Original Model is by Coyote Media

I have a soft spot for the Cotton Belt, and their L-1 class 4-8-4s delivered between 1930 and 1943 fit my acute goals of 1940's mainline modeling. 819 is the last of the type, and survives in it's birth place in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. I'm excited to add another fine example of modern and big motive power to my fleet.

There's a certain mental freedom that comes with this final stage of my creative process, and considering this model was a two-year endeavor, I certainly feel it here, but I'm no less satisfied with this new model.

Photo album:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/41032663@N08/albums/72177720336284782

Video:
https://youtu.be/FmjrJpuPmeA?si=Wg19qRpTxi4g_HTR

Thanks, and enjoy.

This is my 1:48 model of an ex-Santa Fe Dash 9. This was my entry for the BTA best TFOL locomotive. More pictures of the model are on my flickr: brainmelted | Flickr.

I recently got Lego Powered Up hub (88009) and remote (88010) and want to use rechargeable batteries with them. Tried the Ikea Ladda AAA batteries as had been suggested by some people on here but they don't work, realised that the Ikea Ladda are 1.2v and Powered Up takes 1.5v.

Any brand suggestions for AAA rechargeable batteries? Not found any so far that are 1.5v

I had this in the works for a bit, but I was inspired by a comment on my post about my Burlington Northern F45 from the other day to finish this one. So here is my Great Northern F45 in its "Big Sky Blue" paint scheme. I'm planning on using some decals to make the pattern on the nose and maybe clean up the tail end since the 1x1 vertical clips aren't available in dark azur. This build also has most of the troubleshooting modifications that I made on the BN model after test building it recently. I know that this paint scheme wasn't around for very long on these units, but I really love the blue and thought it would be a fun scheme to design. Most likely gonna test build this one at some point, but not anytime soon. My main concern is that some of it might be a little less secure than the BN unit because of different part availability between green and dark azur.

It’s been awhile since I posted but I figured I share some updates I finished the El Capitan now on to some final cars if you guys want some more updates please lmk always willing to share photos and directions

A few months ago I posted about Your Tracks here, my layout planner for iPhone/iPad. Thanks to everyone who tried it and sent feedback. A lot of what's changed since then came straight out of those comments, so here's a roundup of what's improved since 1.0.

The 1.x updates: making editing less fiddly

Select Mode

You can now select a whole section and move it as one rigid piece. It still snaps onto open track when you drop it. Once you have a selection, you can:

- Rotate it in 22.5° steps

- Flip it horizontally or vertically

- Duplicate it

- Copy/paste it, including "paste mirrored", which is great for symmetrical layouts.

Baseplates

You can place baseplates in a range of sizes and colours, and they snap edge to edge, so you can see how your track fits on the plates you have or within a City layout.

Better floor areas

Areas used to be rectangles only. Now you get:

- Circles and ovals

- Fill textures (wood, carpet, concrete, baseplate green/grey…)

- Name labels

- Undo for area edits

Other features/updates

- Animated train to see it work in your layout, including the ability to flip any switches

- Big layouts are much smoother: dragging has no lag, off-screen pieces aren't drawn, and saving happens in the background

- Redesigned home screen

- General performance improvements

For v2.0: Two big changes

Close the Gap

If your loop ends up short or just want a helping hand to complete a loop, now you can select the two pieces on either side of the gap and tap **Close Gap**. The app searches for routes that fit and shows up to 3 of them as ghost previews. It uses TrixBrix curves if that's what your lay mix of curves and straights fits, it finishes the route with a short run of flex track, bent only as far as real flex track can go. If it can't find a route, it tells you why (for example, "nearest was 1.3 studs off" or "every route runs over existing track") so you know what to nudge.

See it on your floor (AR)

This puts your layout on the floor at 1:1 scale, so you can check it fits the room. You can also:

- Run a train round it in AR at 1×, 2× or 3× speed

- Tap a switch on the floor to change its route

- Use Tabletop mode (1:8) to fit a big layout on a desk

- On LiDAR devices, optionally hide the track behind furniture

- Take a snapshot and save it to Photos or share it

Thanks again to everyone who gave feedback the first time round. I'll answer one of the most common questions... unfortunately I've no immediate plans for Android, but that is absolutely subject to change!

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/your-tracks/id6761334460

This thing was an absolute piece of work to get to handle R40 curves, by the way.

One of my projects, decided to make some caribou too as it’s one of my favorite scenes. The engine is just one of my FEF-1s but modified to look more like the polar express, just for render purposes. I think I’m going to end up making a Berk.

I am trying to represent the windows of an engine room.

I intend to attach tile pieces onto a panel.

I tried placing a 2412b tile onto a 4865b panel, but it does not stay in place.

Do I need the 4865a part—which has squared-off corners—to ensure it stays fixed?

As I am continuing to develop my budd coach series, I am wondering if people preferred the original angled roof or the round roof.

The angled roof is less realistic but it does allude to the metroliner sets and other various lego trains from the 90s/2000s that have some sort of angled roof design.

Meanwhile, the round roof is more prototypical (see reference image), but each piece (the one-plate-shorter 5841 and 5842 rounded pieces) costs way higher than the flat slope, with prices going as high as 50 cents per piece. Luckily lego pick-a-brick has them cheaper than bricklink, them selling the pieces at 33 cents per piece, so there isn't a huge price discrepancy at the end (~$57 per car). What do you guys think?

Here is my MOC of the Class 142 Pacer

The Pacer was a group of trains (Classes 140 - 144) introduced in 1984 built to work on rural lines as well as supplement commuter trains during peak hours. They were intended to be a short term replacement for the old DMUs working on the british network but ended up serving for almost 40 years. The body was based on the Leyland National bus, and were well known for their terrible ride quality.

My model is built in 7 wide, I would have preferred 6 wide to match the rest of my models but lots of details would have been very hard to make at that scale. It's powered by a Power Functions M motor driving one axle geared up 1:67. Converting it to Powered Up should be quite easy but I'm not really familiar with that system. One coach contains the motor and receiver and the other the battery box. There are still quite a few seats in each car as well as a driver's seat.

Fitting non Lego lighting to the front of the coaches should be possible, if you want both head lights and tail lights you may have to replace the 1x3 Brick with a 1x1 brick with 2 1x1 Bricks modified with headlight on each side to let the wires through as so:

Processing img dlzvllh9omwh1...

I've made a few different liveries as seen in the last photo, the Northern Rail livery may look better with stickers, I'm also not sure how structurally sound it is.

The studio file will be on this Bricklink Gallery page, on the page if the moderators allow it or in the comments if they don't: https://www.bricklink.com/v3/studio/design.page?idModel=875687

Thanks for reading!