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Brickviller V2

Red Horizon Express 10233

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Hi everyone, 

Several years ago I got one set of the famous Horizon Express. But 2013 was a period I came into a small dark age. Most of my Lego City sets were sold off, including the train itself. Now after several years I´m slowly coming out of the dark age. I am planning to make a new city somewhere in the future, but currently I lack the space for any Lego creations. So most of those have to be stored in a box under my bed. My starting point for a new city was a large modular styled train station. As you can see here it's still under construction so minifigs can't enjoy it yet. 

 34207447124_c570023fea_c.jpg  7745-1.jpg
New Canalview city station WIP                   

Ofcourse I also wanted to have a nice train running around in this new city. I have bought the City high speed passenger train, but felt it was a little too simplistic to go with the new modular styled train station. Another option was creating my own passenger train. But that would take a lot of time, and I'm not really a train builder. Then I remembered the gorgeous Horizon Express that I used to have. I started up my computer and went searching for a second hand copy. It turned out the aftermarket was even more expensive then the original set! Two sets would cost me around € 400,- which is way too much for me. Also two sets would be really long, even too long for the new train station. But after that I wasn't going to give up, I browsed almost all Lego catalogues for more inspiration for the new train. Then I came across an old 12 V set which I really liked as a kid because of it's colors and attention to detail.

And then it struck me, why not combine the Horizon Express with the color of the older 12V set? After researching for parts on BrickLink it turned out that a red/black version of the horizon express could be build! After scrambling my own parts for it and calculating it turned out the be much cheaper than buying two new Horizon express's. The result can be seen here:

 35051931712_402816271f_z.jpg 35217462735_133a7896e2_z.jpg 

35217462385_c914e9f80f_z.jpg 35217462245_9b80a4cca6_z.jpg

 More high res pictures here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/145979506@N07/

There are some changes to the original, like the shape of the lights, the number of cars and the windows of the passenger cars. I like it kinda better this way. It still needs an interior, but I'm happy with the result for now. Also, I'm planning to add real lights to it so it can drive at night too.

Hope you like it as much as I do! If you have any suggestions or comments please let me know!

Edited by Brickviller V2

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Cool! Just as a simple recolor, this works nicely as a homage take on 7745, I love MOCs like that!

By the way, why did you end up selling your original Horizon Express anyway?

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I wanted set 7745 for YEARS as a kid--it'd show up in some catalogs etc, but was never sold in the US AFAIK--I know I never saw it ANYWHERE, not even the stores with huge walls of Lego that even sold the relatively rare train-track packs and switches. 

Just a bit of tweaking, and you could do a Thalys PBA (the earlier version of the Thalys, which is based on the TGV Reseau---which is still VERY similar to the TGV PSE that the Horizon express is based on):

16840361906_d8e1705f2f_b.jpg

Either way, a red TGV is canon, even if not that exact version in that exact scheme.  :)

Edited by steele

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On 06/10/2017 at 1:58 PM, kieran said:

Looks good in red

+1


And the station is nice too.  Can't wait to see it once it opens to the minifigs.

 

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This looks really good! The station is very well done, and the HE works great in red. I hope your model encourages others to do the same with their models in different colors. Blue would be nice assuming the parts are available in that color.

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Hi there, Brickviller V2, (is it V2 because you are back in the Lego spotlights ? after your dark ages...??). Brilliant idea of building your own Horizon Express. The red colour suits well. And your station MOC is also a very good looking building. Will it get an interior as well for buying tickets etc? Can't wait to see a follow-up on this station! Well done!

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On 2017-6-10 at 7:01 PM, Digger of Bricks said:

Cool! Just as a simple recolor, this works nicely as a homage take on 7745, I love MOCs like that!

By the way, why did you end up selling your original Horizon Express anyway?

Thanks! I ended up selling the original because I thought I wouldn't need it in the future (going into dark-age and all). I'm not really sorry for selling it though, because I kinda like my red version better. 

 

On 2017-6-12 at 5:59 PM, M_slug357 said:

Nice recolouring!

Also, I think a blue one and a yellow one have already been made.

Thanks. Yup, I was considering making a blue version because that seemed cheaper than the red one. But where I live we don't have any blue trains, but do have red ones. 

3 hours ago, Vliebricker said:

Hi there, Brickviller V2, (is it V2 because you are back in the Lego spotlights ? after your dark ages...??). Brilliant idea of building your own Horizon Express. The red colour suits well. And your station MOC is also a very good looking building. Will it get an interior as well for buying tickets etc? Can't wait to see a follow-up on this station! Well done!

Thanks! Yeah the station will get an interior, but work on it is really slow because of real life commitments. But yeah it will get an interior in time. 

 

Also the train lights arrived so it has front and back lights now. You can see it in this very professional photo :

 35323543025_075712033c.jpg

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My goodness, this is beautiful! :-) I haven't bought Horizon Express back then, but if Lego had had released it in this colour scheme, I would have for sure! Now it reminds me much more to 7742! :-) 

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