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Motorize LEGO 7810 Locomotive

The 40th anniversary LEGO commemorative set 40370 to bring back set 7810 is a very clean, simple build. The locomotive has a classic simplicity to it that makes it appropriate for any railway display, and it has a nice six-wide / mini-figure scale that works. The new train comes as a push train with brick built buffers where as the old train was built on a custom modified chassis plate, element 4178, which getting increasingly hard to purchase.

There are a couple of people that have motorized this set either with a medium motor in the steam drum or by pushing the train with a motorized coal tender. I thought I would share how I motorized this locomotive using five (5) small eight tooth gears (3647) connected in row on a technic five hole lift arm (32316). Using a the three stud wide technic connecting pin (6558) to connect the lift arm at the top of the motor and a 2×2 modified plate with two pin holes (2817) near the bottom provided adequate support. This also allowed all three wheel sets to be geared together so that they all were turned by the motor.

Medium Motor and Lift Arm / Gears to Drive Locomotive
Lower Support of Lift Arm
Gears Beneath the Locomotive
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LEGO City Downtown & LEDs

One of our members, Amir, has been working diligently on using LEDs and Arduino single board computers to enhance the LEGO City display he has in his basement. The street lights are tied to a photo cell and come on automatically when there is low ambient light. It looks amazing.

LEGO City at Night

One of the other fascinating technologies that Amir has used, which is perfect for the Diner, is Light Wire, or more properly called EL Wire, and first was used in the car scene to light up interior dashboards. One can find this on Amazon and other locations by searching for Light Wire or EL Wire. in Amazon, you can find all products. You get a large array of different lights one meter in length.

Diner with “EL Wire”.
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Audi Sport Quattro S1

Six (6) wide or Eight (8) wide. That is the question. It is sad… but some of our team are moving towards the more proportionally correct eight wide while others of us remain loyal to six wide builds.

For me, it comes down to my old LEGO building days where we were four wide… and occasionally only two wide. I still live in a world where a typical car holds one minifig and is four wide, while trucks and trains are six wide. I still am struggling with eight wide cars, though my owns son is a proponent.

Mike, like me a VW / Audi fan, purchased new Audi Sport Quattro S1 set, but did not realize it was designed as an eight wide build. He then bought a second one determined to re-build it as a six wide build, both to match his other Racer Series cars and so that it would fit on his train transport carriers.

I think by removing two studs from the centre of the car balanced it out very well when making the car six wide. Here are Mike’s comments:
Here are a few of the pictures of my 6-wide rallye car, and some pictures of the two for comparison. I have changed the colour of the front spoiler on both cars to better match the actual rallye car this set is based on. I’ve done some surgery to the front spoiler on both cars. I modified the rear spoiler brackets on the small car so that it doesn’t look as bulky as it does on the 8-wide.The rear decal on the 6-wide car had to be cut to fit the narrower bumper. I added a 1×1 round stud to the underside of the exhaust so that the tailpipe sticks out a little further.I had black wheel spokes from another Speed Champions set that I used on the 6-wide.
Shrinking it “width-wise” was relatively easy. It took a LOT more thought and figuring to shorten car in length.