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2018 Lego Trains

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did Emerald Night really sell poorly? 

I can understand Horizion Express selling poorly, but Emerald Night seemed like it was one of the most well received sets in a very long time, even with the needing to double the price to add power to it. 

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1 hour ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Ohhh, a train heist! :excited:

On the box of the freight train coming out this year, there seems to be a crook standing on the rails with binoculars on the siding.. or maybe he's just a freight hopper? :tongue:

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20 minutes ago, Maple said:

Exactly! A train heist. A set with only a train cargo container that the criminals are jumping on to escape the 'Wild West' Police (because LEGO will run out of locations for police soon. :laugh:). 

Cool! I'd like such a set to include a steam locomotive as opposed to a diesel one, but I just don't think that's ever going to happen to the City theme. 

20 minutes ago, Maple said:

A coal train car that could go along with the mining theme.

Another ingenious idea! :thumbup:

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8 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Cool! I'd like such a set to include a steam locomotive as opposed to a diesel one, but I just don't think that's ever going to happen to the City theme.

In my head it's an old west style steam locomotive. We have a modern passenger and cargo train, let's do something different. Make it a $90-120 set with a bunch of police vehicles. Maybe a bad guy run down truck as the criminals jump on the train.

Small coal car and a mining truck wouldn't cost that much, $25. Same with a rail crossing with some fallen trees, fire pieces and a small fire truck, $30-40. Plus City is the most overpriced theme LEGO has so that would be a benefit for them.

I don't think anything I'm saying will be made into sets. LEGO no longer takes risks, they just make an overpriced wall and add some figures to it and call it a day. Then moan when sales are down.

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Honestly a train heist set would be pretty sweet tbh, don't include power functions but make it so its easy to add, a police helicopter (we all know lego loves their helicopters) a police car, enough track for a circle, small rat-rod for the criminals, and maybe a small bank for the criminals to rob then hop in the car to the train and jump in the in-closed cargo car. The train could easily be just a steam locomotive, coal car, and maybe 2 cargo cars and could be the massive $120 city set like they seem to over do in the special summer sub-theme. Not only is it police and police sells but having a small helicopter and small bank could add to the appeal and story and introduce kids to lego trains and maybe they do a smaller police set with a train car or two and for the police station make it a train station that is also half police station with a holding cell or two

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1 hour ago, Goldenmasamune said:

did Emerald Night really sell poorly? 

I can understand Horizion Express selling poorly, but Emerald Night seemed like it was one of the most well received sets in a very long time, even with the needing to double the price to add power to it. 

Released on April, 1st 2009 as a S@H "exclusive", when hardly anyone had a smartphone and many people didn't even have a PC at home and/or access to the internet.

http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/10194_Emerald_Night

Also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007–2008

I bet you're not alone, though. I don't think the geniuses over at LEGO HQ managed to figure it out on their own.

BTW, I didn't buy an Emerald Night even though I may have been able to afford one. On the one hand I didn't like the fact that you had to buy multiples in order to get more than one passenger car and on the other hand I really hated the brick built doors. I still don't like them.

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57 minutes ago, 3797 said:

Released on April, 1st 2009 as a S@H "exclusive", when hardly anyone had a smartphone and many people didn't even have a PC at home and/or access to the internet.

http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/10194_Emerald_Night

Also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007–2008

I bet you're not alone, though. I don't think the geniuses over at LEGO HQ managed to figure it out on their own.

BTW, I didn't buy an Emerald Night even though I may have been able to afford one. On the one hand I didn't like the fact that you had to buy multiples in order to get more than one passenger car and on the other hand I really hated the brick built doors. I still don't like them.

Well, I guess people like me who bought like a dozen of them for extra cars helped balance it out!

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2 hours ago, Maple said:

In my head it's an old west style steam locomotive. We have a modern passenger and cargo train, let's do something different. Make it a $90-120 set with a bunch of police vehicles. Maybe a bad guy run down truck as the criminals jump on the train.

It would be amazing if we eventually saw a 1940's gangster train holdup playset; but, I don't think the City theme may ever support anything not set within the present day. Maybe someday in the far future perhaps?

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It can be be a 40s style car for the bad guy, an old style train with modern police vehicles, mix both. The swamp police and even the mountain police, the bad gusy act like it's the 1930s, yet the cars are modern. In Arctic we are getting slightly futuristic looking vehicles so anything is possible.

Someone go call LEGO up and tell them our ideas.

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10 minutes ago, Maple said:

In Arctic we are getting slightly futuristic looking vehicles so anything is possible.

True, they certainly are pushing the envelope with City recently. 

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5 hours ago, 3797 said:

Released on April, 1st 2009 as a S@H "exclusive", when hardly anyone had a smartphone and many people didn't even have a PC at home and/or access to the internet.

http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/10194_Emerald_Night

Also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007–2008

I bet you're not alone, though. I don't think the geniuses over at LEGO HQ managed to figure it out on their own.

BTW, I didn't buy an Emerald Night even though I may have been able to afford one. On the one hand I didn't like the fact that you had to buy multiples in order to get more than one passenger car and on the other hand I really hated the brick built doors. I still don't like them.

In the developed world in 2009, plenty of people had smartphones and most had a PC and internet access at home.  As for the financial crisis, TLG never noticed.  Its revenue grew stronger: https://www.statista.com/statistics/282870/lego-group-revenue/   The passenger cars were easy to part out on Bricklink for a few years.  Less so now as the windows get rarer.  One I did recently set me back £65.

Like the man from TLG said, people don't go for the trains so much.

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One thing I felt stood out from that interview was that the Christmas train DID sell well. That sort of leads to the conclusion that if trains are integrated into other lines (Harry Potter being one possibility), they may sell better to people who have no previous interest.

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53 minutes ago, Kalahari134 said:

One thing I felt stood out from that interview was that the Christmas train DID sell well. That sort of leads to the conclusion that if trains are integrated into other lines (Harry Potter being one possibility), they may sell better to people who have no previous interest.

I bought the 60052: Cargo Train set largely in part because of 10254: Winter Holiday Train.
Otherwise, the only other Train set I have ever owned was 7722: Steam Cargo Train Set when I was a kid.

I wonder if it has had that sort of an impact on anyone else out there...

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3 hours ago, Kalahari134 said:

One thing I felt stood out from that interview was that the Christmas train DID sell well. That sort of leads to the conclusion that if trains are integrated into other lines (Harry Potter being one possibility), they may sell better to people who have no previous interest.

I expect the Christmas train sold well because it was part of the winter village theme. But could the fact it was also a good looking steam loco have also played a role?

Steam engine's are a much more attractive topic for models or toys. They might be too old fashioned to fit in with the current version of lego city but I bet a steam train set would sell better than diesel/electric passenger and freight sets.

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Although I loved they did the stream loco route, the winter train didn't appeal to me. It just felt so tiny, the power functions on it were terrible, and it seemed like you didn't get much for what you paid. I disliked it so much, I built my own christmas train. 

The original christmas train set was pretty beautiful though, but even with that I built a much bigger loco. 

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4 hours ago, Kalahari134 said:

One thing I felt stood out from that interview was that the Christmas train DID sell well. That sort of leads to the conclusion that if trains are integrated into other lines (Harry Potter being one possibility), they may sell better to people who have no previous interest.

Yes! We need to convince LEGO to see if that's true. But I feel it might be because people collect the Winter series.

I only have the old Holiday train, which at the time was HALF OFF at S@H (Which I guess proved trains aren't huge sellers.) and the Toy Shop.

The problem is a train is $150 and until recently not on sale ever. I couldn't afford it. However having worked in toy stores I don't think money is an issue really, there are many $120 sets in City now. Maybe it's the 12 batteries the darn things need.

 

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3 hours ago, Maple said:

But I feel it might be because people collect the Winter series.

That's exactly my point. Quite a few people bought the Christmas train who would not otherwise have looked twice at trains. They did it because it fitted in with their other sets. The city train sets don't really integrate with the rest of the line, if they had sets that looked like they fitted in with other parts of the range, parents and collectors alike may be more tempted. Examples from the current range would be Mining and Harry Potter while things like Construction would've fitted in past ranges.

I also feel that as an inevitable consequence of sticking all non-AFOL oriented trains in City, they have restricted themselves only to modern traction. I reckon (those of you who exhibit might have a better idea) that kids might be more likely to prefer a steam train. Perhaps one of the trains on offer ought to be within the Creator (non-Expert) line.

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2 hours ago, Kalahari134 said:

Perhaps one of the trains on offer ought to be within the Creator (non-Expert) line.

THIS! ^

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7 hours ago, Chromeknight said:

Train doors in Black in the new HP coach set.

So they still have the mould!

I may be wrong but I believe that door part was re-launched last Summer with the City bus seen in my picture below...

39788495794_49a248052d_z_d.jpg

It has also been included in white in the new City Caravan and truck set. This is why I'm surprised it hasn't been used with either of the new Trains due out this summer. It seems a wasted opportunity to not have included the doors in the new trains.

Edited by Bricked1980

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12 hours ago, Kalahari134 said:

I also feel that as an inevitable consequence of sticking all non-AFOL oriented trains in City, they have restricted themselves only to modern traction. I reckon (those of you who exhibit might have a better idea) that kids might be more likely to prefer a steam train. Perhaps one of the trains on offer ought to be within the Creator (non-Expert) line.

As someone that exhibits a lot, I can tell you kids don't care what a train is, as long as its moving. 

A few may recognise the Hogwarts Express, but that's about it. They wouldn't know its a Hall that thinks its a Castle. 

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That's true, anything that moves will attract attention. What they might prefer to buy though when looking at a picture on a box may be different. I certainly think that the lack of a simple steam train in the range doesn't really help.

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Not really a train, but:

1-1521186031.jpg

So we get the black train doors back!! Is some HP like set, as seen on 1000steine.

(Chromeknight you beat me too it already ;))

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1 hour ago, JopieK said:

So we get the black train doors back!! Is some HP like set, as seen on 1000steine.

(Chromeknight you beat me too it already ;))

Are those doors not the same as the one featured in the City Bus station set from last summer? I mentioned this in a post a bit further up this page. They look the same to me but perhaps there are subtle differences?

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