Breakdown

Short circuit question - so that you or no others have to ask again. You made a big layout. Determine a direction. Like far left side of track and up. Trace your finger through the track, use all of the switches. Did you ever reverse your direction?? If yes = layout will not work. If no = you are fine. Examples of simple short circuits. 1.) "P loop" You have a straight track, you go up to the top, you turn right sharp and at the bottom merge with the same straight track via track point. (If you have a crossing at the bottom of the P where you simply cross the track you are fine). 2.) "Slurve" inside an oval You can have 'C' with switches on both ends leading back to the oval, no problem. You CANNOT have an 'S' curve inside the same loop, because the train will change directions again. 3.) "Figure 8 with bypass" - You cannot have a figure 8 track and have a bypass on the side (unless it's not powered) a bypass would be two points connecting the same side of the figure 8. All of these limitations are the same with 9V and all of these limitations can be avoided universally by using Power Functions, 4.5V or Powered up.

If you're willing to trust a Power Ranger . . . . here's what the 13V outlet is for (fast-forward to last 3rd of video):

Fortunately my issue right now is strict aesthetic, and not functional - where I'm struggling with space constraints or inability to work with something. I was just kind of hoping that it was a toothed gear that was doing the work. To make my setup a little cleaner.

No apologies required I wasn't sure if it was a sporked gear that moved it or a connecting rod. You probably saved me (and the entire Lego community) a Mono-switch. Many thanks!

Before I ruin a Mono-switch, has anyone either broken open, or broken a mono-switch?? I'm thinking of drilling a hole through the circle on mine (exactly where the red dot is on the picture), in order to control the switch from the bottom. Has anyone done this in the past?? I would love to hear from someone prior to potentially destroying a switch. I would be drilling from the bottom since there's a perfect inverted stud to work with to aim the drill. Many thanks in advance.

Any thought put into using old train tracks as the tops of the fence?? You could have a blue fence or an old school light gray fence top, and then it's up to you to decide what to put underneath.

How did you test the motor to know if it was broken?? When they haven't been used for a while they tend to run like crap. Make a small oval or circle of track. Check and double-check the track for connections. Make sure that you're using the 12V plug on the Transformer. Wipe down the metal rails with a cloth. Still nothing?? Take the motor and hardwire it to the Transformer. Turn the knob slightly (not even half throttle), still nothing?? It will run like crap for a while if you get it going, but speed up. I wouldn't give up on the motor so quickly those things are pretty robust!!

My 7745 is 7 cars long and runs with power functions. You can buy the LED lights for $7.99 CAD online at the Lego store, I did some mods to the 7745 and the LED lights poke through (once you remove the prisms on the 7745 easily). It's hard to feed the wire for the Pf through the base for the 7745, I had to tap might a couple of times with a weight brick to force it through. The other thing that I did with the 7745 train is alter the roof from 33 degree slopes to 45 degree ones. The painful thing will be acquiring the ones to form the front end. I've left all of the other cars @ 33 degree roofs. You can barely notice and that's if you're really looking. If you have 2 X 60051 you will only be able to complete one middle car extra before buying extra pieces. The 7745 actually goes with the 60051 pretty well. Unfortunately the pic below is the back of my 7745 which still has the 33 slope roof, and no power functions.

When I did mine, I removed the prisms and the LED lights go right through. They don't allow the 1X1 clear plates to mount, but they do create a lot more light. Your design is good as well!

Going back to your question about what to build next, and this would be 3D printing and not automation technology, but something to incorporate the monorail motor into a car. Instead of just having the plain motor cover, have a modular cover where you can add to extensions to the bottom of it, and attach maybe 6 bricks wide to either side and have essentially a middle car that's nearly as long as the front and back cars (not entirely sure if this would cause clearance issues on the inclines/declines) just something that I thought up.

A time machine to go back in time and buy more 12V stuff when it was being cleared out as the 9V was coming in. Also to buy stockpiles of 9V straights.

Le sigh . . . Too much. Ima have to sell something. There was some random auction that I bought that has most of the parts for 6399 Monorail and includes: 6347 along with Megabloks and some Playmobile. The good news is most of the crap that's not Lego should be segregated, so my head won't explode. Not sure if I get a monorail motor in this lot. I have about 7, but would love to have one more and that stupid part that goes on top.

If I was on the tour I would have wandered away from the group, started tearing up floor, and either I'd find molds to take home with me or they'd have to admit, that it was all some big stupid lie and the mods are in a safe somewhere. I think that Monorail did reasonably well in the Americas because we didn't have the 12V trains and 4.5V was lame (sorry 4.5V fanboys, that's what I had as a kid and it was lame - still far better than no train at all). What amazes me is that despite the shear amount of 12V lego produced how much Monorail there is out there on the open market. Other than the stantions, and motors, it holds up VERY, VERY well. As someone who has a fair share of monorail and who wasn't huge on it as a kid, but wanted it. I love it because of the hills. You can twist and turn a monorail so well. And prior to the advent of flex tracks, monorail had some flexibility. I've seen the helix done with many curves, inclines happen quickly and you DON'T have to have a degree in geometry to make monorails connect. 9V and 12V and even 4.5V have to be precise! Monorail allows some play in your turns, etc. I would liken the Monorail to the DeLorean DMC-12. Yes it looks cool, but if they didn't hold some value and there were plenty out there. Would you shell out $5K on a 35-year-old slow car that handled like a shopping cart if they were everywhere? I wouldn't, part of the prestige is that the cars were and are extremely rare. That's much of the magic of the monorail. The rest is as described further up.

I was just in a store in Detroit and noticed the same, I can't remember the last time I was filling so many Pick-A-Brick cups. It's been a while. These Pick-A-Model things just crushed the selection on the walls, I'm glad they were gone. I gave consistent bad feedback on them, and would have done the same with sets from 1995 to roughly 2002 as well if I was at the stores. Better to be vocal about what you don't like than to watch the whole thing go to hell or stop going to the stores. They are a wonderful thing to have around!! If I had to guess, the Pick-A-Brick walls are 90% of the reason that I go to the stores. From a business standpoint, the pick-a-brick wall actually appeared to be an ingenious idea. No idea how they enforce that you only put one set's worth of bricks in the box, but with the margins they were getting on that vs. regular Pick-A-Brick - who cares!! I'm glad to see that the overall feedback of the Lego community has the Pick-A-Brick wall reverting to its former state. As a builder of mainly city, etc, I found it annoying when a whole third of the wall was green components. White or black I can deal with, I just don't have so much use for green!!

So far (knock on wood) it's been a very, very good year for my car. I've taken it on 5 - 300+ km trips already and amassed close to 7000km total this year. I also went to a big car meet, and displayed my near matching Lego car with my on car there. Should have pics up on my site soon, to show.