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Inspired by Mike Walsh and others, I decided to make a four car monorail. I
left my Airport Shuttle alone -- which turned out to be a really good
idea -- and created a clone in black with a yellow stripe, dictated mostly
by the color of my available battery boxes.
Putting the cars together was straightforward and took very little time. I
looked at the built Airport Shuttle and copied it. I tried to figure out the
extra car connections on my own, came up with a way-too-complicated method
using towbars and 2x2 turntables, and discovered that the cars never pulled
straight after coming around a corner. I took a quick look at what Mike did
then copied it.
I think I have a pretty good spare parts collection, but this small project
humbled me. I ran out of panels, car roofs w/sunroofs, and windows pretty
quick. I needed three more soccer buses than I already had, but S@H speedily
got those to me; going through some eBay junk and Brickbay got me the rest.
Here's the result:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=16055
(no digital camera yet, so this is one of those silly scanner images)
I'm somewhat proud of the battery box cover, even though it is slightly off
center. It has the right proportions and the original Airport Shuttle cover
is darned hard to copy with standard Lego parts. (But I'd love to see
others' efforts.) Let me know if you're interested in the construction. The
downside is it's really hard to get together (although once it's on, it is
not all that fragile).
You may recall that when Mike first built his (and used a less flexible
connector) Frank Filz asked, what about hills? Here's an equally interesting
question. What about turnouts?
The first time I tried to turn it through a turnout all four cars fell off
the track. I thought that maybe a wheelset had been misaligned, and then I
thought that the turnout switch was stuck. But the problem is that the motor
is pushing two cars in front of it instead of one. The piece before my
turnout happened to be a curve, and that's it, I'm doomed. The motor is 90
degrees away from the first car when it hits the switch so it pushes the
second car right off the track. I can redesign my layout to put a straight
in front of a straight turnout switch, but not for the curved portion of the
turnout. The only piece that will mate to the curved portion is a short
curve, and that guarantees that the motor will be pushing at the wrong
angle, derailing the cars. I think.
Is this old news? Has anyone figured out a way around this? Or maybe this is
why Lego never offered expansion cars for its monorails.
Cary
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In lugnet.trains, Cary Clark writes:
<snipped construction comments>
> Here's the result:
>
> http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=16055
>
> (no digital camera yet, so this is one of those silly scanner images)
>
> I'm somewhat proud of the battery box cover, even though it is slightly off
> center. It has the right proportions and the original Airport Shuttle cover
> is darned hard to copy with standard Lego parts. (But I'd love to see
> others' efforts.) Let me know if you're interested in the construction. The
> downside is it's really hard to get together (although once it's on, it is
> not all that fragile).
I really like your idea of the hinge-panels to cover the monorail motor.
Coverings to the monorail motor are a very challenging task. Good idea. I'd
never thought of turning those panels on their sides like that.
<snipped the section on derailings>
Thanks for posting these images. As for scanner images being silly. I like
them. They provide quite good close up detail of the construction. And, your
images came out very well, even for the pieces being black.
later,
James Mathis
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In lugnet.trains, Cary Clark writes:
> The first time I tried to turn it through a turnout all four cars fell off
> the track. I thought that maybe a wheelset had been misaligned, and then I
> thought that the turnout switch was stuck. But the problem is that the motor
> is pushing two cars in front of it instead of one. The piece before my
> turnout happened to be a curve, and that's it, I'm doomed. The motor is 90
> degrees away from the first car when it hits the switch so it pushes the
> second car right off the track. I can redesign my layout to put a straight
> in front of a straight turnout switch, but not for the curved portion of the
> turnout. The only piece that will mate to the curved portion is a short
> curve, and that guarantees that the motor will be pushing at the wrong
> angle, derailing the cars. I think.
>
> Is this old news? Has anyone figured out a way around this? Or maybe this is
> why Lego never offered expansion cars for its monorails.
If you are willing to only run the train in one direction, the trick would be
to push one car and tow three. Of course it puts the motor off center which
will look funny (but then, to some extent, in any more than two car train, the
motor will look somewhat funny). If one could trust the motors to slip well,
one could run a 4 car train which is really two monorail trains (but the
monorail motor won't slip as well as a train motor since it really can't slip
on the track).
Frank
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"Frank Filz" <ffilz@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:G1rx8v.Gu@lugnet.com...
> If you are willing to only run the train in one direction, the trick would • be
> to push one car and tow three. Of course it puts the motor off center • which
> will look funny (but then, to some extent, in any more than two car train, • the
> motor will look somewhat funny). If one could trust the motors to slip • well,
> one could run a 4 car train which is really two monorail trains (but the
> monorail motor won't slip as well as a train motor since it really can't • slip
> on the track).
>
> Frank
Actually, it looks better to put the train car with the battery box up front
next to the motor, followed by the full sized passenger cars. So now the
truth comes out:
After I wrote my first message I took the train off the scanner and set it
up on the kitchen counter to explain my delimma to my wife (who's AFOL-ness
is limited to wearing a watch). Without looking up from her cookie-making
she says, 'Well I guess you'll have to put one car in front instead of two'.
Well duh.
And indeed that works fine. The only consequence is that my track design
needs to be terminated by loops instead of deadends since the train won't
run through the turnouts backwards.
Now the only thing that looks slightly amiss is the gap between cars
connected by the ball and towbar. I tried shortening the gap by one stud but
then the cars hit each other on the curves. Back in Mike Walsh's original
thread, Larry Pieniazek mentioned 'the James Mathis Connection Method(tm)'.
I haven't found the thread that discusses this. Are there words? Pictures?
Thanks
Cary
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In lugnet.trains, Cary Clark writes:
<snipped the comments about motor location and ball-socket connector>
> Now the only thing that looks slightly amiss is the gap between cars
> connected by the ball and towbar. I tried shortening the gap by one stud but
> then the cars hit each other on the curves. Back in Mike Walsh's original
> thread, Larry Pieniazek mentioned 'the James Mathis Connection Method(tm)'.
> I haven't found the thread that discusses this. Are there words? Pictures?
http://www.ee.nmt.edu/~jmathis/monorailcreations.html
http://www.ee.nmt.edu/~jmathis/whiteredmono.html
Some qualifying statements:
1. first off, I've been really bummed for about 6 months: I've lost my Airport
Shuttle monorail motor and its special red cover!
2. Ok, I've calmed back down. At least I still have the 3 white with red
stripe passenger cars.
3. I'm sure you'll notice that I don't display running 4 cars. I've
never tried a 4 car monorail train set. However, the 3
car monorail set never seemed to show any preference to direction of travel
through any combination of curves and switches that I could dream up a year or
so ago.
4. This spring/ball-socket connection method does have a weak point. It is the
black 1x2 thin wall piece that is the source of support for the wheelless end
of one of the cars. If this 1x2 thin wall support is flexed too much, it can
be "wobbled" off the attaching studs. This is mostly an issue with inclines
and declines. Running on a flat track, the piece has never failed. I haven't
found a fix for this, yet.
Then, again, I haven't revisited the design since Christmas '98, I think.
5. There is a 1x1 black tile that rests just above the 1x2 black thinwall
piece. This 1x1 tile keeps the adjacent cars more or less in-line with one
another upon exiting a curve. There is a small amount of out-of-straight-line,
but it doesn't bother me. Maybe it would be more than you'd care for? Dunno.
6. This spring/ball-socket connection does take up a fair amount of space-
about one minifig seat in each car. That's certainly a strike against the
design from a passenger count/playability stand point.
7. Continuing with playability: Once the adjacent cars are connected, the
train is fairly easy to handle. But, if the two cars separate, reconnecting
them is definitely not as easy as the more straight foward ball-socket
connection.
Future work:
If I were to revisit this design challenge, I would try to afix the 2x2 plates
with ball-sockets onto the technic spring-bricks. I like the 2x2 plate with
ball-sockets, because it gets rid of a degree of rotational freedom present on
each side of my coupler design. Since I used a technic 'control rod' that has
sockets at each end, there is rotational freedom on the ball-pin that is
inserted into the Technic spring-brick.
I propose the following initial redesign construction:
1. onto the monorail chasis, place a 2x2 technic plate which has a centered
technic 'pin' pointing 'up'.
2. onto the 2x2 technic plate with 'pin', mount the technic spring-brick.
3. orient the technic spring-brick such that the spring will be compressed if
you push the exterior of the spring-brick toward the closest end of the
monorail chasis.
4. put 1 by whatever length bricks on either side of the technic spring-brick
so the spring-brick can't rotate.
5. use some stud re-orientation pieces (like 1x1 technic bricks with stud peg
insert) to attach either the 2x2 plate with ball or socket 'studs-up' to the
technic spring-brick.
6. I don't know what kind of spacing one can get between the adjacent cars,
but maybe some 1x2 half-stud offset plates could be used.
I'll try this myself when I might have a chance this week.
I fear the above text-oriented construction is pretty poorly described...or
poorly conceived.
I will build it the way I've tried to describe it, then take a picture of it.
We'll see if it is built at all the way those of you who have had the patience
and curiousity thought it would be built!
Who knows, may not work, anyway.
Best of luck to all who continue to wrestle with and advance monorail designs.
later,
James Mathis
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