AgentRick

Thanks guys, the cab will definitely use a more curved roof, that 6x6 roof piece is just a placeholder. I'm probably going to keep the cab length the way it is now, and I'll toss the headlight brick windows on the sides to get a few other details in there. As for the Power Functions side of things, the engine is powered by a medium motor as I mentioned earlier. The design is based off of a Brickshelf user's design that I figured would work considering the small-scale of the engine. The receiver will most likely be in either the cab of the engine or a freight car that will also carrying the battery box (Tossing around in LDD right now, I might go with either a simple boxcar or a hopper)

About two years ago, I whipped together a quick American Saddle Tank slightly based off of H R Porter's tabk engine designs. She was small, didn't really take curves all too well, and was more of a background decoration compared to some of my other trains. This is one of the few decent pictures of it's old self. I've been musing for a while on how I could improve this old workhorse, and a few BBB drivers and a PF M-Motor later, I came up with this: Ignoring the placeholder colors, this is going to be the general shape of the finished product. Zephyr's custom rods will be ordered soon enough to replace the technic rods, and I already have most of the black slopes needed shipping out. The only thing that will probably be changed in the near future is the cab, as I'm thinking about cutting it down in length to scale better with the rest of the engine. What do you think ?

If you're going to use it mainly for light usage, I'd say skip the rechargable battery box (Lego's LiPo battery is pretty expensive for what it is, and you need to purchase the charger separately) and get the AAA battery box instead. For the price of the rechargeable battery and the charger, you can buy the AAA battery box along with other Power Functions parts to motorize/light it up, and have enough leftover money to buy a pack of AAA batteries. Motorizing the Hogwarts Express will probably take a little tinkering around the existing model, but any brick fan should figure out a way to fit a reciever, a battery box, and a motor between the engine and the tender. The Emerald Night on the other hand was designed to be motorized, but uses some stuff that isn't in the HE Kit. Instead of the Train Motor it uses an XL motor which goes inside the Cab. If you still have the Emerald Night's instructions it shows how to install the motor, battery box, and sensor. As for track, picking up straights will probably be easier on S@H, while curves will be found aplenty on Bricklink. Switches/points are probably better off being purchased from S@H as well. And definitely motorize the trains, sitting back and watching them glide across the table, floor, desk, or whatever setup you have is part of the fun!

Everyone was new once when this site started, so this is a pretty cool idea.

ME is putting out a set of R56 metal curved rails in 9V (The regular 9V rails are R40), along with half-long and double-long metal straights. They're also putting out some larger radii curves, but only in plastic along with the previously mentioned pieces. I think they're also putting out a 45-degree crossing too, but I'm not sure if that's in metal or not. There's also the option of using brass/steel tape on cut-up/modified plastic rails to make custom points and crossings, which is probably cheaper and more sensible than buying 9v rails to cut up.

If you don't have that much space, why not try making a Branch Line passenger train? A small tank engine with 2-3 20 or so brick long cars would work well.

Are you using the train base that has 3 holes per side or the 10 hole one? The 10 hole one goes farther out towards the edges which is why it's used here. The 3-hole one won't work since the farthest hole will be covered by the wood bricks.

As someone with a small apartment, I'd prefer more 16x32 modulars honestly. The Pet Shop is still my favorite Modular, and I'm working on BLing the parts for a version with dark red walls/black roof. For smaller modulars I hope we get something like: A book/magazine shop with plenty of printed book tiles A pizza parlor with a delivery bike An townhouse with a garage built in the front An antique store A barber shop with some mirror There's plenty other ideas out there, but these are some of the smaller sites seen in the city.

Although I focus on Modulars/Trains, I try to not spend more than $300-400 for new bricks for a moc that will have 2000+ bricks. Basically, about half of Lego's usual $0.10 per piece ratio

I went and backed a metal R56 loop, if I manage to scrounge up some cash I'll either snag a second loop or some straights. Really hope this one comes out on top!

Seeing as the only real draw for this set for me was the Double-Decker couch and the figs, this is an easy pass.

It's not exactly a clone brand, but Nanoblock is putting out a line of trains that can be fitted with what looks like N-Gauge boogies and motors. They won't be out until July, and they won't compatible at all with Lego (Nanoblocks are about 1/2 the size of Lego bricks) but they might be useful for making Narrow Gauge engines or something along the lines. It's kind of a bummer that you have to buy motors and wheels for the other sets though. If you want some more pictures or prices (They're quite expensive, ~$20 USD for the trains and ~$120 USD for a motorized set) , the whole collection is Here.

I try too keep engines and cars at 6-wide, but I've been reaching out towards 7-wide engines in a few mocs I'm working on. I'll probably stick to 7wide engines and 6wide carriages in the future.

Those are pretty nice models, although I feel that there's too large of a gap between the Evening Star's boiler.

Personally I wouldn't mind some more Narrow Gauge support. We've gotten 4-wide curves and slope tracks, but no straight. A smaller PF motor to go with it and some slightly altered small train wheels (Perhaps with some technic axle action) would be quite fun.

I've had several trains over the year, but the only ones that are still built right now are: 7898 x 1 Cargo Train Deluxe 7939 x 1 Cargo Train 10001 x 1 Metroliner (The legends rerelease) 10133 x 1 BNSF GP-38 10194 x 1 Emerald Night 10233 x 2 Horizon Express Along with a bunch of MOCs.

I'm fairly certain that piece is just this one. It's already been in green too in set 7898.

Good to know I'm not the only one back after a long leave of absence. I haven't had much time to post in the past 4ish years since the last time I have, but that didn't stop me from browsing reviews and whatnot. Feels glad to be back (With a now decent camera too.)

Looking back at the Octan sets, they seem to have a constant theme of green bottom, red stripe, white top, and white roof (On trucks at least). They also use mainly trans-light blue for the windows. The only outliers in this seems to be 6423 and 3810 , with a red roof and trans-black window respectively. Your best bet is probably something like the mock-up below, but you could probably experiment a bit more with more modern colors.

The gaps between the sets of wheels don't look that nice. Many American engines have three sets of wheels instead of two. It also needs more of an undercarriage. Otherwise the top is perfect.

Are those Enlighten trains any good? I remember seeing them on eBay a while ago and was reluctant about buying one.

Looks like I was too late to enter it after all . Anyway, I made a post of my entry to show that I tried to get in on time.

Looks like I missed out on the Christmas raffle by about seven minutes due to being lazy (Damn Thanksgiving dinners, making me tired ) ,I've decided to show it anyway even if I don't get into the contest. I made a small sled, as it reminded me of the times when I would take my sled to the park and have a wonderful time. I still blame myself for my mistake though .

Ooh, sign me up! I got a keychain last year, and I wanna see if I get something this year. EDIT: Whoops, I forgot that there needed to be a contest entry. I was remembering the old rule where you just had to sign up. Gonna go make one up right now.

Just make a new version of Lego Loco with better graphics and a larger amount of track and building and train options then I'm good.(Also did we really need that Train Mail option in the first one?)