Brick.ie The Irish Association for Adult Fans of LEGO®

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=71408
Mainly for Serengeti who dreams of recreating Rome. Saw it on Eurobricks - fantastic moc!

Added a larger picture to my Brickshelf gallery. You can see it when it goes public.
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=5511999

Here's a CAD model of the Luas I've been working on this past week. It's based on the five car Citadis 401 trams that are currently used on the Green Line. So far I have added no interior details, but might do so during the week. There is a 9V motor in the front car and all the other cars have the small train wheels. The roof is mainly a plain even surface unlike the uneven surface of the real tram roofs. I'm not sure yet if I'll change it. Your comments are welcome.

I've just completed two Irish Rail Mark IV locomotives and carriages for Dun Laoghaire. Liveries to be added later. I've still a restaurant car to build. Doors are not automatic but I always find these tricky so I brick built them on this occasion.

http://www.brick.ie/image/mark-iv-irish-rail-locomotives

http://www.brick.ie/image/irish-rail-mark-iv-carriage-doors-open

http://www.brick.ie/image/mark-iv-carriages-doors-closed

I added some photos of my train-related models to my brickshelf gallery last night. I'll be adding more over the next few days (not just trains). Comments welcome.

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?m=sjd

The ice cube trays from Shop@Home also work nicely with chocolate:

Chocolate minifig by Duq, on Flickr

Some of you will already have seen this in Blackrock last year. I've entered this for the Reverse Engineering Challenge in Railbricks 9. Unfortunately there was no mention of the REC in the latest issue so I've decided to put this online now.

PF points motor by Duq, on Flickr
The inspiration is mentioned in the picture. The beauty of my design is that it doesn't pull itself apart. The only risk is leaving the motor turned on...

Hi everyone,

I've posted this on Brickish and Eurobricks, so thought I may as well add it here as well - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS1UoT3e5tQ

It's a train that runs in the area I live in, the East Midlands, but to boost the difficulty level of the build I've put in opening doors on one of the cars. The doors are very similar to those on newer DARTs James, so if I get the mechanism working smoothly feel free to copy it.

Any suggestions for smoothening the door action would be welcome, as is other feedback/suggestions etc.

Andy

I noticed over at eurobricks that one of the guys there has produced some decent 10 stud wide Hong Kong buses. See this topic http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=61524

It may be of interest because the Volvo B9TL chassis is also used by Dublin Bus. Might be a useful start for anyone considering producing something similar in Irish colours especially as there are some other models which look reasonably similar to those used in Ireland.

LEGO has had a number of rail systems over the years. While the track gauge hasn't changed in the past few decades the power source has. The 12V system had a powered third rail in the centre of the tracks. The popular 9V system which was only discontinued a few years ago carried the current via a metal strip in the rails. The LEGO 9V motors picked up power from the tracks and were controlled, not by remote control, but by a single controller connected to the tracks. These are the tracks you saw in Dun Laoghaire and Blackrock. One drawback with 9V systems is that as the equipment has been discontinued, tracks, motors and controllers need to be acquired in the secondary markets, e.g. ebay or bricklink.com. These are not cheap. There is a (US) company starting to make fully compatiblle aluminium tracks again and an internet search should find this.

The more recent sets as you've noted used batteries and there is a LEGO rechargeable battery pack available.