Bricktrix

Finally got the chance to take a few vids today of these things running, so you can see the rod / valve motions in action. Appologies for the poor quality, (old phone memory low) but they are good enough to get the general idea of how the actions work. GWR Castle 1 GWR Castle 2 4MT's 1 4MT's 2 4MT's 3

Thank you all again for the great comments. I'm honoured that so many take inspiration from my models, as I'm aware that I can push some boundaries over some comfort zones, but thats what is so great about this hobby, you dont have to, or if you want to, you dont have to take it as far. Inspiration to me is what this hobby is all about, no matter how big or small. I took much inspiration from other builders when I got back into this, not just from the masters in this niche but also from new starters with more basic builds that may have had just one "golden nugget" of an idea hidden within their model that was an excellent "building block" to start from. The "raising bar" or "taking things to the next level" that so many talk about is a never ending circle, in a few months it becomes the standard, then it gets raised again....but in no way should a high level ever put anyone off having a go for themselves (see above quote for what YOU "may" bring to the table) That says to me that builders are looking at ways of improving their game....This in itself fills me with excitement for the future of this niche and TLG's parts, as I'm in awe of whats going to be "the norm" in a few years time. i.e. just how much higher will that bar have gone....Jupiter?!!.....and where will the "norm" then lay? Carl

Agreed with all the previous posts, a very nice model with an elegant solution to the offset rod coupling problem. Due to the length of the parts used though, it makes it "look" like that rear cam is hitting the track in lower rotation (though I know its not) Have you thought about possibly using either of these: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=2854 http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=2853 ? You'd still have to use the "telescopic" rod as they are shorter than the wheel pivot points, but they "may" give a better visual when in lower rotation? Just a thought. Carl

That is a SWEET addition I think most people (myself included) would have been tempted to do that 2 studs wide. The fact that you've gone for one stud wide makes it look even nicer in my opinion. A very nice detail to add that not many would notice. Well played

This ones not for the faint hearted! I decided to go with sticker lining on the boiler rather than keep it a "legal build" for 2 reasons. 1. The stickers dont move, whereas the red rubber bands can do at the slightest touch when picked up. 2. The stickers "wrapped" around the boiler pieces help keep it all in shape if an accident occurs at a show, greatly improving rebuild time and less stress for me also Flickr full album: Many more pics on Brickshelf: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=497656

Thank you everyone for all the nice flattering comments. I'm aware that bending and cutting some aerial parts along with the use of stickers isnt to everyones taste, so its nice to see these responses. The builds are usually possible to make using standard parts, just not to the type of standard that I'm craving (i.e. I preffer thinner handrails to 3mm flex tube, etc) ...the "mods" are the icing on the cake to me to finish them off to my own standard. With saying that, I've been holding off a while posting possibly my most detailed engine yet, as it does take the antenna mods to the extreme, but if you see the original proto they sort of "needed to be done"....this ones certainly not for the faint hearted but has been no.1 on my "to-do" list for about 5 years so had to get it done eventually. Will post pics soon.

Thats really great Dave, dont think I've seen this one on your Flickr stream? Love the "knuckle" but the whole thing has a great shape and details

^ Thank you and no there is no stress on the boiler. These engines have sloped boilers and I've replicated it with a mixture of this: along with slightly offsetting the stud clutch from the dark green to the black smoke box. The black smokebox also being slightly angled on a single technic pin / plate

Link to full Flickr gallery: More or less got this finished today so thought I'd share here as I often forget to! The model has working inside motion and working front valve actuators (infront of the piston boxes) It started out life as a King Class, but after another trip to Pete Watermans to get the lining colours correct (as I couldnt for the life of me work out what was the correct colour from the books and DVD's I had on these!)it tuned out when put next to his O Gauge models that it was almost spot on size wise to a Castle Class, so I suitably changed everything that needed to be to match. I've had it test running for a total of around 30 hours during the build proccess, pulling an 8 carriage rake and in that time only had 1 mishap of the front pony wheel bogie exploding (think it must have been loose when comitted to the track as never had the problem since) so fingers crossed, the front motion is causing no problems at all. as I suspected it would do after time

LOVELY I've never really been into this type of thing, but after having to make very similar stuff "in game" I've learnt to really appreciate it. Very very nice James and all instantly recognisable

This looks very similar to the Eurostar bogies, heres a link to the ones I did a while back:

Well most of that's right Peter, there are also a few others including Mark Stafford and Adam Grabowski who work for TLG. I am one of the LEGO model designers for TT-games, we did not make Lego Universe ;) Steven Marshall and Ramon (1 half of the Arvo Brothers) also work for our sister company TT Fusion and are both VERY talented AFOL's. The games that I can mention (i.e. not still under NDA's) that I designed/built models for to date are: Indiana Jones 2, Harry Potter, Clonewars, Pirates of the Caribbean, and due to be released Harry Potter2.

Eric, the way I'm reading that is that you tested 1 standard TLG engine, with a standard 9v motor and no extra carriages, on a track system which is a potential gold mine, before you launched it to the world? Please correct me / tell me I am wrong with that!! I know a few of the people who had some prelim track to test and not heard anything about wheel slipage, which is contrary to what I'm reading on here. It would be obvious to me to test this track with engines pulling long or heavy rakes and to watch the wheel slip difference between this and the TLG track as it needs to perform at least as good as the TLG track under extreme circumstances, comparative to the price. I would like to think that is something which has been done already, but I'm not reading anything anywhere that tells me so, so I can only go from what I know so far. In answer to Jonathans (Snapshot) previous question of O-rings, I have a complete mix from good to bad and cant say any one motor slips more than any other. The slight slipage is where you would expect it to be, when the engines enter a straight still pulling stock through curves (friction and weight are always going to cause that)....some motors slip more than others due to not having enough weight over them. If I swap an old motor out for a newer one with better O-rings, its still the same, thats just down to the weight above them. Its something I can live with, however, it is or will be a problem and concerns me somewhat if the slipage is greater on the ME track, as thats what I'm planning to use for the entire rear section of my display, exactly where engines will be entering straights, still pulling 10 - 15ft's worth of stock behind them through the curves! Although I'm about to enter a busy period with my work again, I'm planning to try and start testing a full circuit with full loads in the next 4 - 6 weeks. Eric, I'd be keen to take 50ft of your straight track on to test this thoroughly (I dont need the fiddle yard track yet!) I'd appreciate it if you could contact me via email, or work, etc so we could agree on an arrangement that we would both be happy if your willing to do so.

Thank you Its no secret, all you need to do is click the link at the start of this topic and look through the pictures! or if you try this link to my Brickshelf folder for even more pics: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=475128 ....if you then click Up on that which takes you back to my main page there, you may even see a familiar U-boat to you (now some 12+ years old I think?)

A couple of vids taken today Not great quality as we had a few probs with sunlight, etc but hopefully good enough to show the movement running, not that its particulairly special. Plus thank you all very much for the kind comments Derfel I really look forward to seeing if you ever build a train themed scene as your buildings / landscaping are stuning and would go a treat on my display somewhere if there was space! I can picture now what you would do with a quaint station, etc. Big thank you also to The Brickster for front paging this was unexpected.

TheBrickster, sorry forgot to reply. Thanks for the comments, actually I dont have that much room for the display, even the workshop we have been building this in can only house 5 of the 6 boards at very max laid out. So public displays are really the only time I get to "play" with it properly and see everything running as its been intended. Due to this a factor of guess work has been done and learning experiences have evolved during the course of the build,.....its all getting there though, slowly but surely

Thank you all very much for the comments This build has fast become my favourite of all I have done so far.........I'm sure there will be more to come

I'm having to borrow straight rails for the rear of my display at the moment, so the possibility of purchasing anything from 80 to 140ft's worth of this stuff for the rear fiddle yards is high on the cards. I am concerened however, about this wheel slip I've just been reading about, as I can get it (sometimes) on the 9v LEGO track when using really long heavy rakes. I'm certainly interested in hearing more about this from other users before shelling out that much "dosh"

In response to Legoless and cimddwc, I fully take on board your comments and understand what your both saying, but I dont know if the hues of blueish grey and dark grey would make a severe impact on the look or not? I think built to this scale, it could work well if done correctly regardless of the different hues, infact I think it may add to it. Dont forget that its not a photo thats trying to be reproduced, so no need for the gradients of shades, etc, as the photo is only a monochrome portrial of a colour life image. So if all built replacing the colours with black and greys, real life lighting would give (or should theoretically give) the same gradients, etc. Personally I think its a fantastic idea with huge mileage. Its sadly too late in the day for me to incorporate it into my existing project though, but the thought of this as a project is something that will now be eating at me for some time....when that happens, I usually end up realising the dream. I do foresee a problem or 2 though in that if this style of build was incorporated as a bordered section into for example my own colour display, that you would then get colour trains running through it, or black and grey ones running through the colour sections. The obvious solution to that is to make it as a stand alone project. A working running one would be marvelous, but I think a small static would also look very kewl. Its a huge amount of time investment though for something that may or may not work, however I'd love to see someone have a go at this and if they dont, well who knows in the future, I may just give it a whirl myself.

Since the talk I did at AFOLcon / The LEGO show, 5 or 6 weeks ago, I've had more Flickr and personal emails than usual asking for hints and tips with design and building. I started losing track of them all so decided it may be easier for me to create a Flickr folder purposely to run through my design / thought process from initial concept to finished model and try to address common questions I get asked within it. I've been pretty much bombarding my photo stream with pics and running commentary on this for the last few weeks and today I've added the final finished pictures of the complete build so thought it may help any budding new builders here. The link to the folder if of interest to any: If it inspires only 1 person, thats all good as I've quite enjoyed doing it :) Image added by TheBrickster

Thanks for the comments and compliments, ZueriHB, mrblue, Legoless and Ralph :) Legoless, I am the same age as you and your comments made me smile, I know exactly what you mean. If you could pull that off, a monochrome steam era layout would be a lovely unique idea to see built :) I can picture it now and think it would look great if everything could be kept to black and greys. Infact, I wish I'd thought of doing that, it could have worked fantastically as a 2 board section inbewteen full colour sections of my display!

I always forget about this forum so glad I remembered today as this subject has been one of much consideration to myself over the last few years! My old home layout I would say I got the balance wrong. It was far too cluttered and compact, although this was mainly due to room size limitations and also what I personally wanted from the layout operational-wise: Oversized Image removed by moderator Link to gallery: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=318579 So over the last few years I've given a lot of thought for the direction of the new portable display I'm building (still to be finished): Oversized Image removed by moderator Link to gallery: The choice thats been made is to model the railway, with minimum buildings. The centre piece is the station and goods shed, but off to each side of these I'm trying to leave as uncluttered as possible. The idea behind this is to showcase the engines and stock more whilst running (as those are what I like to build), rather than focusing too much attention on the layout itself. Real life town and city railways are very cluttered, with buildings cramed in anywhere possible (London being a prime example of this) whilst more rural branch lines tend not to be. The period being modeled also plays a part in how many or few buildings should be used, so trying to get a good "visual" balance can be difficult. I think there are 7 or 8 buildings / structures in this 25ft display. The first public show we did with it as a "work in progress" display seemed to work very well, as families walked the entire length of it picking out the individual structures of interest to them, once they had enjoyed the trains first, so hopefully the balance is about right for what I wanted :)

No, I did not. The smooth tapered effect is produced by the build / design. The pictures to how it is built show that. If I had used these parts http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=x1042a in red it would look exactly the same. The small rubber bands cover the slight gaps caused by the angle join at the rear where it meets the firebox. I'd be the first person to shout out if I had used vinyl to create an angled joint not possible in LEGO, but this build is legit without the need of it. TLG have to approve every design / build that we put into game also. The 2nd design for my personal build, alters the bottom of the rear of the boiler to stay in line with the front of it, as I did not like the slight step it created on the first design. On screen in game it was not that noticeable, but in brick, my eyes drew straight to that step so I adjusted it. Again this was not done by using vinyl, the design was altered with different connection points at the rear and by putting 1 plate inbetween the 2 boiler halves to increase the depth at the rear. I would have taken pictures of this in the proccess as I did the first design, but the pinstripe stickers were already in place, as they are not the easiest part to replace, I did not take it apart again just to take more photos. I hope this helps clear up any confusion as to what your obviously missing from the pictures? Carl

Actually on the engine there is ONE "hack" a bent aerial for the front handrail, the rest of it is a legit build. The red vinyl on the boiler is merely used to cover parts that I needed in red but didnt want to have to pay for at over 7$ each on Bricklink. http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=x1042a the description on my Flickr pictures says the same, just shows what people dont read eh! The same as I used red vinyl on the carriage sides as I only had those parts in bulk in black. http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=432361 shows the first (HP game used design for the boiler) the boiler in the Flickr pictures is a slightly different design but along the same idea.

Crabby, your not the only one, I love it for its ugliness also. Its nice to know I inspired you, thats one big reason I enjoy posting pictures up, although its also nice to be given the appropriate credit for the design source And yes I do like your build, a lot, nice to see it in black and with working lights. My next version was going to be a PF one, (have to use them sometime I suppose)in dark green, but am still waiting for some of the parts to become more readily available in that colour.