Brickthus

A PF signal light brick (1 red, 1 green LED, with opposite polarity lighting either one) would be most useful. Failing that, just white lights and we'll add the colour filters. There used to be the container depot 4555, which was my first 9V set. I bought 5 for the crane slider parts! PF for line-side features is a tricky one. An IR receiver and battery costs a lot more than a long wire and a common power supply. Linear Actuators could change the points, though their travel is too long for that, risking the mechanism popping off the point lever. I'm using pneumatics myself, with medium motors and racks on other points. Heiner Berg did a nice rail crossing using a PF medium motor and a worm gear block for each barrier. I think there's a photo of that in the latest issue of Brick Journal. Everyone would like rolling stock like their own, but I know there won't be more 8+ wide rolling stock for my trains, even with an 8-wide EN loco! I think the 10015 tanker was a one-off. Besides, my wagons use more bricks and would be too expensive as sets. At least EN is a big step forward for LEGO trains. There are more steps to make, so keep up the good work TLG! Mark

For anything bigger than a train set, it's 2 motors every time! Important point though: always wire them together, so they get the same electric supply. Otherwise one motor pushes or pulls the other over points, which will reduce motor life. Yes, a standard 9V controller is limited to 2 motors' worth of current. I've had one overheat after a while with only 2 motors on a light train. I use a dual 30V 3A bench power supply for running 9V main lines - no messing with high voltages as it's a ready-made unit. I added a couple of DPDT centre-off switches for the direction. This PSU will easily handle double headers, 4-motor trains, locos with auxiliary motors and live train swapping (running one train into a through siding and another out of another at the same time, requiring double the current). This last technique is useful at shows because it reduces the interrupt time between trains that the public can see running, which is what holds their interest. When I have bought a batch of motors, I put them on a 9V circuit and run them all together, swapping any pairs as one catches up with another, till I have the set rated in speed order. Then I pick two motors adjacent in rank (matching them) and put the faster one at the front of a 2-motor loco. A shame this is not possible with PF train motors! In a pair of Class 20s it was better to put 2 motors in one and run the other without any motors than to put one motor in each, even when they were wired together. This was because the push-pull happens over points, which are on a curve, and a push together on a curve can lead to derailments because the couplings (in this case a thin liftarm instead) are at an angle to the bogies. 2 motors also use 100% of the weight of a loco as traction weight. In a 3-axle bogie I allow the 3rd pair of wheels to swivel and tilt, so it does not carry the weight of the loco body (and hence run the risk of catching on it). The use of traction weight is a big consideration in the design of real trains, both steam and diesel. The difference is shown between a 4-6-2 and a 2-8-0 because the firebox and cab weight is traction weight for a 2-8-0. An A1A-A1A diesel wastes traction weight with the un-powered wheels. I agree about hill climbing too. I'm sure some of the tyres on my motors have lasted longer because using 2 motors reduces wheel slip. A single-motor small engine has noticeable wheel slip, which has worn down the tyres. Mark

I like your video. Good job the cars are quite light, seeing as the track needs good support (I think at least every other track joint should be supported in a span, but every one for heavy trains). I have an idea to help, which I'll have to spend some time on and take pictures of :) It was also easier to ballast the prototype track, but I've also made some progress with the production track. With my original ballast scheme, the prototype track could be fixed at about 80M radius (equivalent to 1 straight between each normal curve). The middle bit needs a new scheme for the production track, but judicious use of plate 1x2 with rail on the inside of the curve can help with the regularity of curvature. I anticipate using flexi-track in quarter circles of 120M radius, if running tests prove it is sufficiently reliable against derailments. At the moment I'm using the space to build railway modules, so the experiments are on hold. Mark

You know you're a fan of LEGO when... ...you make models at home of engineering products at work, take the models to work and demonstrate new product concepts to the team. ...you exhibit models at work to over 50 people over lunch. ...you use LEGO models to support patent applications. ...you stack LEGO storage drawers higher than your head. ...you buy more freezer bags for your LEGO bricks than a large family would use in ten years. ...you readily recognise length by studs but need a ruler for millimetres and inches. ...you model every real thing you see at 1 stud to the foot in your head. ...you take on LEGO building projects that last for years. ...you have the loft or cellar done, the house extended, or an outbuilding built to make an additional LEGO room. ...you display LEGO models in your front window, for the appreciation of kids passing on their way to school. ...you buy a big car just so you can transport more LEGO. ...you buy over 70000 pieces in one go. ...your collection reaches 1 million pieces. ...you help TLG improve the product. Mark

My guess is that either the circuit board or the soldering process has been revised to remove a potential short circuit around the power supply rails. The plastic moulds and functionality of the replacement unit should be exactly the same. The train remote sends the "increase" and "decrease speed" signals to the train. Therefore there is a maximum rate of turning the dial that will be effective in accelerating the train by more than one step in the shortest time possible. I think turning the dial by the equivalent of the gap between two notches should send one signal. I think the maximum rate is just over one command per second. The protocol probably has more details. Using the STOP function resets the speed, so there is no fixed speed reference point for either dial on the remote. Not so good if you want to drive the dial from a motor. The NXT with an IR link sensor will do the same IR functions, as well as giving you the ability to start a train at a fixed speed setting, for anyone desperate to have remote control sooner than the replacement. Of course you can use a phone to control the NXT, so you already have the remote on your pocket Mark

I predicted 4/10 and came out as 4.06/10! My stats Places where I'm more conservative than average: I dislike POOP because it juniorises the hobby. With the advent of bricks with clips and 1x2 plates with clips I anticipate the demise of the 1x1 plate with clip. For the sake of the hobby this must never happen. Clone brands are out. I won't even modify them except parts that were mixed in 2nd hand lots and only as test pieces to de-risk a mod to a proper LEGO brick. I would never waste money on clones. I'm not into stickers because they're not durable. Therefore I don't use my own. This might change as I make signs for my railway layout. I really has stickers that cover more than one brick because it reduces the usefulness of the bricks. Similarly, I don't like paint either. Places where I'm more risque than average: I mod lots of bricks. Some I buy deliberately to mod. However, my limit is that I don't mod bricks from sets because I might need to rebuild the set later, so it's PaB only. Another limit is that I like to use as much of the modded piece as possible - 2 halves of a cut tile for instance. My main reason for modding is that it's how TLG initially designs many new parts and TLG really should make the parts I want I mod few aesthetic parts (mostly tiles), more baseplates to order (32x32s in half because 16x32s were not available, also strips for connecting half beams) and many technic parts, for mechanisms - mostly smaller parts to do a mechanism in a smaller space. I must have cut over 50 axle pins, several half beams and now some 32020 wheels. Flex tubing - bought 250 to cut to length. Used for pneumatics in railway modules, tree trunks and many other things. I would have bought a 100m reel if it had been available because that's exactly what TLG does - cut flex tube from a reel. Therefore I'm doing only the same as TLG. Fan clones - BBB wheels are a must for train enthusiasts. There's a nice double clip from Brickarms too, but I don't go in for weapons per se. The quality has to be up there with proper LEGO parts. Extra NXT sensors too. Non-core ranges are still LEGO products, so they're OK by me. If they don't sell well enough they'll be dropped, to the benefit of better products. That's all part of product evolution. Hopefully the more TLG listens to AFOLs, the less cash they'll waste on unpopular non-core ranges. We help the pace of product evolution. I have bought the odd Bionicle or ZNAP set because some of the parts are useful, but I'm quite selective on value for money. I was given a couple of Clickits packs and I can see uses for a couple of the pieces for mechanisms. I used glue to stick together rail points that I'd modified, so I can't disown glue entirely . However, I keep glue for fixing things that have broken, so I don't make a habit of it. I have never used MEK. New colours are here to stay. We may have preferred the old ones but they're obsolete just like 9V and 12V trains and so many mould shapes in many colours. This is an obsolescence market we live in, so I work with it as I would at work, making appropriate lifetime buys while critical parts are still available. I use old or new colours according to what's most appropriate for what I'm building, usually trains and railway scenery to scale, in which environment there are both old and new grey colours in abundance. New colours don't bother me at all for Technic. I'm fortunate not to be trying to build classic space in old grey because there was never a lifetime buy opportunity for 4x8 wing plates! Mark

It's so much cheaper to produce! Half the number of torso production lines, plus there is a minimum volume below which it is uneconomic to produce a piece of a certain size and/or number per mould cycle. E.g. 12 2x4 bricks per machine injection cycle. A mould does about 100000 cycles. The printing of elements is comparatively expensive and minifig parts are some of the most expensive for their size and weight (the average consumer cost is about 10p/piece, counting each of the 10 movable parts of a standard minifig as a piece). The machine assembly processes for torsos and legs don't help either. The cost of buying and running a warehouse full of machinery just to put together a few pieces is an overhead most parts don't have. The machine precision required to put hands into arms and arms into torsos is finer than that to put bricks together in normal building. If minifigs weren't a kids' toy, I'd advocate putting the 5 torso parts in a bag rather than putting the torso together in the factory! Much cheaper! (I'd also make hands available in bulk, for making handrails etc...). Mark

I think set 672 fire engine had a ladder like that. Mark

I found another point where 9V scores over PF: I would like the trains on my layout to change speed according to where they are. It makes sense for the trains to speed up when it is going uphill (needing power setting 4 to get up the hill with a train) but to slow down when going down the hill (any power setting above 2 would look like a runaway and might cause a derailment on the next corner). I would also like the trains to slow doen when entering the out-of-sight fiddle yard, to minimise the risk of derailments in hard-to-reach places. For a 9V layout, automatic speed settings would be achieved by adding isolating tape between permanently-connected joints of 9V track (not joints detached at scenic module boundaries), to make isolating sections, and then using diodes to drop some voltage from the uphill sections to the flat sections and from there to the downhill sections. One diode drop is approximately the difference between speed settings on a 9V controller or a PF IR receiver. I would use two 1N4001 diodes in parallel at each isolation, for up to 2 Amps at <50V with some load sharing, the diodes dropping between 0.7V and 1.0V at each isolation. The diode network would work in reverse, making higher speed for reversing uphill than downhill if a train were reversed in any section (bi-directional running capability). A few diodes and some Veroboard would cost a few quid. For a PF layout, automatic speed settings would require an NXT with an RFID sensor to recognise the trains and an IR Link sensor to send the speed codes to the trains. This is the case at each site where a train changes speed automatically, so for my layout with 2 tracks and hills that's about 4 NXTs even if you double up by using two IR Link sensors and two RFID sensors on the 4 ports of each NXT. There is the advantage of individual train speeds, but it costs a lot more, probably £1000 more! The NXTs should have a mains supply in that application, so either a fudged 9V supply on the battery terminals (warranty voided) or a rechargeable battery pack for each one! Mark

The blue Technic bits at the top of photos 1&2 are the cranks that move the horses etc... up and down. Lots of 1x2x3 underneath dark red slope bricks, to go with the right-way-up ones from the Cafe Corner! Is the music device one of those trans-clear 2x4x3 bricks with a button, like the motorbike and dinosaur roar ones? I guess one of those pressed periodically could provide the function of a few seconds' repeated tune. Mark

That sort of plane is ripe for propfan engines. Two rows of propellers per engine, with more blades in each row. I wonder if there would be a kit if a real one appears 10 years from now? Mark

That would speed up disembarkation - mind the gap! Mark

Except that if the transformer is significantly more capable than the current required, a short circuit in the unit would draw more current before it tripped the transformer current limit, potentially damaging the unit. That's why mains appliances have fuses for applicances, circuits and the whole house The effects of failure without fuses would be extreme in a house (probably fire) but the effect in a rechargeable battery could be an overheat condition sufficient to burn your hand, unless the protection circuit is effective even in failure conditions. In a commercial toy I doubt there is component redundancy, so if something in the battery circuit failed, protection might be lost by that single failure and use of an over-rated charging device might be unsafe. This would be considered in the design. Of the two failures it takes to cause potential injury to the user (e.g. burnt hand), one is an excessive current from the charger and the other is a failure of the protection circuit in the battery. If the user uses an alternative, unprotected, charging device then that's one failure already, with a probability of 1. The chance of a burnt hand goes up from 1 in a million to more like 1 in 1000. It's your choice but if you disobey the warranty you would have no comeback if you got injured! If you have an electrical or electronics qualification then you would have more understanding of what would be safe or not. A while ago there was a Dell laptop battery replacement programme because people were getting batteries overheating or exploding. Not nice if it's in your lap at the time! I'm not really so paranoid about charging but that's the sort of logic I have to use as a professional safety engineer and the sort of thinking I must officially recommend. I would only use an alternative charging method myself if I were confident about its safety, including its current limit. For instance, I use a dual 30V 3A bench power supply to run 9V trains because the LEGO 9V controller has insufficient current for my trains (some of which have 4-5 motors). I run well within the motor ratings (300mA) by using about 200mA/motor except for short periods, thus prolonging the life of the motors. I also have multiple feeds to the track, which reduce both voltage drop and the electrical stress in the feed wires. Mark

Wagons come in all shapes and sizes, and have done since before LEGO bricks arrived! The extension from standard 6x12 or 6x16 truck bases to 6x24, 6x28 and 6x longer is just an evolution of LEGO trains. In blue rail days there were no 2-plate-high wagon bases. The extra thickness adds the strength required to make a bogie wagon. Try a couple of 6x16 plates end to end and you'll see the sag, which would wither fall apart, or derail if it affected how the bogies sat on the track. The bogie plate with a small pin was required as a step forward from the 2x2 turntable for the same reason. It was probably also cheaper to have just two standard truck bases, along with truck and loco wheels, a loco base and a battery tender. From my point of view, building 8mm scale trains, the length in studs is approximately the wagon length over headstocks in feet. I use 6x24 wagon bases for 4-wheel wagons, not bogie wagons (except those for exceptionally heavy loads where a real wagon is built like that). My Pendolino has coaches up to 80M long and I've put straights between the curves to make wider, more realistic, curves. I have recently returned to the smaller end of the range in wagon building. Many many British wagons had a 10ft wheelbase. Coal trains of 99 wagons were common in the days when each coal wagon was shunted and tipped end-on. The real train changed to 47 automatically-unloading Merry-Go-Round hoppers in the 1970s and more recently fewer, larger, bogie hoppers, improving the efficiency of getting coal from the mine to the power station. There has therefore been a trend towards larger wagons in the transport of coal. It happened for ballast hoppers too. Steel also saw a similar change, with coil wagons moving from a 10ft wheelbase carrying 2 coils to bogie wagons with 5 coils over a few decades. In the 1950s and earlier, some long loads were carried on two single bolster wagons, with the load (maybe a rolled steel joist) carrying some of the axial shunting load of the train. There have been bogie bolster wagons since the 1960s, for loads that would not fit on a small wagon and were too weak to use single bolster wagons. The UK underwent a modernisation in the 1970s with the advent of the TOPS system for vehicle classification. The 40ft ISO container also moved freight towards longer wagons. Given that the blue rail wagon bases were invented in the 1960s, I'm not surprised they are short because the majority of wagons were short. The blue rail era lasted till 1980 and the change to the product allowed it to reflect the more modern real railway, which is probably why TLG trumpeted the achievement of the motor bogie in the brochures. It is also the case that the majority of blue rail era engines were steam engines, including sets 171 and 182. 162 and 183 are notable exceptions but according to Herby's New LEGO Train Depot they didn't appear till 1976-7. This is despite the advent of main line diesels in the UK in the 1950s and the demise of UK main line steam in 1968. Also 7725 was the first Electric Multiple Unit in 1981, followed by 7745, aping the trend away from loco haulage of passenger trains. So yes, train sets have followed the trend of the real railway in wagon size and motive power, albeit a few years behind, which accounts for product development time, which has probably reduced over the years. We'll have to petition TLG to do preserved trains to regain the quality and nostalgia of those old wagons, but are there so many preserved railways outside the UK? Mark

This was a key set, for the sequential operation. It started me off in automatic systems and pneumatic logic and spawned all you see here. TLG really should revisit sequential pneumatic logic. It's a shame they didn't add two more switches to the JCB. That would have been enough to do my robot. I keep meaning to make another sequential pneumatic machine, especially now I know a bit more about real industrial hydraulic systems. The pick and place robot remains the only finished sequential pneumatic MOC. I've had it built since 1996! It should be possible to do a pneumatic building machine without an NXT, unless colour recognition is required Mark

Here's a 3-trunk tree I used black 3.2mm rigid tubes for the trunks, with Technic 1x2 double cross hole thin beams to connect them together. Ideally, TLG would bring out a piece similar to the Brickarms double clip piece, because droid arms are a bit long for adjacent trunk attachment. Mark

I understand the space constraint - 16ft x 12ft is a loft layout but also the most one can assemble at a show in the 8hrs setup time! CAD is the part I don't have much time for - I find it quicker in my head and building by hand than it would be in LDD or LDraw (unless I practised regularly)! Track designer is the exception to that because it gives a better idea of how tracks will fit, and is quicker than assembling real track. I like to try out options, especially when building loco cabs - build 2, improve one and see which is better. Scruffey was mostly in my head, but the face took a few trials. We do have a Brickish Association member in the UK who uses LEGO track and MOCs with traditional model railway scenery. A lot cheaper in sand green plates! Most people build 6-wide and do a modular street scene as a backdrop, making a great collaborative build layout. 1x1s are not quite so bad if you can buy them by weight - £45/kg PaB price is 0.81p each. I started with 18 tiger mosaics when they were going cheap! A J94 might be possible with PF if you begin, as you say, with the essential elements at the core of the chassis. The EN wheels are about right for a J94 or 08 in 8-wide or 8mm scale but 6-wide builders might prefer the BBB medium wheels to fit with other models (assuming that, in 6-wide, EN wheels represent over 6ft diameter). I currently have Thomas, Stepney and Duck, all 0-6-0s, which would struggle to fit PF, partly because their boilers are 4M diameter. As 9V engines they are built over a 9V train motor with a 71427 or 43362 gearmotor turning the 24mm pulley driving wheels. The motor in an 0-6-0 would have to be above the axles, except if you could get away without a full axle for the middle wheels by support those wheels on shortened pins in triangle brackets alongside the 3-wide PF motor. That might involve modding parts but it's a mod I've done before! I struggled with the Class 14, even though it's a larger shunter than an 08, because its body is 5.6 wide, tapering to 5.2 at the ends. No room for a battery with all that SNOT work - I can barely fit a 9V wire through to the cab motor! I decided to let the adjacent coach carry the battery, receivers and train motors, leaving the cab gearmotor to power just the engine. I would suggest adding flywheels to the motor axle if they will fit. Many HO models have flywheels for smooth slow running. There needs to be enough energy in the flywheels to overcome the friction of the worm gears, which is greater with LEGO ones than with the HO ones. Worms would be OK for the speed range because an 08 does 18mph and an 09 27mph maximum. The lowest friction gearing is still 8:24 or 16:16 rather than 12:20, so I have just one 12:20 stage in the gearing for my larger locos. An 02 would be quite a challenge, but I might have a go! Mark

Thanks guys. I'm surprised how quickly some of these wagons got to a finished MOC. The only planning was to draw the letters of "SCRUFFEY" to check whether I could do the door opening as well. Adding up the total length of the letters is something I could do in my head, but aligning it with a 4-wide door is a bit more tricky, given the need for SNOT support. I've been building trains to 8mm scale since 1996 and exhibiting them since 2000, so it wouldn't be fair on yourself to be jealous! It took a while to settle the framework and boundaries of my scale building scheme, and also several years to earn enough money to buy the bricks! It's a shame not many people build to a similar scheme, but it is a bit more expensive than 6-wide. When the objective is to show that an 8mm scale model railway is viable in LEGO, that sets several objectives and requirements (track spacing and loading gauge, electrics and motive power, vehicle sizes). Most of the rest is "Can this be done within the requirements of the scale without glue, stickers, paint or too many mods?" The thing that prompted me to build these wagons was seeing a rake of lime wagons in 4mm scale. 8mm scale LEGO has more accurate track than 4mm scale OO trains! The simplicity of the lime wagons made them accessible as a potential MOC. "ICI (Lime) Ltd" could have fitted in 16M (I drew it out on paper) but I wanted to do the opening doors on a "real" wagon (as opposed to Scruffey, whose character and appearance mattered more than functionality), so "LMS" was so much easier because the "M" can incorporate the clips for the door hinge. Looking at a few books told me that LMS open wagons typically have corrugated ends (number 1 rule is get to know your prototype!), hence the profile bricks. The load shape was remembered from the wagons at the show. Different loads settle at different angles. My previous wagons, clay hoods, have 2 tubes each side as an approximation of brake rods and wheel ties (that hold the wheels against the brake force), but I wanted to improve on this. Having a few more of the alternative Technic pieces with studs on top, rather than the steering parts with pins, made it easier to attach the brake gear support bracket to the underside, also enabling a simpler wagon base to suffice instead of a base incorporating obsolete Technic crenellated 1xn plates with holes for the pins. All this made a rake of wagons viable. Wagons had been on the "to build" list for a while, but a better future brings more encouragement to the build in the present. The "Can it be done" changed to "Yes"! Having built the lime wagon, it was a case of "now that I have a 10ft wheelbase, what else can I put on one?", so a trawl of the books revealed up to 15 wagons that might be possible. I probably spend £1 on railway books for every £20 I spend on LEGO. Books with early colour pictures of railways are useful because these wagons range from about 1940 to 1960, with most types surviving today, either as departmental stock or at preserved railways (guess where I go on holiday! ) The stretch to 12ft wheelbase was for ubiquitous wagons that I always wanted to build. The Grampus wagons numbered about 5000 so they were a common sight from the 1950s onwards. The same can be said for the Mermaid (in progress), which numbered a few hundred but have an interesting unloading mechanism (irresistible to the engineer in me). Scruffey has existed in the public imagination since 1969. An example to many young boys of the consequences of bad behaviour! Cue debate on social policy website! The wagons have different loads: Lime, Ballast, Coal and clean or dirty ballast or sleepers. Theoretically they might all be in different trains, depending on the period and the loco pulling the train. All apart from the Grampus could be in a mixed goods train, probably pulled by an LMS Black 5 4-6-0. I might do "Henry" as a green Black 5, but not till I get more wheels. My wheel scheme is a necessary improvement on 40-tooth cogs, both for new locos and as a back-fit to existing ones. The closest engine I have so far is Olton Hall, which is more used to pulling the Hogwarts Express. GW liveries varied and mixed traffic engines with a crest on the tender usually did passenger work, with those inscribed "GWR" doing the goods trains. In terms of rake possibilities, the lime wagons could make a full length train, maybe up to 12 wagons and a brake van for my layout. Edward the Blue Engine (4-4-0, probably Glen class) might be a suitable loco for them, maybe better if not all the wagons were LMS. The coal wagon needs fellow wagons with a few more different private-owner liveries and sizes to make up a full train. Scruffey is unique of course, but a mixed goods or ballast train would suit him best, especially if hauled by Oliver (an 0-4-2 GW tank engine). Again, various private owner liveries would suit. The Grampus could have a couple more, running empty or with sleepers behind a Class 14 as part of an engineers' train, perhaps with a couple of ballast-filled Mermaids too. As the books say "every wagon is different"! That is a bit less-so nowadays, but definitely so in the post-war years. As such, most of these wagons are templates for "theme and variations" rather than for rakes of identical wagons. Mark

I wouldn't recommend operation at more than 25psi for long periods. The LEGO pneumatic components are not built for high pressures. You might get an instantaneous pressure peak of 40psi but that's a transient. If your model requires steady pressure above 25psi then it needs more cylinders in parallel. I use a car tyre air compressor that has its own pressure limiter, which I set to 25psi. That's plenty for my pick and place robot. Theoretically, a meter should read 2/3 scale when all systems are working normally. That would be 40psi. I suggest that the manometer uses a standard off-the-shelf meter in a LEGO box, so this principle may not follow. Another thing is to drill out the nozzles of the cylinders, especially the 48mm ones. If you do it to the top nozzle, be very careful not to damage the top seal of the cylinder - air will leak in easily if you do. Drilling out the nozzles will let air get into the cylinders quicker, for burst performance. I have found that to be a limit of the system. That would have a greater effect than the single valve or the arrangement of air tanks. Check the performance by contracting the cylinder fast. If it springs back then not all the air has escaped so there's a flow limit in the bottom nozzle. Check top seal performance by contracting the cylinder whilst covering the top nozzle. If it doesn't spring back then air is leaking in. The air tank is just an accumulator. Its two end nozzles are connected together so the only issue for air mass flow rate is the diameter of that solid tube. The diameter is the same as that of a T-junction, valve or cylinder nozzle. You need to parallel-up the whole system if you want really fast air flow, but load cylinder nozzle performance would have to be tip-top for it to make any difference. It will also make more difference to use as much 3.2mm solid tube as possible, keeping the flexible hose for just the corners, minimising the balloon effect. Mark

In the end the person who vandalised the sets did not take either of them away. I would have flagged it up if I thought he was trying to buy a set with 2 lots of contents in 1 box! In the event, the offence is criminal damage, not theft. My presence might have deterred him from attempting to remove the sets. In the end he replaced the 2nd motor unit in its original box. One doesn't like to interfere. It is ultimately the store's responsibility to protect its property. Someone might have a knife these days, especially someone who is already behaving shiftily. It is said that 90% of crime in the UK is drug-related. Someone who needs a fix will do anything to get it, without caring who they hurt or what they damage - it never crosses their mind. There are probably more efficient ways to make money though, so in this case it's unlikely! By interfering, I might be taking on more responsibility and drop myself in all sorts of trouble! I might be falsely accused of something myself! If there were not a camera on the scene it would be my word against his. I quite agree with the principle of helping people uphold the law but the litigation society has crept in! A witness makes a big difference in legal matters. Given the lack of product care that I've experienced before at Toys R Us (more than one set missing parts, others thrown about, creasing instructions in a way worse than I've ever had from LS@H), it didn't encourage me to help them. Their staff should make regular tours of the store, so there's either a procedural failure or a failure to implement the procedure. I was careful never to buy a re-sealed set from TRU ever since. Mark

For many years now I have been buying sets primarily for the parts they contain. If a set has a high yield (i.e. I can use nearly 100% of the parts for something useful) then it is the cheapest way to buy! I did buy them before Pick-a-Brick was around though. As for the quantity, that's part of the budget process, for which there are threads in the General folder. Take the log wagon as an example: Build the wagon bases and put anything you like on them. In my case, use half the wheels to make 4-wheel wagons with a tested wheel pivot scheme. Keep the other wheels for other vehicles. Round bricks for trees. Other bricks are generally useful. The key is to assess the contents of a set before buying. Lots of planning! The tankers were best as ready-to-run sets with just a wheel conversion. The closest I had been for a while to buying sets for the model they are rather than just the parts they contain. Their higher price-per-piece than the log wagon, owing to the larger parts, was offset by the high yield - a ready-to-run wagon and 2 spare wheelsets every time! Mark

IMHO there's no point starting a 9V collection if you don't already have one, but if you are in an AFOL club that exhibits trains then 9V motors might be useful so that you could make hybrid locos and run your trains on a 9V club layout at a show. PF trains with 9V train motors will work fine in 9V mode with the PF IR receiver turned off. My hybrid loco also lets the PF battery do the lights in 9V mode with the 9V track powering the motors (using a light direction circuit of my own design). To be honest, the white RC passenger train has the worst front piece ever seen in a train kit! I've heard of it also not fitting as it should, leaving gaps in the body sides. The overhang on the curves is awful too. Therefore 9V trains are bound to look a lot better! We have seen only the Emerald Night as a PF train, squarely aimed at AFOLs, many of whom have modded the kit to improve it and make it more like a real UK Pacific engine. Therefore I would say PF has a very good record when it comes down to looks. TLG have clearly made an effort to incorporate more reality and AFOL ideas and this is a huge step in the right direction for trains. The key with PF trains over 9V is the placement of the PF elements. It's no longer quite as simple as slapping a motor on the bottom of a carriage. You have to be realistic about where things will fit, such as providing a carriage or tender for the battery. Wires between carriages are no problem if they stay as a rake at a show. The problem is shunting with a tank engine, which has little space for a battery. It's still heaps better than the RC chassis, which can't do a steamer at all! I don't expect prices to drop, but think how many sets of alkaline batteries the LiPo battery will save you in 500 charges over 3 years. Heavy use would be 200 sets of batteries at £4 each (bargain price) = £800 against £42! The price is roughly in proportion to that of a laptop battery of the same technology, bearing in mind that the battery has to incorporate the controlled charging circuit too. I suggest that you make PF trains to have the battery easily removable, then you need only the number of batteries for the number of trains that can run at once, plus one per track oval to be charged at the same time. I haven't decided about the flexi-track. It's great for kids because they can guarantee to make an oval of whatever shape, allowing them to leave the train to run. For AFOLs it's OK as long as you're not aiming for a realistic look. Those check rails are an issue - if the prototype flexi-track, without them, were available I would have no hesitation in buying it. I have a 9V layout and will be using PF trains in the yard for now. I might spread the PF to the main lines once I've evaluated the flexi-track more closely. There is another thread that lists more of the advantages & disadvantages of 4.5V/12V/9V/RC and PF trains. Mark

After going to a railway exhibition last Saturday (23rd May), and buying some books, I was inspired to build some new wagons. I added working features, such as opening doors, as well as SNOT lettering. Most are real UK wagons but I also did the Awdry character "Scruffey". The new plate modified 1x2 with bar on end is quite a useful piece for drop-sided wagons. Black droid arms are useful for supporting the tubes underneath. The tubes represent parts of the brake gear and supports, but working brakes might have been overkill More technical info here: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/mbellis/...wagons_info.txt There are 4 wagons, the first picture of each here: "Scruffey": Grampus 12ft wheelbase drop-side wagon: LMS 5-plank open wagon with lime load and opening side doors: SC coal wagon with opening side and end doors: Folder when moderated: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=385528 Includes some open-door and underneath pictures too. Hope you like them. Mark

Thanks for the review Brickster. I liked the size of the tanker. At last TLG make 8-wide trains! They'd look good behind the Emerald Night, though changing its front bogie to a 2-wheel set might be more authentic, aping a V2 rather than an A1 Pacific. I bought 5 tankers because they make a ready-to-run rake. However, the only tankers this short that have bogies are chemical tankers, with loads such as liquid chlorine. These have a horizontal red stripe, difficult to do with the round pieces. Therefore I converted a tanker to 4-wheel operation with a wheel scheme more like this. I also bought 2 of the hoppers, 10 cabooses and 10 log wagons. The hoppers provided inspiration for these hoppers. The log wagons had lots of brown round bricks for trees. The coaches might have been useful, though a mix of 1x2x3 and 1x4x3 windows would have been more useful. Mark

Sometimes I mod Technic kits, especially if a particular feature could be better. For instance, the steering on Combine Harvester 8274 had insufficient rake so it needed fixing. Steering rakes are generally inadequate in large Technic kits, being demonstrative rather than fully implemented. The exception is F1 cars because full lock is still not much angle, so the full rake can be implemented without the steering and suspension parts tripping over each other. I have also added to car chassises in the past. I think that was the idea - that Technic builders should learn from building the chassis and then take it forward by adding their own vehicle body. I wonder if the trend towards having the complete car in a set followed the reduced attention span of kids nowadays. I also remember adding to my Classic Space 924 on its 2nd or 3rd build. It didn't follow the colour scheme but I was young then, with a much more limited collection of parts! Mark