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[LEGOMAN132]

I hope the make new train cars for the Emerald Night as well.

This post has been edited by LEGOMAN132: 12 December 2009 - 05:58 AM

[peterab]

The Green Brick Giant, on Dec 12 2009, 10:44 AM, said:

I was hoping for more. They need train cars and other things, and they really really need a crane.

LEGOMAN132, on Dec 12 2009, 11:38 AM, said:

I hope the make new cars for the Emerald Night as well.

In Cpt. Zuloo's interview with Jamie Berard (I hope I got that somewhere right working from memory) the designer of Emerald Night, he ruled out any more cars for it. He also said it was unlikely single cars would be sold in the forseeable future because their sales have been poor in the past.

[Legoliner Pilot]

Excuse me and my newbish ways, but is a level crossing where track and road meet? You know, like that world city set that had a walkway, road crossover, etc.? I have that one, but it is broken up.

This post has been edited by Legoliner Pilot: 12 December 2009 - 04:26 AM

[Macoco]

Legoliner Pilot, on Dec 11 2009, 06:54 AM, said:

I am hoping that this passenger train will have more than just chairs and tables inside...

Yea I agree here. The Metroliner has IMO the best interior for any LEGO passenger train made. It had, snack bar, sleeping area, toliet and sink, cargo area, engine room, seating, and Driver area of course. Basically everything that a real life train has.
This wasn't hard to accomplish either, no new molds or special building techniques developed.
Now all they have as an interior are seats and tables and if we are lucky they have storage for suitcases

I also agree with Holodoc and what is the Power source. If they make PF, will they include all the motor parts? Will they include track?
They are called Cargo and Passenger Train not Engine. The EN is listed on LEGO.com as an Engine.
Or will they still have the parts available separately which would be for driving the price up

[peterab]

Legoliner Pilot, on Dec 12 2009, 03:25 PM, said:

Excuse me and my newbish ways, but is a level crossing where track and road meet? You know, like that world city set that had a walkway, road crossover, etc.? I have that one, but it is broken up.

Yes, that's correct a level crossing is where the train line crosses a road at the same level. I haven't bought one since the 4.5V blue track era, so I'm also interested to see what its like.

[cagri]

I'm quoting my own message in another forum, no train cars:

Quote

We had talked about this in the ambassadors forums. Train fans show lots of interest
for this. Unfotruantely it is not feasible and TLG doesn't seem to have any such
plans in the near future. Train is like an adult-only series, especially those
individual cars. They don't allocate too much resources for somethign that doesn't
have a comeback. They had to drop another exclusive model just to bring out Emerald
Night this year. Fans asked for seperate cars and this would mean they'd have
to drop out anotehr exclusive for that. Imagine not having Medieval Market Village
just for the sake of a train car, that wouldn't make sense sales-wise. Train
is not an evergreen theme and it's either in the City theme or exclusives. City
has its internal things and trains can't take all the space and those models
do not satisfy adults anyway. As for exclusives, liek I have mentioned, there
are betetr things to produce. So train is like a stepchild If you want to
see more of it, you have to buy more of it. So that they'll invest more.

That's what we've been told. Sorry to hurt your feelings, I lvoe trains too.

[Svelte]

From the Behind the Helm interview of Cpn Zuloo with Jamie Berard (transcribed by Izzy!), emphasis added:

Quote

Yeah, also do you think we will be seeing any more coaches for this fantastic set in the future?

Unfortunately we won’t be releasing any more wagons for the Emerald Night but that’s not to say there future trains won’t have wagons, but traditionally they haven’t done as well. Many fans say that they buy 5 or 6 wagons for every train, but it hasn’t shown that way in our sales numbers. So it has to be a very specific, very appealing wagon to be able to be on its own. Otherwise we have to think of a more creative way to offer it. So I wouldn’t say there is no potential of wagons in the future but at this time we would have to use one of our… basically every year there will be a specific number of sets and each set is given an article number, for example in the Lego Exclusive last year we launched 6 or 7 items. So you could say, ‘Okay you can have the wagon or Medieval Market, or the wagon or the Rebel Blockade Runner’, so when you only have a limited number of sets and you look at the potential and decided will people as a whole buy more and be more excited about something like the Medieval Market or a train and then another train wagon. It just takes away the potential to launch another item like the new Pirate Ship that is coming out; you could argue why couldn’t that be a new train wagon? In then end we can always make those decisions, we have an article number but when you have so few, it’s hard to justify doing a wagon when traditionally the sales of wagons have not been so strong.

[The Cobra]

That's sad to hear. I never owned a train, I probably never will. But, coming out of my dark years, I kept hoping for train cars to be released. In vain.

Thanks for the info.

[Mark Bellis]

In the light of the above explanation of why there will be no train cars...

We have to buy more Emerald Night sets:
- add the carriages to the engine
- turn the remaining engine parts into something else

At least we're not forced to buy a motor and battery with each Emerald Night - therefore it is feasible to buy more sets without making more engines.
Green tanker anyone?

The question is, would TLG make more EN sets if we bought the lot sooner than they expected? If not, could we petition for there to be one AFOL exclusive train set per year or two, while-ever we bought them?

The recommendation for the RC train sets, on the TLG website, is to add no more than 2 carriages to the ICE train and no more than 4 wagons to the goods train. This indicates that TLG don't design trains to have a lot of wagons. They couldn't pull them if they sold them. At least the train power and market policies are consistent! TLG is no longer in the ready-to-run train market.

We just have to be creative ourselves - that's what it's all about! I think this century MOC trains are the best anyway. Mine are here.

I'm working on hybrid trains, to make PF and 9V trains sit more easily alongside each other. We have to be creative with the electrics too!

Mark

[The Green Brick Giant]

I don't see why LEGO needs a "limited number of sets" they make like 3 times as many things now than 15 years ago. Just make a few LEGO.com exclusive sets and shut the hell up.

My problem with Emerald Night is that it isn't a train! It's half a train that cost $100 and will cost $250 to make half a train run! That's just insane. LEGO now admits that the Train theme is for adults, then why did they get rid of 9V Trains? Does LEGO even think before they do something?

[cagri]

The Green Brick Giant, on Dec 12 2009, 08:33 PM, said:

LEGO now admits that the Train theme is for adults, then why did they get rid of 9V Trains? Does LEGO even think before they do something?

If I remember right, it all started with a broken mold for the 9V tracks. It turned out to be too expensive to replace it and keep producing old rails. They switched to all plastic ones for cheaper sets.

[The Green Brick Giant]

cagri, on Dec 12 2009, 02:08 PM, said:

If I remember right, it all started with a broken mold for the 9V tracks. It turned out to be too expensive to replace it and keep producing old rails. They switched to all plastic ones for cheaper sets.

But that's just a LEGO lie.

The tracks are cheaper now because there are no metal pieces, however the mold is the same. Plus it's not any cheaper when it's still $16 for 8 pieces of straight track. Nothing became cheaper, all LEGO did was piss off AFOLs, and chrildren can't afford the trains.

[DaCheese]

I apologise for constantly bringing this up, but if Lego want better sales from Trains products, they need to push them a bit more. Expand the range and actually market it. Like I've also said before, with enough parts in the box a single kit could allow several coach types to be built for the Emerald Night. I'm sure a lot of people would consider the models available in such a kit to be "very specific and appealing" as Jamie put it, and taking a purely selfish viewpoint I'd happily sacrifice a Star Wars model for this. After all, we were given what is I'm led to believe the most powerful Lego locomotive for years and years...but nothing for it to pull.

I could of course build my own coaches and this has crossed my mind. Unfortunately the rarest parts used for the coach, such as the windows, aren't available on DesignbyMe in the more common colours, let alone brown chocolate and tan cream! I realise I could use BrickLink, but don't really want to do so. It doesn't make sense for me to buy several more complete 10194 boxes either. This is probably what Lego want us to do but who really wants or has space for another four or so identical engines?

[jonwil]

In addition to the cost savings of plastic track vs metal track, the other reason for the switch to battery powered trains is that there are safety issues (either real or perceived by parents) for toys that plug into the wall for smaller kids so by being battery powered it allows them to market to younger kids than is the case for trains that plug into the wall

[Matt Dawson]

Lego trains have never sold well - and it's not Lego Company's fault (though tbf it partly is - see later in post). Neither is it the AFOLs.

It's the retailers, who insist on never purchasing ANY train sets or wagons - many people would buy them because there isn't any other MOVING item in the City range (i.e. moves on it's own).

It doesn't help that Lego left the train line to rot like old wagons, then blame US (not the country) for poor sales! Look at the 1991 era - plenty of seperate wagons, track etc. to keep adults and child alike buying to expand their collection - "We can buy Timmy a train set for christmas and then he can buy extra wagons or track when he wants - and we can buy him them for his birthday too". Not any more.

Lego needs to realise that AFOLs WILL buy the 'kiddies' sets - because they SHOULD be cheap enough for us to buy, then customise. That's what being a AFOL is partly about - buying a set then detailing it/tweaking it so it'll look/perform better.