My Collossal, Unnamed Spaceship

The pictures of some of my creations included in my last entry sparked some interest.  So, the following are some more pictures of the large space ship I created back in high school (10 years agon now, wow!).  What is funny is that I could never come up for a name for this thing, to this day I think of it as "the big ship"; no name I could come up with ever seemed right.  Any suggestions?

Statistics:

Length: 5.1 feet long

Width: 3.1 feet at widest point

Average Width: 1.5 feet

Height: 2.25 feet at talles point

Some "Big Picture" shots:

I had always wanted to build something big enough that it
could include a monorail.  This was it.

This picture was actually taken from on my roof looking through
the window.  Model was too big to move.

This front part housed the hanger, labs, bridge and officer's cabins.

This middle section was crew quarters (the yellow section) and
connecting walkway.


The following pictures show how the model opened so that you could access the inside.  My goal was to make it 100% playable (a requirement for all my MOCs) which meant 100% access.  I succeeded. 

This shows everything opened and all the removable floors removed.

The crew quarters.

The hallway, the crew quarters were accessed via hatches in the floor
(you can see the red in the floor, those are them)

You can see the monorail dock and the rear access door here

And now a few detailed pictures of the interior.

The hanger, it was so big I could (and did) stick my head in it.

The engine room with the reactor front and center.

The mechanical room.

The greenhouse.

The first floor of the medical wing.  The hatch to the right accessed the
mechanical room and crew quarters.

Top floor of medical wing.  This was before sites like bricklink so I had to use
printed tiles for lack of plain ones.

Inside view of the hall looking from the front to the rear of the ship.

Crew quarters, 3 stories tall, sleeping was on the left and workout room
was on the right.

Officers quarters off the bridge.

The bridge and stairwell to the officer's cabins.

The model was very intricate.  Working pathways for minifigures existed throughout.  Their was a large working elevator in the hanger as well as the working monorail.  To date it is the biggest model I have ever done. 

A couple of final shots.

 

When Compared With Past Stations One Of The Best

7498 Police Station
The Chronicler's Rating - 4/5
Price ~ $100.00
Year Released - 2011

For the past 20+ years Lego has released, without fail, a new police station every 3 to 5 years.  Some have been excellent (1993's Central Precinct HQ), others have been terrible (1998's Command Post Central) with most falling somewhere in the middle (1996's Metro PD Station for example).  I am pleased to say that Lego has done very well with this installment, when compared to its many predecessors it emerges near the top of the list. 

This set draws obvious inspiration from its immediate predecessor, 2008’s 7744 Police Headquarters.  Most notably the dual jail cells, lower level garages, the color scheme and the included vehicles.  However, this station is not a copy and has some very distinctive features.  This set represents, as far as I can remember, an original concept in terms of city buildings.  The L shaped design joined by curved windows is an architectural feature that has not appeared in any other Lego City building to date.  I must say with how pleasing it is to the eye I hope Lego continues with this type of construction!  It is also a full honest to goodness 3 stories which puts it into very exclusive company (most 3 story buildings have a single room at the top, this has a whole floor).  7744 Police Headquarters was 3 stories but the bottom was garages which don’t, in my mind, count.  In terms of number of rooms I think only the Central Precinct HQ had more, making this one of the largest police station sets ever.    

FOR PARENTS

If your child loves the City theme you can't go wrong with a police station and you can have peace of mind buying this one knowing it is one of the best thus far released by Lego.  The only stations that I would say are better than this one are 6398 Central Precinct HQ and 7744 Police Station.  The playability of this set is such that it will provide many happy hours of play for your money and it has good pieces that can be used by your child easily in the construction of their own creations.       

FOR KIDS

No city collection is complete without a police station.  I myself have 3 of them in my collection, a main headquarters and 2 smaller auxiliary stations.  If you enjoy the city theme this would be a great set to add to your collection.

CONCLUSION

 No City collection is complete without a police station.  Having lived through most of the previous offerings you won't do much better than this one.  The only major demerit is that the price to piece ratio is worse than most previous sets; in other words you are getting a bit less for your money as far as the piece count.  Lego appears to have stretched those fewer pieces well though as I don't see anything major that this set is missing which others had.  Kudos to the designer. 

Happy Building

TheLegoChronicler