ElectroDiva

2018 Lego Trains

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Yeah. One of my biggest barriers as a trains collector, since I was younger, is it's nearly impossible to find resources out of the store shelves for trains, unless you know of bricklink. And even then it can be a stressful venture, dealing with parts lists, excel sheets, shipping costs, and making sure you've gotten everything on time. As nice as Bricklink is, Lego really needs to lower the barrier of entry for Lego trains, as official sets are usually the most economical, simple solution to stuff. I'd like to see Lego offer maybe one or two brick built trains, with no wagons. Just an unpowered locomotive with the parts to build a few alternate models, and a single car set. 1-133-1 was a perfect example of a set like that. $40 for a cool locomotive, and two minifigs, and you could find a car to go along with it, 10170-1, right next to it on the store shelves. As nice as a comprehensive train theme would be, part of 9V's downfall was the large amount of sets. If we had just the two city trains, maybe a small set or two, and a separate locomotive and car you could purchase, that'd be more than enough. 

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17 hours ago, Capparezza said:

We may be a community of AFOLs. But LEGO is clearly not releasing sets for our target group (not anymore, at least - see MyOwnTrain). In another thread (or was it here?) there has been the statement from 2013 that we, the AFOL community, account only for around 3% to 5% of global revenue. So the only way to get something "in it for us" means that we have to deal with what LEGO deems appropriate for children.

And that's what it's all about - LEGO releasing sets for children.

Clearly, no small toddler can churn out 120 bucks for a train set from his or her pocket money. Relying only on parents or other relatives to build up future Train AFOL potential seems a bit limiting to me. As long as LEGO doesn't deem smaller sets and addons (not to speak of the comeback of train related Service Packs) appropriate, this potential lies bare. That was the point I tried to make, I hope I didn't loose you on the "tracks" :wink:

 

I am not advocating for what Lego seems to be doing, I am just saying that I don't think they will change. And if they don't change, what can we do about it. Lego has turned in to a massive company driven by profits. Seems like rational behavior for a company. I was a lego ambassador for several years and saw some of the thinking that goes on behind the scenes. I brought up the idea of specialized sets for niche markets that would only sell on S@H, but at the time they were concerned about the number SKU's, they did not want to have too many SKU's. Have to keep the number of SKU's down. So they only had 6 slots per year for direct to consumer sets (now "creator expert") that were targeted at AFOLs. There is a business model somewhere driving those numbers, so only a few sets will be produced for AFOLs. And since they are seeking to maximize profit, should you produce a Horizon Express that train heads will buy, or produce a Star Wars set, or a modular building that will sell way more copies? As long as the number of production slots are limited, the profit margin on trains simply can't compete. I don't like it. I would love it if they did a revamp of the Super Chief in a different railroad's colors each year. It would be great if they had a selection of basic cars like the MOT, but for now the profit margin is not there to get their attention.

Had lego not bungled the hobby train (no exclusive parts, common color) or the HE (woops, common color again... hum...) I would think there could be a shot at a 3 in 1 freight car set (one Euro, one US, and one ??? model). But freight cars do not sell on their own, you need a good engine, so perhaps a 3 in 1 engine set too... but that is now two train sets where they currently have none. I presume this to mean the profit margin is not enough to entice lego back in to that market right now.

[don't get me wrong, I love the historic TGV scheme, but there is not enough demand for orange to turn it in to a parts pack the way the BNSF, Maersk, and EN did]

Yes they are missing out on the population of railfan kids who don't have access to bricklink or the budget to do a $500 MOC, but for each railfan kid there are 100's of minecraft fan kids. So again, potential profit to be had, but it is much smaller than the other profits to be had.

Anyone reading this thread probably loves trains... but if you were going to find a single model that would appeal to the world wide market for trains what would it be? What could it be? The Santa Fe worked because it was iconic, but was still limited to the US. As an American, Santa Fe was never my favorite railroad because I never lived near it. So even in the US market, regional tastes made it harder to sell. Clearly its sales exceeded expectations since the "limited edition" gave way to a not-so limited edition and was followed 6 mo later with passenger cars. But that was the old lego company, the set sold, but it would never sell as much as a licensed theme, or a city police station. So there is profit and then there is profit. I am sure they are hard pressed to come up with a set that enough folks would buy if it were to be the only AFOL train set available, but if trains keep getting to the top of Ideas they will probably start considering an AFOL train again.

If you can't find a singular train that everyone will flock to, what can lego do? Well, keep the train parts available, and that is what they are doing. They know how much lego we consume, and they want to keep that going. It strikes me as pragmatic on their part.

I am pretty sure that lego is still slowly working on a scheme that will allow them to sell niche market sets. That was what lego factory was supposed to allow. But the hand picking of individual pieces makes that an expensive option and the limited pallet makes it hard to design something nice. As more automation becomes available on the production side I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually do have an option to do runs of a few hundred sets or real sets on demand for specialized tastes.

 

 

 

 

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@zephyr1934 I didn't ask for new AFOL train sets... I'm pretty sure this is not the way to make money, and it seems LEGO knows as well. I don't know if I made that one clear enough, seems not: This is not about AFOL demand for new sets! 2 or 3 sets aimed at kids but supplementing trains in any way at the price range of 50 whateveryourcurrencymightbe or below is not too much to ask for. Keep them on stock for a while, not only 1 or 2 years but stick to the new train release period of 4 years (:hmpf_bad:), then make 2 or 3 new ones. And kids do not care if it's an American or European loco as long as it has play value!

This is doable, when they can do multiples of land-, sand- or snowspeeders and lots of other sets that don't sell well and regularly get packed to the discount area, surely it is... And through this, we get our Train supply as well. If you like the sets, buy em. If you like the sets a little but wish they'd look different, MOD em. Otherwise nothing has changed for you, MOC along and have fun.

 

@Lego Dino 500 :thumbup:

Edited by Capparezza

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30 minutes ago, Capparezza said:

And kids do not care if it's an American or European loco as long as it has play value!

:thumbup:

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Maybe already mentioned, but the new 60198 is definitely not worth €250.

Edited by Vilhelm22

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I agree with the idea that Lego should sell cars independent from sets. To reduce cost they could make them online-only and use cheaper packaging, maybe as big polybags. Doing them as a 3-1 kit would be cool because you could adjust the cars or even make three different kinds of cargo. Long trains are cool, but most parents aren’t going to spend 2X $150 just to get their child some extra cars. An observation car or double-decker car would be great for the high speed train. When given the choice between a duplicate of the set they have or spending $150 on different Lego few are going to choose the second train set.

Edited by gotoAndLego

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I think maybe the reason we don't see more train content from Lego is because they don't class trains as being "cool" or "modern" enough to include more prominently under the City line. I think most people would be in agreement though that a train makes a much more attractive toy than a garbage truck or a pizza delivery van.

Don't get me wrong, I love those sets too, but I just think Lego are missing a trick with their trains. A smaller locos sold separately without any rolling stock, track or power functions would fit nicely in to the "classic vehicles" range and if offered at an affordable price, this would be a big seller in my view. It would also compliment the big train sets and give more incentive for people to buy those as well.

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Kids today still love the Thomas the Tank Engine franchise (as I did when I was a kid), so why couldn't Lego do a three-in-one Creator set with a Earth Blue/Bright Blue/Dark Azure British tank engine as the star build, with a shunter diesel and passenger coach as the two alternate builds? :shrug_oh_well:

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4 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Kids today still love the Thomas the Tank Engine franchise (as I did when I was a kid), so why couldn't Lego do a three-in-one Creator set with a Earth Blue/Bright Blue/Dark Azure British tank engine as the star build, with a shunter diesel and passenger coach as the two alternate builds? :shrug_oh_well:

I was disappointed when LEGO had the Thomas license and only released Duplo products.

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5 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Kids today still love the Thomas the Tank Engine franchise (as I did when I was a kid), so why couldn't Lego do a three-in-one Creator set with a Earth Blue/Bright Blue/Dark Azure British tank engine as the star build, with a shunter diesel and passenger coach as the two alternate builds? :shrug_oh_well:

Seriously though, lego is missing out on a great chance to make money on cheap train sets. Kids love trains and could care less about the power functions little kids beg their parents for cheap trains that come with just the locomotive, then they beg for the train cars and buildings if lego had a train line similar with different style locomotives, cars, cargo and related buildings in the $10-$50 price range they would be a massive hit with people of all ages from young kids to AFOL's

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2 hours ago, Nexogeek said:

Seriously though, lego is missing out on a great chance to make money on cheap train sets. Kids love trains and could care less about the power functions little kids beg their parents for cheap trains that come with just the locomotive, then they beg for the train cars and buildings if lego had a train line similar with different style locomotives, cars, cargo and related buildings in the $10-$50 price range they would be a massive hit with people of all ages from young kids to AFOL's

If Lego hypothetically wanted to test out such a line to see if it would be successful, why don't they just limit its initial release to brand stores and/or select retailers? For that matter, why don't we see Lego do that more often with any other questionable concepts or genres? I believe that's how the Speed Champions theme is distributed, right?

3 hours ago, BryanKinkel said:

I was disappointed when LEGO had the Thomas license and only released Duplo products.

If Lego had concurrently done a Juniors-like line around the same time, perhaps that would have given us a few useful printed and/or recolored System parts to work with. 

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1 hour ago, Digger of Bricks said:

If Lego hypothetically wanted to test out such a line to see if it would be successful, why don't they just limit its initial release to brand stores and/or select retailers? For that matter, why don't we see Lego do that more often with any other questionable concepts or genres? I believe that's how the Speed Champions theme is distributed, right?

I believe Speed Champions is handled in that way being mainly a TRU item, They could make it a Walmart/Shop-at-home release for the first year or two, with TRU looking like its their last year as a store that wouldn't work and whats one store people go to a lot, Walmart. Just going off experience kids tend to drag their parent to the toy department of Walmart and begs for a set, mainly smaller ones due to chances being higher of getting, if they had an affordable train line that would be the perfect money makers given something like Thomas sells extremely well and isn't entire train sets with motors. 

If anyone from Lego is reading this take hints at whats popular and popular price ranges of said item :wink:

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For all of the really nice trains on Lego Ideas, if you sort by "train" tag and most supported there are two sets that hit 10k supporters but were not approved (modular train station and the vintage tram), the 3rd highest was a roundhouse that almost reached 3k supporters before it expired, and the fourth highest (first one that is still active) is a very nice looking build in what I would call "city train set style". Given that this set is rising to the top suggests to me that Lego has the pulse on what is popular with the city train theme. Part of what makes the set pop is the dark green loco, but I highly doubt that lego would use a relatively rare color for a loco in a city set like this. Two spots down in 6th place is an interesting little chemical plant that is still active, though in this case the "train" component is a tank car, with the main focus on the plant. If instead of "train" you search for "railroad", "railway", "locomotive" or a few tag words then that city train tops the list in terms of supporters.

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I'm not really sure what's happening with the new power functions - Technic 42082 uses the current motor and that's a Summer 2018 set.

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3 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

Two spots down in 6th place is an interesting little chemical plant that is still active, though in this case the "train" component is a tank car, with the main focus on the plant. If instead of "train" you search for "railroad", "railway", "locomotive" or a few tag words then that city train tops the list in terms of supporters.

That chemical plant is quite new, rising fast and stands a good chance of hitting 10k before the other current ideas on there. The reason is probably its cross market appeal for anyone interested in Science/Education, Trains and structures to add to a Lego city. I've supported it and really hope it makes it through.

 

Also found this little gem of a German steam locomotive which appears to be a resubmission but is doing much better this time round. Not sure it will hit 10k but it would be an instant buy for me if it did

1 hour ago, Vilhelm22 said:

I'm not really sure what's happening with the new power functions - Technic 42082 uses the current motor and that's a Summer 2018 set.

The speculation is that the city train sets will be around for much longer so it makes sense to move them to power functions 2.0 first. PF2 would then follow for technic sets in the Winter 2018 wave

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8 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

For all of the really nice trains on Lego Ideas, if you sort by "train" tag and most supported there are two sets that hit 10k supporters but were not approved (modular train station and the vintage tram), the 3rd highest was a roundhouse that almost reached 3k supporters before it expired, and the fourth highest (first one that is still active) is a very nice looking build in what I would call "city train set style". Given that this set is rising to the top suggests to me that Lego has the pulse on what is popular with the city train theme. Part of what makes the set pop is the dark green loco, but I highly doubt that lego would use a relatively rare color for a loco in a city set like this. Two spots down in 6th place is an interesting little chemical plant that is still active, though in this case the "train" component is a tank car, with the main focus on the plant. If instead of "train" you search for "railroad", "railway", "locomotive" or a few tag words then that city train tops the list in terms of supporters.

The chemical plant is pretty great and well detailed, hopefully it makes it to 10K and gets approved

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On 1/26/2018 at 11:12 AM, Digger of Bricks said:

Kids today still love the Thomas the Tank Engine franchise (as I did when I was a kid), so why couldn't Lego do a three-in-one Creator set with a Earth Blue/Bright Blue/Dark Azure British tank engine as the star build, with a shunter diesel and passenger coach as the two alternate builds? :shrug_oh_well:

There are a few significant differences between Thomas toys and Lego trains. Firstly (and perhaps most importantly), Thomas the Tank Engine is a franchise aimed primarily at preschoolers, not at regular Lego's older audience. Preschool-age kids love trains, but that doesn't necessarily prove there's a market with older kids like the ones buying Lego. Secondly, most (not all, but most) Thomas toys are much smaller and a much lower price point than full-size, minifig-scale Lego trains. It's much easier to sell a tiny Thomas train at the price of, say, a Lego polybag, than it would be to sell an individual minifig-scale locomotive (let alone a large series of them), and even a larger track set for those small trains will get you more bang for your buck than a Lego train set due to only having to accommodate those sorts of tiny trains, allowing for more complex layouts with ramps, junctions, bridges, etc.

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6 hours ago, Lyichir said:

...Thomas the Tank Engine is a franchise aimed primarily at preschoolers, not at regular Lego's older audience...

...Although, it would be interesting to see a few Lego versions of  the engines that Thomas & Co. are based off of-- albeit in severely different color schemes, as well as no faces (duh)-- so as not to arouse any copyright infringement. Mattel doesn't own the rights to the real-world prototypes, so I think it's safe to say that Lego builds could be made...

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On 1/25/2018 at 9:40 AM, ElectroDiva said:

That sounds pretty cool. Got any pics / vids we can take a look at?

When I'm finished.  ;o)

I've got the train and track done, and putting together an MDF base soon so we can eat at the dining table again....  I've also built a Victorian train station plus a separate signal box with a small water tower, an Anglican church with a wooden covered gate and small cemetery and memorial garden, and a green Series 2 Land Rover.  Just started on a blue BR Class 08 shunter with PF in LDD.  Then I'm going to do a fake tunnel on a phantom branch line.  I'll probably remove all the white elements from my Winter Village collection and add those too.  Seems a waste to limit them to a single season.

I've already got a picture of the church on Jonny Interwebs somewhere.  Let me see if I can find it for you.  Indeed, in an earlier incarnation I submitted it to Ideas as a "castle keep" to get round the rules on religious content.  (I added the churchy bits, and the cemetery, gate and garden later.)

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Turns out I'd posted more pictures than I'd remembered.

Church.  I've added a flint wall using round 1x1 plates of varying colours, a tree in the style of the ones in the giant Big Ben set, a lamp post, and flowers in the garden.  Just got to add a gravel pathway from the gate to the door. 
https://us.v-cdn.net/5015319/uploads/editor/zx/llox5cv89n5o.jpg

Signal box.  I've now moved the water tower to a separate 16x16 plate and put it on top of the lattice masts from the Constitution set. 
https://us.v-cdn.net/5015319/uploads/editor/na/b8zztnn84n35.jpeg

Land Rover.  This is unchanged. 
https://us.v-cdn.net/5015319/uploads/editor/dg/lpnsqqu3o31a.jpeg

Right that's enough before I get told off for the lack of train content.  

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Those builds are great @Zetroc - they really have a mid 20th century English village feel about them - can't wait to see your layout.

 

You should start a thread for it - even if it's still in progress. There's a lot of friendly people on here with a lot of expertise in creating layouts and I'm sure you would get some good advice.

 

I'm planning on doing the same when I have room for a permanent layout of my own.

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7 hours ago, M_slug357 said:

...Although, it would be interesting to see a few Lego versions of  the engines that Thomas & Co. are based off of-- albeit in severely different color schemes, as well as no faces (duh)-- so as not to arouse any copyright infringement. Mattel doesn't own the rights to the real-world prototypes, so I think it's safe to say that Lego builds could be made...

Exactly! :thumbup:

And, given Creator's age range of six to twelve, who's to say that kids who grew up with the show would completely grow out of trains and locomotives overall?

It's still a damn shame that Mattel practically OWNS the franchise. 

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I just do not understand why from LEGO have bet on the red color for the new cargo train (60198), since the last cargo train was red and did not have that much success as the Blue one (60052)? And why from LEGO have decided the new cargo train to be a strange mix of an electric type and double cabbed EMD of a type? Just do not get it.

 

 

 

For sure the passenger train looks cool and for sure the two trains will have a new remote control - or at least as a new design, but we will see this in the summer.

Edited by Peppermint_M
Removed Confidential Image- Do not post them Do not use EB to host them.

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5 minutes ago, nitramvortimid said:

I just do not understand why from LEGO have bet on the red color for the new cargo train (60198), since the last cargo train was red and did not have that much success as the Blue one (60052)?

How do you know the blue cargo train was more successful than the red cargo train?

3 minutes ago, nitramvortimid said:

And why from LEGO have decided the new cargo train to be a strange mix of an electric type and double cabbed EMD of a type? Just do not get it.

It's a toy. Not a scale model.

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52 minutes ago, nitramvortimid said:

I just do not understand why from LEGO have bet on the red color for the new cargo train (60198), since the last cargo train was red and did not have that much success as the Blue one (60052)? And why from LEGO have decided the new cargo train to be a strange mix of an electric type and double cabbed EMD of a type? Just do not get it.

For sure the passenger train looks cool and for sure the two trains will have a new remote control - or at least as a new design, but we will see this in the summer.

I would remove that picture if i were you since it's stamped confidential, anything with that on isn't aloud on here for obvious reasons, also where are you getting red from in the new train? It's green with a yellow stripe and some white. 

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