 99% of people won't see the difference unless they look really close! In fact, I am surprised it does not get suggested as an alternative more often!

Built my Market Street last weekend. Unfortunately due to a few minor errors on the Bricklink orders it is only 99% done - e.g. got sent white 1x6 tiles instead of tan and a couple of other errors. However I am really pleased with the way it has turned out. It looks virtually indistinguishable from the genuine article. You cant tell its not the right window frames from the outside, and as the light grey doors are slightly recessed and therefore a little in the shade you can't tell that they are not bluey grey. The hoses too look the same - you really have to know your 'tabbed ends' from your 'tabless ends' to realise they are not original. Once I get it 100% I will take some pictures.

This is a very thought provoking thread! I think I might like to give this a go, although I am more interested in what can be done to motorise existing lego models in a similar way to tbroyd. It looks like the Demolition Derby has some limitations, you are restrained by the wheelbase and it seems that it can limit how the models are built - I notice on the ice cream van that the mudguards are not fitted, presumably because the chassis is in the way. Its not a 100% lego solution, but I think I will get a couple of old Scalextric cars from ebay and experiment!

I feel a mod of the Fire Brigade coming on... Or perhaps I can park it outside the haunted house with the team gingerly opening the gates.... This ones going to be tough to resist!

The EN is nearer nine wide over the smoke deflectors (the black 'ears' at the front). I have to be careful where and how I run it on my 12V layout to avoid it swipeing other trains and lineside furniture! There is a reason why my nick name for it is "fatty" !!!! (Athough tadpole would be good too - black and nine wide at the front, going down to a six wide tail...)

The IR is in the engine - one cable from battery in tender to IR in loco, then another back again to motor in tender.

One for the hardcore lego fan? Well I thought hard about what sort of lego model would be worthy of such a prize and came up with this:

Its what I did to my lego cars when I wanted to dismantle them. Far more entertaining than taking them apart brick by brick. Quicker too. In my case I drove it as fast as I could off the top of the stairs. Almost cleared them, some parts of the back axle was found on the fourth step from the bottom. This was the 1980's mind...

Sorry should have been clearer - its the white 1x4x3 window frame. Original version was the "1 x 4 x 3 Train with Shutter Holes and Solid Studs on Ends". It seems that it was a special - one way round you could fit it with train glass and use it as a train window, the other way around you could fit it with window pains and use it as a building window. Very expensive on bricklink. The replacement "Window 1 x 4 x 3 - No Shutter Tabs" will look the same once installed on Market street, but will not have the train frame mould shape towards the rear (as installed). At least that is what I understand it to be, not having both in front of me to compare!

Just checked, and it seems that indeed the windows lego are selling are the later ones as in green grocer, Pet shop, Fire brigade etc. that are selling for an average of about 16p on bricklink. Never mind - I would never had bought the original style at bricklink prices anyway!

If what TheLegoDr says is correct, they should be the correct windows as I ordered them directly from the lego BnP inventory of Market Street and should therefore be correct. However, if they are not the right ones it would explain the bricklink prices... Just did a final total up - £173 including postage give or take a penny or two. Just waiting for the bricks to arrive!

Maybe they wanted the bricks for something else?

The dark grey sleepers (ties) in the 1980's train sets get very brittle and break/crack at the slightest provocation. It must be an age thing because if they were that bad new, lego would have had a serious problem!