Recently we may or may not have rebuilt all our gondolas to be almost 7 studs wide (6.8 to be precise) because, more and more, we are starting to affect 7 wide trains. Sometimes we find ourselves admitting how nice it is to have that little bit of overhang on either side of the truck and the ability to sit lower on the trucks easily. Whenever we think these things, we remind ourselves of the inevitable outcry from the community should we start building 7 wide (hypocrisy etc). That, and the cost of converting our 20+ freight cars and 10+ locomotives.
Brickshelf user mickeymike's Class 66 is another 7 wide locomotive which makes us question our dogma. It is certainly not as highly detailed as scruffulous', but the "cleanliness" of the build makes up for this. "Cleanliness" something which we aspire for and appreciate seeing in other models. We really like how he uses road signs to matach the angle of the roof of the prototype. The roof would be more aesthetically pleasing if he had used double cheese slopes instead of regular cheese slopes, but the cost of the former probably outweighed aesthetics in his mind. The grilles on the roof are particularly interesting. We can only wonder how he accomplished such a feat. Our first guess would be rubber bands. One can see that he uses impure solutions for grabirons (gasp!), so perhaps the grilles too are impure. Oh, the humanity!
