 | | Strange rails
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Hello Train Experts Just recently I bought some 70s bulk material containing homemaker figures, steered trucks and the like as well as some 4.5V and early 12V train stuff. Usually one expects to find blue rails with old 4.5V stuff. I did so but I (...) (17 years ago, 23-Jan-07, to lugnet.trains)
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| | Re: Strange rails
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(...) That's a novelty! They could be pre-production models. There have been some unusual parts in red before (e.g. the minifig ghost shroud) - test mouldings made by Lego before a part goes into mass production. Jason R (17 years ago, 23-Jan-07, to lugnet.trains)
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| | Re: Strange rails
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(...) There's a pretty comprehensive article on the red test moldings at (URL) the article notes, test moldings are often done in red because it is the most difficult color to mold. Hence, Jason's theory makes a lot of sense. It is surprising that (...) (17 years ago, 23-Jan-07, to lugnet.trains)
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| | Re: Strange rails
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(...) Red may also be (or at one time was), the most used color. So it may be easiest to load a new mold into a machine running red ABS. I don't think it's surprising they would do 40 test moldings. The mold probably has at least 4 rails. And they (...) (17 years ago, 23-Jan-07, to lugnet.trains)
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| | Re: Strange rails
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(...) Hi Beat! LEGO makes test molding for each molding device, so it's clear that many proof parts are molded. The rails you have, are like the one I own (with the only difference that my one is for 9V). The black one is surprising because red is (...) (17 years ago, 23-Jan-07, to lugnet.trains)
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| | Re: Strange rails - found the answer
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Hello again Today I found the answer to the question of these strange colors for otherwise very common parts. All of you stating that these parts must be some kind of test mould were right! As I mentioned in my first post, I bought these parts (...) (17 years ago, 24-Jan-07, to lugnet.trains)
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| | Re: Strange rails
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Thanks for the pics Luca! Interestingly enough this topic recently came up for discussion. I have a 1:87 scale car garage (first released November 1961) with a red door (Phil Traviss of UK also has one). Even though all catalogs of the early 1960's (...) (17 years ago, 25-Jan-07, to lugnet.trains)
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| | Re: Strange rails
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Oh, I also forgot to mention.... TLG had a habit of putting lots of their early prototype items into production (like the red and black garage doors). And they often didn't keep examples of these items in their archives. So today, many of these rare (...) (17 years ago, 25-Jan-07, to lugnet.trains)
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