Subject:
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Re: Bullet Train
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Sun, 31 Dec 2000 05:09:20 GMT
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Viewed:
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711 times
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In lugnet.trains, Iain Hendry writes:
> "Larry Pieniazek" <lpieniazek@mercator.com> wrote in message
> news:G6F05p.MnH@lugnet.com...
>
> > Well, I thought I'd toss this up since I've mentioned the existence of it • a
> > few times...
> >
> > http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=2515
> >
> > Most of the pics were taken at the Blissfest on Wednesday. Enjoy.
> >
> > ++Lar
>
> Larry,
>
> Good use of the 4561 parts. This looks like a good project! Any
> documentation on your progress with this model? I'd love to try something
> like this myself.
Unfortunately I don't have any pics of the creation process, it was built
over two evenings something like 10 months ago as for a school project Nik
was doing. His class was studying Japan and he naturally chose the Bullet
Train (thank goodness he didn't go with Mt. Fuji... 3 other kids did
volcanos <yawn>. I have enough burps but LEGO lava would be the tricky part).
We surfed the net and got some bullet/shinkasen pics, decided we wanted to
go for the classic look (the new ones look way too swoopy in the nose to
attempt), printed some stuff for reference and decided blue and white was
the logical color scheme since we were going to try for using 4561s that I
had in stock.
So I opened up two 4561s and diligently tried to stick to only the parts
from those two sets wherever possible. The major add was white 1xn bricks in
varying lengths. A few odds and ends like doors from 2 5561s, the nose
slopes (from my parts bins, can't say what set exactly), and the pantograph
arms were about the only other things added in any quantity. The windows are
way too big proportionally, of course, but there are not enough parts in a
4561 to do that many (5 cars worth) 1x3x2 thinwalls turned sideways for
windows they way James Mathis and some others have done in the past.
5 cars was all the white roof slopes I could eke out of the two 4561s,
although a real shinkasen has a lot more cars. Every third or 4th car has
pantographs so we went with three sets. The bubbleish pantograph
rise/recesses on the roof are actually prototypical but the pantograph
catenary shoes themselves are very weak, just a quick afterthought (this was
before I'd seen James's rod based approach).
The interior work was mostly obvious elaborations. The ground level central
doors (a look that isn't prototypical for shinkasen but one I wanted to
have) mean you need steps of some sort up to the higher level, so it's
natural to put a snack bar at one end. The seats are my standard 1x3 on top
of a 2x3 trick. I like using that because town seats are hard to come by in
quantity and because it suggests that the figs can sit two abreast (even
though they can't, the little fatties, er ah, horizontally challenged) by
having some sit on the inner and some on the outer 2 studs.
The recessed panels don't actually open, they're wedged in, so there's
nothing behind them except a brick. I tried having the hinges the other way
round but the panels flopped open. The panels themselves are from 4561s of
course. I'm a big fan of the corro brick used as vents so the vent panels
are naturals. The cars differ slightly, some have marker lights and some
don't. Again, prototypical. (more so for the US which doesn't tend to build
"trainsets" as much as other countries do)...
The roofs actually weren't removable when I built them, but now that I've
parted out a bazillion siths, I have lots of blue tile so I did a quick
conversion on Tuesday nite before I went to the Blissfest.
I think I bragged about it before, but it was the hands down hit of the
Japan exhibition day of Nik's 2nd grade class. We set up on tables out in
the hall (I had a small Znap bridge and my tan/black station too) and we
stopped traffic. Other classes that were moving from one place to another in
the halls just jammed up the whole hall to get a look to the point where I
got complaints from the other teachers that I was disrupting the whole school.
It was a crowd pleaser at Blissfest too. I might put it into production if I
can source the nose pieces... somewhere around 400-500 would be the target
price. (2 4561's aren't cheap no matter how you slice it)
++Lar
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Bullet Train
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| "Larry Pieniazek" <lpieniazek@mercator.com> wrote in message news:G6F05p.MnH@lugnet.com... (...) a (...) Larry, Good use of the 4561 parts. This looks like a good project! Any documentation on your progress with this model? I'd love to try something (...) (24 years ago, 31-Dec-00, to lugnet.trains)
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