fred67

Nicely done!

Yeah... well, as others have mentioned, perhaps they didn't sell all that well even on display; but still, the LEGO store seems like a very limited way to distribute something like that. And I believe hobby stores would work well... not all hobby stores are tiny little mom and pop shops; several around here have a huge selection of hobbies and at least one large one near me sells other LEGO sets. I guess it depends who you want to market to... are you marketing toys to children, or trains to model railroad fans. What happened with LEGO turned out to more of the latter and less of the former.

Oh... yeah, I know, but the sentiment is there... like when people are listing their trains, they always put some sort of caveat with the HP train. The more I look at this one, though, the more I like the way it's a caricature of a "real" train, which I guess is what it's supposed to be, being a "toy" of a toy in an animated movie. I think I've convinced myself to get it just for the shelf.

I know I'm different than other folks, but I like this set essentially as-is (although waiting for a picture of the final version). I'd likely buy this set just for display purposes. But I'm wondering why the Toy Story train makes it in this forum, but people don't like considering the Hogwarts Express a "real" train.

Me too! When I finally started sorting my collection into various bins, the problems became what to do with pieces that you only have a couple of; try as I might, no matter how organized I try to get, I still have the "where is that $@$ing piece?" moment. I'll have a tray of plates, and still not be able to find that 2x8 gray one... but I don't have enough plates to start separating them out. My solution is to connect like parts together in groups of 5 or 10. Then when I need a handful of a certain plate, it's easier to find the "cluster" than the individual pieces, and once I find it, I have 10 of them to work with (oh... offset plates when putting them together to make it easy to take apart!). Moreover, when I finally do build, I have this tray, that tray, this bin, that bin.... I need more room.

I stand corrected... that was for a different rechargeable battery.

The posting policy on their message boards is worse. Instead of being patrolled by moderators looking for inappropriate posts, they hold posts in a queue (I've had ones spend as much as a week on the parent board). What worse is what's inappropriate: "Will they sell the Kingdoms Advent calendar in the U.S.?" Sorry, you can't ask that. "Is there some third party LEGO could allow to make 9V tracks?" Umm... nope... after spending a week waiting for it to be approved, no less. When you post in the kids forums, it's like a day wait.

Very nice... I like the stone walls on the house, and the "fake" roof repairs are a great touch... I love the trees, too.

6 AAA batteries have the same voltage but less capacity... you could take one of those square 9V batteries and potentially run your train, but only for a few minutes! So I think that could work, the trains just wouldn't run as long. Some sort of adapter would be great, so that you can come up with your own solution to supplying 9V and then have it work with PF. This is actually already possible, but requires modification to a PF cable - it's something we've discussed here, using the electrified rail with a dead 9V motor as a pick up and converting it to PF so that you could have the best of both worlds... an "infinitely" running train that can be controlled by remote and without the need to build a big, bulky battery box into your train. It's also possible to take an "old" LEGO battery box and use this conversion cable to operate PF (when I say that, really, we're specifically talking about the IR receiver, as simply connecting an old battery box with a PF motor was possible, using the conversion cable sold by TLG, just that "function" like IR wouldn't work). But... going back to the OP, he asks for a simple solution... TLG actively took away the simplest solution and made it a lot more expensive and complicated. I would argue the new system has several advantages... but simple is not one of them.

I was fortunate enough to pick up one of these Mythical Creatures. These are like the grand-daddies of the dragons in the fantasy sets. Brickset seems awfully slow, so I'm throwing in the bricklink catalog entry, too.

That's a nice one... good call, Pugsly. The bridge really makes that picture, though... has LEGO ever released a set with a bridge? The whole track would have to be elevated, but what cool set that would make. EDIT: Another thing... rusted track and wooden ties.... why doesn't LEGO make tracks in brown?

Yeah... so much simpler than just adding a 9V motor. I'm so glad TLG switched Seriously, though... they at least need a better battery box, something you can put AA batteries in that works with PF and fits on the train. That way, if I want rechargeable, I just use generic rechargables and don't get stuck with some $50 LEGO battery (BTW, the list is missing the charger - #9833; the battery is not much good without a charger... another $25). I'm glad LEGO made it so much cheaper and simpler for the kids.

And here I was generally considering that to be a pretty useless piece. I love being proven wrong... one of the most beautiful things in LEGO is seeing creative uses for pieces that were designed for something else. This is a beautiful MOC, I love it.

Where's the creature? It's very cool... I love this forum, you guys are all so awesome; very inspiring.

Thanks for the comments, everyone. Since I first posted, I received a bricklink shipment which allowed me to build some more pieces. I'm working on a large corner piece right now, but last night I was pondering the question that was brought up in the "ideas for future castle sets" thread... that is, should the walls connect with technic pins, or hinges to allow the walls to go arbitrary angles? I figured I'd do most with pins, and a few with hinges... but then it occurred to me that I could stick with technic pins on all the main sections (walls/towers/gates) and just have a bridge-element (a piece that joins two other modular pieces) and put the hinge there. That way the modular system remains really generic, and you don't need to plan pieces that have the hinges... you just put the hinged piece in-between anywhere you want. I'm sure that's clear as mud, so pictures are worth a thousand words, right? The first picture shows three wall sections separated by two "bridges." I only have gray hinge bricks. I have white hinge plates, but this was easier and honestly, I like the gray breaking up the white every so often. I also have a lot more round 1x1 gray bricks... I think I have two white ones. The round grays obviously cover up the gap left by the way the hinges work... If you're going to have that large of an angle, you could probably use 2x2 round bricks to hide it instead, but it doesn't make much sense to go near or more than 90 degrees. I'm waiting on more jumper plates and white cheeses. I find I'm running out of a lot of pieces, as usual... seems to always happen. Anyhow, I'm happy so far... I'll post the large tower when I'm done with it. The large tower will be square, since (as far as I know) there are no 3x3 macaroni curves. I've tried towers that alternated 2x2 macaroni and 1x2 bricks, but then it just looks weird... just a square with rounded corners.

It's beautiful; thanks for sharing.

Very nice... what did you do to the roof to give it that coloring?

I know, right? If you put some effort into it, you should be able to get a case for $180... aren't they $3/each? Times 60?

Yeah... like a lot of people, for me there are several reasons... I didn't really have what you guys call a "dark ages," but for quite some time I was only interested in trains. To make a long story short, by the time I decided I wanted to collect other sets, I'd missed a lot of good ones and the aftermarket prices were ridiculous. So: 1. I may not have time or space to build them, but I don't want to miss out, so I buy them when I can instead of waiting. Among other things, sitting in my closet right now are cafe corner and green grocer, a 4504 Millenium Falcon, a Home One (bought two, built one), a few castle sets, including two troll warships (in addition to one I built). I'm absolutely out of shelf space... I will keep buying sets, but I need new shelves before I can build anything else. 2. I do think of it as an investment, and have so many pieces and sets that I will likely open a bricklink store eventually; so now I sometimes buy two or more of sets I like, especially if they are on sale... but the key is that I only buy multiples of sets that I really like, not just any old sets. If I never sell them, and end up opening them for myself, I'm still ahead of the game. The only one I'm not sure about is the UCS Naboo Fighter... the one with chrome pieces. I paid extra for that one... and never opened it. Not sure what I will do with it. Probably after I move and have new space for myself, I'll build it and put it on display, but I'm not positive. 3. Sometimes I buy a LOT of smaller sets, especially on clearance, and I may give one here and there to my son when he is bored, or sometimes a birthday for a friend pops up and it turns out the friend is a SW or LEGO fan, so we don't even have to go to the store. I also coach sometimes, and give away smaller sets at the end of the season. I love sharing LEGO. But... I want to mention there is a crossover between 1 and 2. I bought the 4504 Millenium Falcon at a Black Friday sale for like $75. I had (and have) every intention of building it... but now it sells, new in box, on bricklink for $380 (North America, at least) for the cheapest one. It was easily worth $75 for me to have and build... I don't know if it's worth almost $400. Cafe Corner, too, already doubled in price. That will still be a lot easier for me to build as part of my collection... if I were to build it now. What if I don't get the chance for another year and it's $500? I ended up with a number of sets like that... I didn't mean to buy them as investments... it just worked out that way.

So, building off of ideas from the community build and the "wanted" castles sets, and not having enough pieces to make a large scale modular castle, and not having a lot of gray... I present the beginnings of my miniscale modular castle. Sorry about the picture quality, I'm trying to get a nice setup to take pictures. I don't know what scale you'd consider this, but most people seem to call anything less than minifigure scale "mini." Maybe instead we can call this microfigure scale. I actually have more built than what I have in the pictures, but I'm working on a lot more pieces, including ones using hinge bricks for arbitrary angles and a non-tower corner. I'll post more (if anyone cares) when I do it. The microfigures are from Minotaurus.

Not a hater Just don't understand the desire to make people split their time between multiple forums when it's all right here. I barely have time to follow one forum as it is.

I dunno... I understand why you might want your own forum, but why split people between different forums? Except for a much better "theme" that doesn't give me a headache, it seems just like eurobricks... with the exception it's missing a dedicated section for my favorite area, Trains.

A secret device that makes the world blurry and tilt at an angle?

See, that's what I mean. I think some people are put off by their over moderation sometimes, and Eurobricks seems a lot more active... so, like I said, I don't want it to happen, but it's just a shrug for me.