@playingwithechoes
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The tractors have been built, along with the accessories. Hopefully, I can show them at the Home and Garden show in March. The big Lambo tractor with the seed drill fills an entire baseplate. LOL
I’ve signed up for Saturday and Sunday. Like last time, I’ll show up early Saturday to get the trains running and stay out of the way of MILS setup. Any last minute stuff before the show starts, I’ll gladly help.
I’m bringing the BIG steam trains for the outer loops along with some new train cars. If we have power, I need two outlets for the chargers as I’m bringing an armada of rechargeable batteries and two chargers that do 16 AAA each and I have way more than 32 batteries. Should be more than enough for the weekend, with some to spare to support other trains if needed.
I don’t have MILS buildings to bring but I do have some Speed Champion sized vehicles to bring to the city streets. Might even bring the Lego Lamborghini LM002 out for a spin. XD
Sad to hear @emperorofthenorthpole wont’ be able to make it. Safe travels, Glenn. If you have anything you’d like us to run on the tracks for you, let us know. I’d be glad to help out and look after anything you might want to have displayed here, static or rolling. Hopefully, you can make it to a few shifts at the Home and Garden show where I’ll have the Behemoth bridge ready for our massive trains. Seriously, I think you’ll like just how spacious it is for the iron giants.
@rcgrier3406, @joshhall, @knb112, I’ll have my UP fleet ready to do both grand loops, including the Schnabel car and various Pittsburgh industrial and stem rollingstock for the yard. Let me know if you need anything to cover a vacant R40 small loop.Rambo Lambo needed a friend. Here’s a 1990s V12 Lambo powered speed boat on a custom trailer. The real thing won its intended lake race and set a record that hasn’t been broken since.
Awesome to hear the sky scrapers are coming back. XD Hopefully I can do a ride along video from the trains on the different circuits to get that in the city perspective. 🙂
@laura, let me know if you want some photos of my Lambo tractor for ideas on where to put it. I’d be glad to place it anywhere blank on the display that needs something.Behemoth Bascule Bridge is coming along. Working on modifying the tower armatures and mechanism to work more smoothly but we have a functional bridge structure to display. For design purposes, @joshhall, and @amplef0rth, the bridge will need 40 inch AKA 4 baseplates of clearance between landings, exact, with nothing below as there is technic framing below the track level. Surfaces for landings need to be level and stable. Tower side landing is 2 baseplates long and will be on the left, when seen from the front of the display. The other landing is 1 baseplate long. I would caution at least a baseplate extra on either side to let the long trains straighten out a bit from the large curves.
If anyone has access to a filament type 3d printer, I saw a downloadable re-railer that would fit in place of one piece of straight track we can add to each track line to avoid that one odd wheel that always randomly pop out at the curves.
I also stocked up on more rechargeable batteries and extra charging station to keep the giants chugging along.
Also, any farming fields? I got that Clarkson Lamborghini tractor stuff nearly done. Will help with any broad green flat spaces in need of something.
The bridge’s counterweight tower is currently being worked on. I figure the whole project won’t be complete till New Year’s.
Thanks @rcgrier3406. Old school is best school. XD
I just had an ideal of where to mount the motor and side actuator rods: up on the top center beam. It’ll be risky like an interference type engine but a fun idea to watch the counterweight and drawn rods trade space and the leverages versus pull should work at that direct angle.
It’s 2 bricks under the track. See Bob’s photo for a cross section and 16 studs clearance, on center. Just a baseplate on which two bricks up then track. Or a brick and some plates to do that ballast on the side.
I’m doing the same elevation for my Behemoth bridge but I’m running 1×16 technic bricks under the track to use my double length module as part of the technic tower frame. And I have my platforms on the side not exceeding the height of the rail.
Here’s the updated framing for the Behemoth Bridge digital design, based on physical testing that identified the pivot points that worked in balancing the counterweight and the bridge load. Next phase is updating the upper tension arms between bridge and counterweight frame and then updating the motorization feature to have draw rods from the stationary frame to the bridge. Then it’s ordering the parts I don’t have (in pink). It may not be a perfect replica of a normal steel bascule bridge but this arrangement works in keeping the counterweight to a few pounds of ballast inside and avoiding extreme lateral stresses on the Lego plastic frame, compared to the conventional pin points being at the closest upper corner of the bridge frame. Plus, it makes use of most of the parts I already have. So it’s still on track for our March HG show.
I’m in. I’ll have plenty of trains for the grand loops and a ton more rechargeable batteries than last time.
Got new STEM and Pittsburgh train stuff, some of it quite long so please leave some room on the inside of the R104 curves. Of course the Schnabel car makes its return. XDLet me know any declassified details and I can share on the Phoenix Train Works page to attract people to the event.
Will, I have hazmat trains for your fire trucks. 🙂
Oh, and I have some new exotic supercars to add to the streets: the Cizeta V16T, Jaguar XJ220, and DeLorean DMC 12.Hey now, it’s not like the insects are building their own spacecraft down in the basement… right ?????
Thanks, that’s really helpful in picturing the vertical loft sections needed to capture the conical curve shape in brick form. Fortunately, I have built my studio model as sub components so I can make a change to a quarter section or smaller and it’ll update the whole thing as I try to get that parabolic curve improved. XD
I’m sure @willmcdine has his Lego hazmat team on the ready for a Class 7 containment breach. 🙂
Come to think it it, might try slope pieces on sideways construction to get the curve and the strength.
Thanks guys for the enthusiasm. In theory, it should meet or exceed LGMS standards for bridge weight support requirements. Seems pretty sturdy IRL as it’s a Technic frame. I’m currently having to modify the swing arm to better balance the loads at both positions so that the motor isn’t stressed out, but it’s getting there.
Here’s another update.
I have the modules and sections built and assembled for a test. The mechanical principle works so now I have to sort out the required counterweight fill and then make any necessary adjustments to the motorization and other fine tuning. At the moment, it’s set to manual mode as previously mentioned. It’s big. It’s huge. It’s a behemoth.
@joshhall @rcgrier3406 @amplef0rth, @emperorofthenorthpole, are you excited to run your beautiful trains on it? 🙂 Definitely has that 1940s industrial feel to its aesthetic.Nice diesel. Very nice formwork. If it’s the one I’m thinking of, I know the station over at Homestead by the waterfront. It’s something I’d like to see made in Lego, though I never had the time and space to do it. It’s a great looking building, even if it’s now a tax center. LOL Keep us posted on that MOC and as Tim mentioned, it would be a hit for local displays. You should have seen the reactions we had with some of my local steel and radioactive cars. I have an ongoing project with Lego-fying the ingot cars up by the bridge landing near that station. 🙂
Welcome Dallas.
I’m M.P.Lynes. I also do Lego train MOCs as “Phoenix Train Works.” The LUG does a couple of train exhibits in Jan and March if you’re interested. I’m currently working on a giant bascule type bridge for the layout. What kind of trains do you make or collect?
Heads up. The 2024 Brick Train Awards are open. If anyone has great photos and overviews of the train layouts from either the CSC or Home and Garden Show this year, please share the link as my photos tend to focus on everyone’s trains running. I can submit on behalf of Steel City LUG and include the video tour I made, but I need good overview still photos. Top prizes include nice custom track that the LUG can certainly use.
In the architorture construction engineering fields that’s one of the reasons why they use control joints. So that expansions or contractions by temperature or tolerances have a joint where parts can shift a little. So like every 32 studs or one baseplate, there can be a control joint to get things lining up.
