There had been a request at the last NCLUG meeting I attended to bring my Airport Shuttle to a future meeting.? I don’t think too much about it but there are quite a few people who have never seen a LEGO monorail in person.? Yesterday I pulled it out and took it along with a couple 4551 Crocodile Engines and four of my CTB-1127 passenger cars.
Carin Proctor brought along some monorail track and was putting it together when I arrived.? She wanted to set up the spiral loops Cary Clark had built for most of the NCLTC layouts years ago.? It took a little while to get the track configured correctly as we were basically winging it but we got it running.? It was a small loop with two spirals, one up, one down connected by a few sections of straight track and a stop/start switch.
I started thinking about it and I am not sure my Airport Shuttle has been used since BrickFest 2004 where it took quite a dive to the floor and broke one of connectors on the motor that the chassis plates connect to.? I found another motor (I’m not even sure where the broken on is these days), a new battery and it was good to go.? It performed admirably, running up and down the spirals without any problems for more than an hour.
My Airport Shuttle is a little unique in that it is six cars long instead of the two which come in the set.? Years ago I figured out how to make it longer and added a 3rd car, as I only had one extra chassis plate at the time.? I picked up another and it was 4 cars long for quite a while.? I rounded up two more chassis plates later and added the 5th and 6th cars at the same time.? I now have a 7th chassis so I’ll probably make another one soon.
The meeting itself was a low key affair, about a dozen people total, most not for the whole meeting.? It was also fun to have a train loop set up – it is nice just to see the train run around in a big circle.? I love the Crocodile Engine and decided to bring it because, like the Airport Shuttle, a lot of people haven’t seen one.?? The passenger cars always generate some discussion as they contain Pink and Maersk Blue elements.? People ask me where those parts came fom – they came from the LEGOLand California Model Shop (how I got them is a story in itself).
I also took my Idea Books and the parts I received to do the initial prototypes for the Hobby Train project.? This odd collection of parts generated a lot of discussion and just about everyone agreed that it really was an odd collection of parts!
I brought a Model Team 