Subject:
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Partial review of 6600 Highway Construction - Comments on the Highway System
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.reviews, lugnet.town
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Followup-To:
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lugnet.reviews
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Date:
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Thu, 16 Dec 1999 07:00:44 GMT
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Viewed:
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2272 times
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Well, out Target just put out all the new sets, and I bought most of them
(All the castle, all the Star Wars System sets (not Technic), all the
Arctic, 6600 Highway Construction, and 6474 Wheeled Front Shovel).
I immediately took out the highway system components (one advantage of a
Juniorized set, you can get out exactly the sub-components you are
interested in).
The highway system consists of 3 support columns (each one is in it's own
sub-bag w/instructions), 2 ramp roads, 1 straight road, and 1 curved road.
The road pieces are the same geometry as the base plate roads, with a 14
studs wide road surface, and 1 stud thick walls on each side. Unfortunately,
they are somewhat flimsy. The road surface is approximately 1/2 the
thickness of a plate, with a small reinforcing strip down the center. The
main support is the 1 stuff wide, 1 brick high walls on the side. The ramps
rise 12 bricks in the span of 32 studs.
The columns are made up of 12 pieces, 1 6x18x3 grey base, 4 2x4x3 grey
bricks, 4 2x4 black bricks, 1 4x18 black brick (cool!), 2 yellow 1x4 bricks.
I'm not sure if the black 2x4 bricks shown on the box cover which go on top
of the column and hold the road pieces down are included in one of the other
bags, they aren't in the column bags.
The good parts of this system I see:
It is totally modular. You can build multi-level roads. It is compatible
with the road baseplates. You can build a 4 lane divided highway (as long as
it doesn't have curves), raised or not (no reason you can't use the roads
for a surface road).
The bad parts:
Flimsy (the curve especially, if you press down on the outer rim of the
curve, it will fall off, the 2x4 brick lock piece will help somewhat). There
is no provision for support on the curve anyplace except the ends (the
straight sections do have a 1x4 brick bottom area in the middle of each side
wall). The only studs on the side walls are at the ends, and 4 studs on each
side in the center of the straight section.
The ok parts:
The 2x4x3 bricks mean we don't have a nice source of grey bricks, on the
other hand, the columns are a little more sturdy with the 3 high bricks. The
support base is a single piece which is good for freestanding use, or use to
run a road above a road plate which has a wider road surface than 14 studs.
There is a ramp, so when the base is used above a road, vehicles underneath
will still be able to drive.
Hopes:
I hope these components are available in a service pack, or a small set.
What would be ideal is a column service pack (could be 1 or 2 columns), a
straight road service pack (containing 1 or 2 sections), a curved road
service pack (again 1 or 2 sections), and a ramp service pack (again 1 or 2
sections). I hope 3-way and 4-way intersections come out.
Room For Improvement:
We will need to figure out how to provide a center support for the curved
section. It would also be good to build a girder system to strengthen the
road surface.
Frank
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