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Commander Wolf

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Everything posted by Commander Wolf

  1. Commander Wolf
    Heh, I doubt I'll ever get any of these myself, but I hope my club gets some someday
  2. Commander Wolf
    EDIT: A Stud.io file is now for sale on Rebrickable: https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-52068/NonsenseWars/lego-148-scale-alco-hh1000-power-functions
  3. Commander Wolf
    I was looking at that thread about compact PF solutions, and I thought about posting this MOC. The Alco HH series is a line of very early diesel-electric switchers (made in 'Murrika of course) produced between 1931 and 1940 after which it was succeeded by the much more well-know S series. The HH1000 was the 1000HP variant of the HH series of which 34 were produced between 1939 and 1940. Because other companies' color schemes were more difficult to implement, my HH1000 carries that of Union Pacific. UP owned exactly one HH1000, numbered 1251, which it acquired from the Mount Hood Railway in the late 60s. It was probably retired not long after. The most difficult part of the prototype to implement in Lego was by far the cab. Ideally the columns at the corners of the cab would be something like 2LU x 2LU, but that is pretty much impossible in Lego. After much fiddling I was able to get 2LU gaps in the back, but the cab is too long by about a stud to accomodate 5LU columns from the side. You'll notice the PF receiver sticking out of the center window. To me the main feature of this loco is that it is the perfect shape to cram two M motors, the AA battery box, and the reciever into a body 30 studs long. The receiver is actually just floating because that's the only orientation that works. The tractive effort is a little less than what I was able to get out of the RF-16, a combination I think of less weight and shorter bogies, but for practical purposes it'll basically pull anything reasonable - just slowly. As far as I can tell having a gear ratio other than 1:1 is more or less impossible here. This model has been about 85% complete for the past month or two, mainly for testing, but I'm about to BL the remaining parts, so it should get done soon!
  4. Commander Wolf
    I like the idea of hiding the PF receiver in coal. I'm pretty sure I've seen it before, but it seems more clever now that I think about it. For me I think the trick to getting good PF equipment density is to find a model that fits the shape of the PF stuff well - for example such that you can line up a vertical M motor and a battery box and another vertical M motor without having a bunch of used volume in between or around.
  5. Commander Wolf
    That means it's already discontinued...
  6. Commander Wolf
    ... and it looks like it's finally sold out in the US as well. Brickset says EoL 12/15 for CA and US.
  7. Commander Wolf
    If you build at a scale such that a minifig is 5-6 feet tall, your trains - especially modern passenger trains - will be very long. 5-6 feet minifigs suggest a scale of almost 1ft/stud in which case an ~80 foot long ICE car will be 80 studs. If I were building something that long and wanted to scale it properly, I would probably choose a smaller scale.
  8. Commander Wolf
    Way to use an engineering drawing to hit your dimensions What are you planning to do about the skirting covering the tops of the wheels?
  9. Commander Wolf
    More or less what everyone else is saying: 1) Choose a scale (8 studs = 10 feet is generally pretty good) 2) Find engineering drawings (easier said than done, but for common locos it's usually not bad) 3) Scale things and build accordingly - ie now that you know from your engineering drawing with dimensions that your loco is 50 feet long and 10 feet wide you can build it 40 studs long and 8 studs wide. Same goes for the various features on the unit. If a particular feature isn't dimensioned, you can derive it from the relative lengths of other dimensioned features.
  10. Commander Wolf
    I think you should try to put something over the hubs of the wheels on the bogies. If you ask me, that bearing bit is really distinctive on 'Murrikan bogies. As usual I'm going to ask: how did you make the decals? Did you print them yourself or get it done professionally?
  11. Commander Wolf
    9v is better, duh
  12. Commander Wolf
    Interesting use of the flex track for the ramp... have you considered making it such that the tipper pivots around the coupler such that you don't have to disconnect the locomotive/rest of the train? Now you just need to make it fully automated
  13. Commander Wolf
    It used to be that I'd try to get one of every train set that came out, but somewhere along the way I ran out of space and the sets got less interesting, so I stopped doing that. Nowadays I'd mostly do MOCs, but I still try to get a copy of the nice train sets/the ones I'd regret not getting (ie Maersk Train or Horizon Express). Concerning the "too many parts" issue: for most of the things you mentioned, you can probably sell them, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. Things like PF curve track maybe it gets a little tougher... I don't think you should have a strict rule on valuing things: really the more you want it the more you should be willing to pay for it. In general I'd abide by the usual "10 cents per brick" rule, but obviously for big trains sets or EoL sets, that'll be different. For a retired set that I regret not getting such as the Emerald Night, I'd probably be willing to pay double the MSRP. What's really annoying is that people seem to only sell MISB, but I'd much rather get a used one for less. If you want retired old sets you can also try to piece them together with BL orders, and in some cases it might be cheaper. There's the added benefit that, if you aren't a "strict" collector and only want part of a set, you could part together like just the locomotive, etc.
  14. Commander Wolf
    Nice to see a whole train, especially at a beefy scale like this. Everything looks a little bit big compared to the wheels, though... how long/high is each car?
  15. Commander Wolf
    It really does look like a church on wheels... I like the wheel-well arches over the window arches. What exactly is going on with the handles at the doors; is it fixed to the base or just really wide?
  16. Commander Wolf
    I like it when people build entire trains rather than just locomotives. Good job. The filter(s) in your video are very strange. I think it would definitely be better without them. What are you doing, if anything, to articulate your long-wheelbase 2-axle cars? How well does it work in compression?
  17. Commander Wolf
    Brickset says it was EoL in the UK on the 21st... still available in the US and Canada.
  18. Commander Wolf
    ... and sometimes, they have three I haven't seen four on anything yet, but maybe when 4014 hits the road again(!)
  19. Commander Wolf
    ... and finally video! I was originally thinking the 1:1 gearing was a little slow, but with fully charged batteries and a long train, it's actually pretty appropriate for freight speed. Overall I was quite happy with the performance; there were practically no running issues, and with the the AA battery box (the net weight is almost 2lbs) the loco could pull just about anything.
  20. Commander Wolf
    Why didn't you use the same saddle design as your other locomotive? I think the other one suggests a saddle much more than this one; this one is more pear-shaped.
  21. Commander Wolf
    While this is entirely true, I'm very confident that two-axle stock was widely out of use even by the time of the American Civil War, and definitely not representative of American railroading on the whole. Relative to all of the rolling stock that has been built in America to date, the number of two-axle cars is positively miniscule. To your latter point I'd also argue that anything with two-axle bogies isn't a two-axle car itself. Again, while this is entirely true, they are mainly found on a handful of import MoW vehicles and again not representative of American railroading on the whole. Nothing against two-axle stock or buffers, but in a thread that purports to be "USA style", I find them a little out of place.
  22. Commander Wolf
    Except. Two axle cars can't into 'Murrika. We only have manly four axle stock
  23. Commander Wolf
    I like how you make full trains instead of just locos. Does the makeup of the train actually reflect prototypical consists? The headlights on your A units are a novel touch - I don't think I've seen that before. What are you using for the center frames in the domes? It's not more 3x3 corners is it? Also. Nice stickers.
  24. Commander Wolf
    Thanks Zephyr, always good to hear your thoughts. I put a bushing on the longitudinal axle, but I think it does make sense to put them at all the joints. I considered curving and terminating the stripe early, but it doesn't seem that good in my mind... I'll try it out though - once I can figure out how to make the curve in my graphics editor or find someone else's graphic from which to lift it. Otherwise I might just suck it up and cover those two studs with tile. Pshaw, I'm driving around the bottom of the bay from the boonies of Silicon Valley... it'll be like an hour and a half for me I'll try to take some video of the thing pulling lots of stuff very slowly.
  25. Commander Wolf
    Wow, I definitely thought the paint scheme was fictional until I saw the pic. Is 'Sentinel' the name of the loco or the manufacturer? This isn't the Sentinel that made steam trucks is it?
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