fred67

I guess if we haven't received a notice then we haven't won.

African or European?

Some of us aren't particularly talented in that area. Don't get me wrong, I build MOCs (including some rolling stock), but they're usually not that detailed or good as some of the better MOCers make. However, "Lego Dino 500," there's a lot you can do. SavaTheAggie (a member here with a great current post about the Texas Brick Railroad) has a Bricklink store where you can buy instructions, but even better is stuff for free - so head over to RailBricks (the free online magazine about LEGO Trains); many issues have instructions, and the website has instructions outside of the magazines, too - all for free. I know you look like you want to avoid BrickLink, but there's probably a few instructions available on rebrick, but I don't really frequent there all that often - better is that they can link to bricklink stores that sell the parts, now. I honestly don't think ME would be all that much less expensive than building it yourself unless it requires too many different stores to buy from. So - maybe you know all of this already (and sorry, if that's the case), but it's just that ME has not really made any rolling stock available for quite some time, and I think they are going to be busy for quite some time getting all the track made and making it a regular business - and frankly, after that, I'd rather see them work on something like a replacement motor for 9V than new rolling stock.

I did $30, so I think I get six pairs... I don't know which colors to get.... LOTR Elves? CMF Elves? (I have a small army of those, so it seems better).... tough decisions. Since we have four+ months to go anyway, hoping we can buy a large variety online afterwards.

My childhood is a blur. I think I have a mental problem. I remember having some LEGO, but nothing specifically - I think I only got a few buckets. As an adult, my mom (yes, my mom) gave me a Star Wars ATST, so it came with Chewbacca.

My interesting ones are on display. I use the adjustable shelving that you see a lot (the vertical strips in the walls where you can put brackets and shelves at any level). I do not have the space to use small shelves like that, though, so I use much larger shelves; right now only two are used for trains, and the there's five trains displayed - one shelf is three deep, one is two. The trains farther back are on risers (I found my kid's old duplo useful for that). I have a MOC bridge I build that also has a couple of trains sitting on it. Other than that, my trains are boxed away, with Christmas trains separate. Some crappy phone shots: My first bridge; it's been assembled for at least 10 years, but I want to redo it. BNSF + 2 small MOT locos and caboose (it's a double wide bridge). Top to bottom - Toy Story, Lone Ranger Constitution, first gen Hogwarts Express, Sante Fe Super Chief, Emerald Night. It does make them hard to see, but as you can see I'm really pressed for space.

I wouldn't buy it, but I think it's pretty neat.

Extremely creative and well done... I love it.

Interestingly, you can try a minifigure crowbar where a brick separator wont fit.

Thanks for posting this. Occasionally I search for LEGO on kickstarter, but I didn't see this. Backed... Will be nice to have proper archers.

If collecting means it has to stay in the set, then I still don't know what I am, as most sets have been opened and displayed.

Struck by Lightening. Fairly low budget movie with nobody I knew in it, but it was pretty good - over 4 (out of 5) stars on Amazon Prime.

Just a note - some of the really expensive things on BL, like those window pieces (new), are as cheap as can be on bricks and pieces at S@H; a lot of the stuff in bulk is simply not the outrageous prices you'd pay on BL and, of course, if you buy enough, shipping is free. Shipping takes longer, but you know you're getting the right pieces, brand new.

So far: Market Street v1.0 by Fred Haab, on Flickr Excuse the photo (I know, far too many people say this); when I'm done with all the changes, I will retake pictures using my good camera and good lighting. Notable changes so far, from top to bottom: The stepped tiles on the roof, the color pattern is symmetrical instead of asymmetrical. It was driving me crazy. All the railings are built in a similar fashion using the "robot" or "skeleton" arms. This includes the patio area railings, which I thought looked terrible, and not just because they didn't match the other railings. The railings are all black, giving it a more uniform look of wrought iron railings. The three windows with rounded tops are topped by medium blue arches instead of gray in order to match the color. The two upper doors visible in the picture both open the same way. I'd ordered one of each, but the seller informed me he mis-listed one of them. I figured that, if I was an architect, I'd put them both the same way anyway and just got both of what that seller had. Lazy? I don't know - I thought about it for a while and couldn't figure out why it mattered, and after some thought actually figured that it would be odd for someone to actually build a building like that where the same doors on different levels opened on different sides. Both the flower pot and lamp post are at sidewalk level instead of buried in the sidewalk. I may bury the lamp post again - it's inconsistent across the modular line; Parisian Restaurant has it at sidewalk level. The other modulars I've built (which is not all of them, but includes GG, CC, and PC) have it buried. In any event, I will make them all consistent. Planned changes: I think I'm going to change the knobs on the gate to black. Tan just looks silly for black, wrought iron gate handles. I think I will replace the tan floor division between the top and next-to-top sections with dbg, to make it consistent between all floors. Far too many "bricks with grills." I get it's trying to show some weathering, and I like that technique, but I think it's way overused here, and I will replace some of them with matching color bricks, and to keep the effect, will replace the others with profile bricks (which didn't exist when this set was made, otherwise I'm sure they have used them instead). I am going to mirror image the top level so that the stepped roof is still facing forwards while, at the same time, the balcony is not right up against the wall of an adjacent modular building. At least the balcony will have a 16 stud gap between it and the next building, even if over that "garage" area. I get that since both sections are modular, that I could put the "garage" on the right side, but I think the overall look is better with it on the left. I will replace the tan blocks in back with actual windows. There's a lot I don't like about this building - I didn't buy it before because I just thought it was plain ugly. I didn't realize at the time that modular buildings would be "thing" instead of a one (or two) off, and ended up regretting not getting it so that I could have them all (although technically this one is a "factory" set, and not a "real" modular). After building it, though, there are a lot of things I like about it, too, and think it has some potential with MODs. There's some inconsistent coloring, but being a little eclectic isn't always bad. I really get a New Orleans vibe from this building (although I know it looks more like something from Amsterdam, given the stepped roof); I think it's the colors and the decorative section on top of the garage. I like that it's got a basement (even if fake and unusable), and I like the style of the roof and rooftop balcony - although not a fan of mixing in white and regular old blue for the canopies. Prices? I really don't know... I'm not going to add up all the BL orders because a lot of them had things other than for this. I also didn't care about new vs. used - in some cases it just wasn't practical to get new pieces. I got some from S@H because it made sense to, in the quantities that I needed. But really, I had well more than half of what I needed in my parts collection anyway, so it's impossible for me to say what I paid, but I probably spent about $200 total over the past few weeks - keeping in mind that included a lot of extra stuff and parts I ended up not using.

Me, too... I usually don't make a big deal out of a couple of cheap pieces, but I always let the seller know if I didn't get them. It's not been the case (yet) that what was missing was what I was primarily interested in anyway, usually just filler. Lately, though, these people just don't know colors - and I'm talking about several sellers with feedback in the thousands. I'm making a 2x4 color chart. When I'm trying to bulk up an order, I'll go through my chart to see what's missing, and see if the seller has any bricks in that color (if they had a 2x4 in that color, it would show up in the wanted list). So I can take two 2x2 or 1x4, or four 1x2, for example, just to fill in until I get the 2x4 brick. I've had THREE unsuccessful attempts to get what BL calls "pink." Every single time I get "bright pink," and have to argue with the sellers. In the last case, I did get two 2x4 bricks. If they were actually pink, they would have been a bargain at "only" $0.53 each (used). Unfortunately, I got two used bright pinks.... worth about $0.05 each. I sent pictures showing those parts next to real pink parts; the seller has not responded.

Huh. Never thought of it that way, but it makes a lot of sense, like news sites using click-bait headlines. I think the reality is that the world is imperfect and chaotic, and when you have something open to the entire population of the world you're going to get people who abuse, misuse, and clutter up a site like Ideas, destroying any decent signal to noise ratio. There's a fine balance between keeping the site clean and keeping it open to new ideas... very few of us will ever be completely happy with what the result is - kind of like the rest of life (politics, traffic... just about anything).

In this case, it might be more help to know what you want to do. For example, if you're replicating an existing set (or a MOC that appears on rebrickable.com), you can automatically generate a Wanted List from the parts in that set/MOC, and then search stores for items on your wanted list. That should get you the correct number of each of the different parts you need. If you just want a generic collection of something like "Red Roof Pieces," (which I'm assuming means red slopes?), then it's not quite so easy, and you do have to do a little bit more work. You could create a wanted list, picking the parts individually - you'd have to pick every type of "roof" piece you were interested in, and add to your wanted list, including specifying the color. There have been roof packs (like this one) that you could part out to a wanted list, but it might not include every variation of slope.

I know! But other model train speed regulators don't, they're continuous. I don't know why, if you're putting out 9V, any speed regulator from any model train company wouldn't work.

I haven't had to do any maintenance on my trains (aside from the occasional dusting). Motors do go bad; I've even had some bad track that, even after cleaning, still didn't work well. You can get the speed regulator on BL, but I'm wondering if anyone's tried a speed regulator from another model train company. I know the voltage needs to be right, but I've always disliked how "steppy" the LEGO regulator was anyway. 9V track is expensive; if you haven't been in the train forums until now, you should take look at ME Models, who are manufacturing after-market compatible track; the problem is that while they are in the process of delivering plastic track from their kickstarter project, they haven't released any metal ones yet. They previously had made compatible track that I was lucky enough to get at the time, and it worked well except for the occasional conducting problem from some no-so-great connections, although on a nice, level table, they worked just fine for me. I could really go on and on about it... you got a really nice set, there, Hobbythom, but there's a lot of 9V trains you could add to your collection. I really think, though, that unless you're happy with a small oval, you probably want to expand your track.

Ahh... hmmm... a "slashdot" like moderation system. On slashdot.org, registered members are occasionally granted moderating privileges. A post can be rated from -1 to 5, with 1 being the default for someone posting with a registered account. People get a fixed number of moderation points, so if abusers will run out of points faster. The points expire after some time. It makes the site sort-of self policing. The problem is that people will moderate up or down for political or religious postings simply because they have a different opinion... that's not what it's supposed to be for, you rate posts as interesting, or insightful, or down for flamebait or offtopic, but people moderate down simply because they disagree. On a site like Ideas, I can see people moderating down themes they just don't like, whether the set is appropriate or not.

Hey! Collectors have a mech! If you count exoforce, they have more than one!

Huh... it's not as good as I would have liked, but I like it a lot more than I thought I would. I might go ahead and get the whole series.

Yeah... like what everyone is saying. Some sellers are faster than others; I've gotten slow sellers at good times and had my orders shipped right away, ordered from them again and it took a week for them to get in the mail. I have an order I received today that I ordered five days AFTER another order that hasn't arrived yet. But it's all according to BL policy, so I have left all positive feedback (except for one actual NSS). I do tend to put slow shippers on my least favorites.

You're right, I'll get it because I'm an AFOL fan of The Big Bang Theory. Thanks for the review. I need to modify it slightly to fit the display cases I've been using; a 16 deep plate will fit, but the sides taper as the go up, so the wall will have to be moved forward one - making the space even tighter. I hope I can make it work. I'll probably do the floor with 1x brown tiles for a wood floor. Whatever. I'll post pictures someday.

Instead of Ideas (or in addition to it) maybe they should let fans vote on sets to re-release.