Heppeng

Well it would take me about five minutes per wheel, probably less so that would be well over 10 wheels an hour, or $100 per hour. An hours worth of overheads and cost of materials would probably leave about $80 an hour to put in my pocket so I think there would be ample scope for getting them done for much less than $10, and probably less than $5 if the quantity ordered is high enough.

This seems an overly complex and expensive solution to metal wheels. What is wrong with spending a few minutes on a lathe and using a plastic insert for the axle hole? You could even turn down a normal lego wheel to make the plastic insert, or if you wanted spokes just take a lego wheel and turn it down a little to accept a metal tire. Now I know that not everyone has a lathe, but even paying someone else to do it is bound to be cheaper and quicker than metal printing, and a better finish too!

Here is my solution: Only trouble is that due to the geometry of the hinges the doors catch on each other straining the connections, requiring a little force to open, despite them seeming to work OK on LDD!

And not only that, since they were intended to last a decent time on 1960's batteries, on the modern equivalents they just go on ever - even when hauling ridiculously long trains! You just cant hold these motors back!

One other thing you can do is space out the 60594 windows to help stop the coach looking a little like a greenhouse - you could put a stack of three tan 1x1 or 1x2 bricks between them. If you do this you could even have the windows in reddish brown to start getting a Pullman style look. Or if you want to go the whole hog you can do as I did and sell the EN coach for a tidy sum and with the proceeds build some proper Pullmans (although now that Enlighten seemed to have stopped producing the trains the printed windows came from you might find them difficult to get hold of) http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=102907 Another alternative which I have seen used, is a pair of 1x2x2 trans-clear panels, topped with a 1x4 plate (either tan, reddish brown or black according to taste) with the remaining space filled with 1x1 trans clear plates to give an approximation of the Pullman style window. It has the downside of course that you have brick joins where you don't want them. You will also need to put 1x1 or 1x2 bricks between to seperate them.

Hmm, my Ecto-1 outside the Haunted house may be getting some company!

Especially when the answer was given in the previous post anyway, which he presumably did not bother reading!

They did do a re-run of this set just before Christmas. I snapped one up as soon as they became available as a present for my daughter. Presumably they sold out again! I wonder if they have now done a third run?

So what is there in the way of displays? Does anyone have a link to pictures of previous events?

I got so fed up with the detail bricks between the bogies on My Emerald night falling off I eventually had enough and glued them in with UHU. They were built exactly to instructions and now stay put. However UHU is not so strong that it cannot be dissasembled and cleaned off, probably just as well since I have since decided to MOD the tender in to a full height corridor type in which these bricks will no longer be used.

Never been to one of these events before, whats the program? What is there to see/do? Anyone want to give me a run through so to speak?

Is it not possible for moderators to merge threads? This has just been done to death a couple of weeks ago!

Yes he has, about 5 times if you read the OP....

Well if you live in the UK you have the marvelous three pin electric plugs, with the wire that comes out the bottom. The wires hang neatly when plugged in to the wall, but the flat back means they invariably lie prongs upward when on the floor. Lego is bliss by comparrison....

And what happens when someone convincingly pretends to be the original creator? Could get nasty.

Bit of blowing my own trumpet here, but Pullman MOC's ( http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=102907 ) would seem to satisfy the above - you would have one car with enough parts to cover the variants. These cars are still in use today on the Venice-Simplon Orient Express, albeit diesel and electric hauled. However I think the only chance of success would be if a suitable steam creator train was released, and even then the concept might be a bit close to the Santa Fe cars which lego might not be too keen on, so even if it does get to 10,000 it might still not get made... But if it has the slightest chance I will put it up!

I do hope you have not been put off by Paperballparks comments in the Train Station as a Modular thread. The vast majority here have much more respect than that.

Could you not have used jumper plates to give you the half stud offset? i have done something similar, but I just left the half stud gap, as it seems small enough for the trains to cross without bother.

They do a bit, in real life they look a bit more subdued, the camera flash tends to exaggerate them slightly. Many thanks for all the comments!

No, flip C1 and C2, that's the variable supply to the motor. The 9V and 0V are constant and not used by the motor - essentially in the diagram above the dotted lines represent unused wires. You might find that altering the two middle wires of the motor cable is easier if you cut back the outer wires to give yourself more room to make the connections - no need to reconnect as the motor does not use them, but wise to make sure any loose ends are adequately insulated.

So over Christmas I have built them and this is the result: I'll need to wait until I have some other stuff to order from bricklink to fully complete them as I don't really want to place one order just for the 1x1 plates that I forgot... but I am very happy with the result!

I think there may be an alternative - get 2 x short extension cables, which have contacts for the old 9v system. Attach the light grey ends either end of a 2x4 or 2x8 conducting plate and it should reverse the polarity. You may even be able to substitute a short 9V lead instead of the plate. For modifying, the two center wires are the control, the outside are +ve/-ve, but I don't know which way round.

That is very impressive!

Trouble is that whilst getting rid of the battery box, you may well find yourself combining the disadvantages of both systems too, which would be a backwards step. If you were going to that amount of trouble, it would be worthwhile going for a dcc chip module to replace the ir receiver and you can control multiple trains irrespective of range, interference or tunnels, and even have extra functions for lights and other motors - just like the model railway guys do, if making lego more like a model railway is what you want?

It has to be said that the way the model railway industry makes track is completely different from lego. They tend to have separate sleepers through which a solid nickel silver rail is threaded. This would have made the plastic molds far less complex. It would have made sense for lego to adopt a tried and tested method that has stood the test of time. One wonders what would have happened if lego had adopted this approach?