Commander Wolf

The scale looks good for the EN. I think you should ditch the little 1x6 tile you have covering the wheel frames.

Ladders are far too bulky. Wheel spacing a little narrow. Hood is a little tall. Cab/window are a little long... etc. Here's the thing though; are you trying to make the most accurate model you can or are you trying to do more of a Lego-scale cartoon (a la BNSF/Maersk locos)? If the former I think there's a limit to where you can get with 6-wide/stock motors. You should also consider building off a drawing with a "brick paper" overlay. If the latter, I think what you have is very good already, hence my comment about the Lego feel.

It's a nice scene, but I also feel that there is a bit of a mismatch between the diorama and the train... to me the setting feels very tropical whereas the loco suggests an American switcher. I'd also think about leaving a tad bit more clearance if you actually plan on running the train.

Some of the proportions seem a little funky, but they have a Lego feel to them (like a set Lego would actually make). The dark blue is nice too!

Yeah, that was really what I was going for with the internals. When I was making this, I specifically thought about it as being a "flexible" platform: my previous two PF locos had the M motors pointing directly into the trucks and studded to the base with brackets, so it was annoying that I couldn't change them nor change anything in the drive train. It's nylon tubing from McMaster; it's nominally 0.125" OD and 0.093" ID. Made in China, obviously. Thanks Zephyr, this was probably one of the parts I was least sure of as far as aesthetics go... not only did it look like that N&W U30Bs had several different layouts of cab windows, but the "easiest" layout still had all the windows being 1.5 studs wide. In other layouts the center windows (still 1.5 studs wide) looked like they were extended outward as well!

Hey all, I'm finally getting around to sharing one of my latest MOCs, a Norfolk and Western GE U30B. The U30B is a four-axle second-gen diesel-electric locomotive produced between 1966 and 1975. 296 units were built for 12 railroads, of which 110 went to the N&W. With the U30B I wanted to make a "no compromises" Power Functions locomotive. I felt that my first three Pf implementations had gotten progressively better, but that they all still suffered from what I considered various compromises like not being able to change gear ratios or not being able to easily replace batteries. The no compromises loco would have to hit these checkboxes: good PF visibility easy to change batteries high structural integrity max traction/power for given form factor ability to use different PF motors/change them ability to use different gear ratios/change them Given these constraints, I chose the N&W U30B because it was one of the last modern diesels to have 1) a high short hood, which I really like, and 2) 4-axle trucks which are more easy to make with more structural integrity than 6-axle trucks. Those being said, U30Bs for other railroads were built with low short hoods, and the 6-axle U30C was twice as popular as the U30B. After a few months of on and off development and construction, this loco was completed in February, just in time for locomotive power testing! At my usual scale of 15" per stud, the 1100 part loco is 8-wide and a whopping 51-long from magnet face to magnet face - the longest I've ever made. The construction isn't really anything to write home about: like my HH1000, most of the model is studs up with large tiled plates forming the detail on the sides. The handrails are made of a third-party tubing, which isn't quite as good as flex, but orders of magnitude cheaper. There is one slightly clever bit where the roof has been raised by 1LU in order to not have a ridge between the "plate with bow" and the "roof tile" and said 1LU gap is filled with a bracket: But the real question is: how does it fair with regard to my original requirements? The PF receiver sits at the end of the loco with the dome exposed - I consider this generally the best case for PF; reception from the front isn't quite as good as it could be, but I'd rather have that than the top of the receiver sticking up further. As with my previous two PF diesels, I have used the big AA battery box in order to get the most amount of energy into the loco without going to a custom power source. This drives two L motors - the biggest motors you can fit in a 5-wide body - connected to a V2 receiver. The battery box is secured by two "crossaxle 3M with knobs". Pulling off the sides (which are connected with about 6 studs) and pulling out these pins allows the box to drop out the bottom. Similar to a Real modern diesel, most of the structural integrity is in the frame (blue), which is just a big mesh of big plates. Furthermore, the battery box is mounted to a set of technic beams (green) which rests on the gearboxes (yellow): the weight prevents the gearboxes (which are just studded together) from coming apart when a lot of torque is applied. But those L-motors are pinned into the gearboxes with a pattern (red) such that M motors would also work! And E motors! And I have left enough space and connection such that the old geared motor with the appropriate extra reduction could also be used (I think). Finally, the motors are oriented such that the drivetrain has an extra stage (green) where gears of different sizes can be used and the gear ratio changed. This screencap shows 3:1, but in practice I have been using 5:3 with the 20-tooth and 12-tooth bevels, which I find to be a better balance between speed and torque. EDIT: Instructions now available for sale on Rebrickable: https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-84533/NonsenseWars/148-general-electric-u30b-v21-power-functions/#details

I don't know what your actual (stud) dimensions are, but I think you should have kept the extra stud off the length and taken another plate or two off the height. Does look better overall though.

According to the specs I linked: 14 feet to the top of the hood = 11.2 studs = 56 LU = 9 bricks and a plate (from the top of the rail). This is pretty typical for modern American locos where the 8-wide height is usually between 9 or 10 bricks.

A cute model in a unique color, but I'm distracted by the difference between the two reds used in the frame/buffer/rod. I think it would be better to keep all of that in the same red, even if it's the less accurate normal red.

So according to someone's specification a GP60 is about 10 feet wide and 60 feet long. This means when scaled to 8-wide it should be 48-long. This also means that the 9-foot distance between the axles should become 7.2 studs - which is one stud more than the 6 studs in between the axles of the various train motors. Thus, if you wanted a perfectly accurate scaling, you should not be using any of the train motors. That being said, I think the missing stud in between the axles is only part of the reason the model is looking so disproportionate; I think a bigger factor is that the model is maybe about a stud too tall:

Someone in my LUG was recently talking about the difficulties of building a Lego PCC, and I can see what he's getting at. I like the tail and the doors, but the front seems a little flat. Specifically I think you're missing some of the tapering that happens before the windshield... it seems to me that the front and back surfaces should be more of a 7 or 6 wide when the body is an 8. Good effort on a tough prototype, though.

There's no one specific reason I chose to use the big box... contributing factors range from "more weight (and therefore more traction)" to "I don't own a rechargeable box" to "because I can". At the very least I'm always reluctant to use the small AAA box due to its low energy capacity and due to my not owning rechargeable AAA batteries, though possibly in a much smaller loco I'd consider. My next model is pretty much the opposite of this. Stay tuned.

Wow, I wasn't aware that there was an actual Challenger painted in this color scheme with those smoke deflectors. My two thoughts would be: 1) the Technic panel for the smoke deflector is clever, but doesn't really match the profile of the actual deflector that well, and 2) I realize you want to power it, but I think L-sized drivers are too small compared to the rest of your body.

I wouldn't have thought to make anything like this with anything but a micromotor, but other than the speed being hilariously unrealistic the train motor works surprisingly well.

Just wanted to post some final pics of this loco... it took a while to get this done because (as usual) some bricklink seller couldn't fulfill something in an order: A lot of people don't seem to like mixing the old and new grays, but I think it gives models like this some texture. My biggest annoyance is that the wheels are black instead of the supposed silver/gunmetal color, but it didn't really register until after it was done -_- That fan cover should also be dark grey, but I don't think they make it anything close. I hate the form factor of the PF receiver more and more. The wires are also hard to deal with, but at least they tend to keep their shape once you've squashed them into position And of course, a full gallery but all the pics are pretty much here. As usual, I wish I had video, but it's not really that exciting to watch.

I like how it goes through the loop so slowly. It looks like there's a lot of plate being stressed in the loop's structure, though.

Lego really hasn't made anything of note in the train accessory department since this shed came out. I imagine it's because it was a flop among everyone but the train people. If you want to get your hands on one - and especially if you're going to build and display it - I see no reason to look for MISB; used for 150 euro seems very reasonable for a 10 year old set that retailed at probably half that.

I've ridden in one of these and I was sad that the windows (obviously) didn't open Seeing that you've displayed it on "smooth" curves makes me ask: how well does it handle curves of the regular radius?

I'd assert that the rolling resistance of the P54s with the popped wheels is significantly higher than what it would be with full stock wheelsets. It's better than Technic for sure, but it's not miles better... the cars don't actually roll that easily. I'd also note that the difference in rolling resistance between BBB smalls and PF smalls with tires might not seem too big here, but in practice the difference will be exaggerated (maybe by a lot) in corners. The same can probably be said for the resistance difference between PF smalls with and without tires.

As the "co-author" I'd like to add some additional points: The actual weights of the units and their maximum tractive effort: These maximum tractive efforts are limited in different ways for different units: for the PF locomotives, the limiting factor is typically the amount of friction between the wheels and track, while for the 9v motors, the limiting factor is typically the output torque of the entire drive train. Units with uneven weight distribution may be able to pull more in different directions. For example, an off-center battery pack gives the U30 a max forward tractive effort of 256g, but a max backwards tractive effort of 282g. Battery charge level will obviously affect the power output of the engine, but will typically not affect max tractive effort - unless the tractive effort is limited by drivetrain torque instead of the usual friction between the wheel and the track. To me the more interesting calculation is the one that comes after this: determining the power draw at the battery given the power output of a locomotive pulling a certain load at a certain speed, and therefore determining how long the batteries *should* last under those circumstances. Unfortunately that involves the more difficult task of measuring entire drivetrain efficiency, which at least I haven't thought of a good way to do.

Pretty nice overall; it's a shame the PF receiver has to poke out of the center of the hood there. I've been finding the overall form factor of PF receiver to be particularly intrusive in a number of builds lately. It looks like your model is about 34 studs long over the couplers - at that scale is the loco actually supposed to be 8-wide? Also have you considered powering it with something other than the PF train motor (like a PF M)? I typically find the train motor to have way too little torque and way too much speed save for a handful of niche applications.

The thing I always like to find along with my many photos are engineering drawings. A lot of times photos distort proportions such that final models are less accurate than if modeled from drawings. Why have you decided to do your CAD work in Excel as opposed to LDD or one of the other Lego CAD programs? That seems kind of odd to me.

Thanks for the thoughts all, hopefully the rest of my parts will be here soon enough and I can take some pics/video. It's too bad my LUG won't have another big show for some months!

This topic is indeed kind of a dead horse, but I'll add my two cents: I'd still insist 9v is a better system overall, but having run PF trains for some months now, I'd also admit that PF is very good at most of the things 9v isn't good at. For me it's mostly relevant in the low-speed, high-torque department where the 9v motors (and even the PF train motors) suffer the most, but where the Technic PF motors excel. Otherwise with enough motors, 9v is very good at what I'd consider the 80% use case: running relatively heavy trains at relatively high speeds for extended periods of times at a show/display.

Ha, I would actually prefer flex in general, but that's as far as I can tell, that's even harder to get, and I loathe cutting the stuff. jtlan has some 3rd party tubing that's pretty good, but it's black, and I'm not that inclined to paint the stuff either. Do post if you actually make something. Good luck!