If you look at the trains from Carl Greatrix (Duq mentioned them), you see that if you are inventive enough, you don't have to 3D print but can make them out of LEGO.

I love his trains! It's the general direction I want to go in, but I do like the application of the 3d printer and well - experimenting with it. My aim is to have as few 3d-printed parts as possible, but use them where they are required. So I'm a bit on the fence about the sides of the steam railcar. If I make them flat and apply the yellow lines as decals, I'd run back to regular lego for most parts (not the windows). I guess I will have to try both so I'll build a section with 3d printed recessed parts and a section with more standard Lego parts and see which I like better.

I did get round to doing the power bogie, trailing bogie (which I like a lot) and the autotrailer that goes with the steam railmotor.

Power bogie - in reality this drives the steam railcar. In Lego it doesn't.

The trailing bogie. It's based upon the standard Lego PF train motor with spoked wheels. There is a 3d printed part around it to replace the standard Lego one.

And finally, the autotrailer coupled to the steam railcar.

It's kind of weird, you design completely new bits to replicate stuff you couldn't make in Lego, and go out of your way to include some studs on top, meanwhile I've built entirely in base Lego so far, and spend all my time trying to hide as many of the studs as possible!

LOL! Well, I need the studs on top to mount stuff on the roof (i just didn't include that in the model). Some other stuff is missing too such as the interior and the underbody. I plan to do those when all the other bits are done.

Other than that, the roof seemed to miss out on something.

Neat stuff! Could you do the ribs so that they fit over regular lego bricks, and thus it would be a mostly lego model?

Neat stuff! Could you do the ribs so that they fit over regular lego bricks, and thus it would be a mostly lego model?

Hmmmm. I'm not sure. As a decal, for sure. (just sticker it on). But as a 3d model it's hard because I think it would be too delicate. Every wall would be the minimum thickness for a part, I think.

If I do go to standard Lego, the train profile would be something like this:

The roof looks pretty much perfect compared to what I've drawn so I will work on doing standard Lego there. The lower half of the train isn't that perfect though. The 3-wide bow is far too much for what I want so I will have to dive into LDD and check for other parts ;).

These work well for the slope.

http://www.bricklink.com/browseList.asp?q=61068&itemType=P&catID=&colorID=

I highly recommend the ones with bottom tubes. They stick to other bricks much more readily.

http://www.bricklink...tem.asp?P=88930