Subject:
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Review of MTW-1001-bk Custom Hopper
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.reviews, lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Tue, 1 Aug 2000 23:27:11 GMT
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Viewed:
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92 times
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Here is a review of the custom hopper that Larry Pieniazek has been
selling. This review is patterned after the review that Bill S. wrote
about a custom kit he bought, see http://www.lugnet.com/reviews/?n=555
for the original review that was written by Bill.
AVAILABLE AT: Go to http://www.miltontrainworks.com for a picture of
the model, description, availability and cost of the kit.
MTW-1001-bk Custom Hopper: This kit has been around for a year or two
and Larry has just started to have larger quantities available for
purchase. The kit consists of 241 total pieces. There are no mini-
figs in this kit. All of the parts in the kit are black except for the
24 technic 1/2 pins. These also happen to be some of the harder parts
to obtain for production of this kit, mainly due to the quantity that
this kit requires. The 1x2 hinge bricks are also hard to acquire in
the color of black. All of the pieces come in a large Ziplock bag with
a complete instruction book. The instruction book itself is a great
piece of work. Every page of the instructions is in a platic liner
which is all held together in a clear cover binder. The cover page has
a high quality color print of a 3D ldraw generated rendering of the
hopper. There is a certificate of authenticity which tells you the
date of production and the set serial number of which lot the set was
built with. The actual instructions are generated in black and white.
The main difference between Larry's instructions and a set of original
LEGO instructions are the black and white vs color printing.
CONCEPT: The hopper is modeled after a standard open top hopper car.
I don't know what the actual prototype is, but this model looks
exactly like the coal cars I see going through my town.
I think the main reason that this car looks so good is the use of the
1x6 plates on the side of the hopper to simulate the side ribs of a
prototype hopper.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: The instructions consist of 9 pages of
32 steps and 2 sub-steps. The instructions were all generated by
LDRAW. The instructions are all well printed originals that are
clear and easy to read. The two sides of the model are mirror
images so even though the instructions show the building of parts
of each side separately, I built all the way around each side at
the same time, sort of skipping some steps ahead.
EXPERIENCE: This is a terrific kit to build and is a great addition
to any freight train. If I had the money (or parts) for about 50 of
these hoppers, it would make a great train. Unfortunately, that would
cost $3250 which would be hard to justify to my wife. You might think
that I am complaining about the price but I am not. The amount of hard
to obtain parts and the quantities used certainly justify the price of
this kit, it would just be nice if LEGO could work with outside kit
designers to supply them with a cheaper source of parts.
The hopper fits right in with the rest of my rolling stock and is
about the same size as my own hopper cars.
(http://www.gmlug.org/foster/rollingstock/index.html).
The black hopper is pretty sturdy, after many loops
around my layout and repeated coupling/decouplings, it has not had
any problems. You can fill the hopper with any type of 1x1 or 1x2
brick and open the bottom hatches and then contents will then dump.
CLEAN UP: There were no pieces left over after I was done as I had
expected seeing as this was a custom model with no alternate model.
FINAL THOUGHTS: This was a great kit and worth the money. I think
I have just enough parts to build another hopper so that the first
one won't be so lonely. The only modifications I have thought about
are possibly finding some model railroad decals to apply to give the
model the complete look. It would also be interesting to use a
different color on one end of the hopper to simulate the rotary coupler
paint scheme used by some ore hoppers. I understand that Larry is
already looking into this idea but it will be hard to accomplish due
to the fact that the color change is at the end where it would leave
little support for two separate sections. Larry also offers a version
of this hopper in gray for a slightly higher price of $75.
Paul Foster
http://www.gmlug.org/foster/
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