2019 LEGO Trains - 70424

[3797]

14 hours ago, bricks n bolts said:

... it would drive me nuts mixing the bricks with LEGO stuff.

That's why I replaced those windows with real ones. I was waiting for LEGO to officially re-release the Emerald Night but gave up hope and bit the bullet. When the Emerald Night was available I didn't buy it, because I didn't have the funds for three of them and I really disliked the brick built doors. Nowadays I'm so bored and desperate that I'm almost done rebricking it. And a 2nd one in different colours. The black bogie plates are a real problem, though. I do have more than enough yellow ones from four parted out 60197 passenger trains but don't want the yellow to shine through.

[Toastie]

7 hours ago, Holodoc said:

These brands don't deserve neither attention nor support from our side

Well, personally I truly believe that "not paying attention" to things that simply happen around you, and Leppin >is< happening, is - well - IMHO - arrogant. Sorry to phrase it that harsh, but such developments have to be faced. And openly discussed. The weaknesses have to be pointed out. The strengths as well. In history and surely presently in this world too many "developments" deserve attention and awareness. And not looking away.  

"Support" is something totally different. I am not talking about support at all. Attention and discussion is - as far as I am concerned - the core of the matter.

Not paying attention from a supposedly "better" or "higher" perspective never makes things go away. I believe: In contrast. We need to pay very close attention. And then take measures. 

Just my 2 Cents.

Best
Thorsten.     

[bricks n bolts]

5 hours ago, ALCO said:

I for one will be getting this set FOR the re-railer, as it will make  putting my 4-8-8-4 Big Boy with Centipede tender back on the track a breeze! Not to mention all the other good train parts like the doors!

Who would want to argue with a 4-8-8-4 Big Boy with Centipede tender. Happy rolling.

8 hours ago, Holodoc said:

There is nothing wrong with producing old and abandoned elements originally made from TLC. Also there is nothing to say about using new elements which simply don't exist (yet) from TLC.

If you call yourself a hardcore purist (like me) - well, then just don't work with those parts and everybody is fine. But please be gentle to those who have a wider understanding of building with bricks.

My biggest sin is wanting light grey track, I may never be forgiven for this...

I note that if you are really hardcore purist, according to this definition, then all PF elements are soon to be off the table for PuP only, and you have long been unable to use 9v or 12v elements for a long long time.

Mixing eras is one of the biggest fun elements for me, so not an option for me.

58 minutes ago, Toastie said:

Not paying attention from a supposedly "better" or "higher" perspective never makes things go away. I believe: In contrast. We need to pay very close attention. And then take measures. 

Just my 2 Cents. 

You are the wisest of us.

IP theft worries many people in many industries, it won't just go away, and is a bigger issue than either the musings of us train heads or the narrow commercial interests of TLC.

[3797]

1 hour ago, Toastie said:

Not paying attention from a supposedly "better" or "higher" perspective never makes things go away. I believe: In contrast. We need to pay very close attention. And then take measures. 

Very well put. I too feel that being aware is better than being a scammer's easy victim. Offering certain bits as spares may also be in LEGO best interest or else they risk losing at least some revenue to other companies like the one from Flörsheim. If they make enough to be able to pay designers and run a legit company that is paying taxes in Germany, then I'm sure we're talking about a decent amount of money.

[fred67]

1 hour ago, bricks n bolts said:

I note that if you are really hardcore purist, according to this definition, then all PF elements are soon to be off the table for PuP only, and you have long been unable to use 9v or 12v elements for a long long time.

No... that's not what "purist" means.  PF is still LEGO, as are the old 9V LEGO Trains.  Just because they aren't current doesn't make them not "purist."

 

[XG BC]

you know what i hate about official lego trains is that they all have yellow bogie plates wich are so ugly if you have a red train. why cant they just produce all of them in black i dont get it.

XG BC

[dr_spock]

Maybe their train focus group study indicated yellow is better for most set builders?  I'm glad I bought a bunch of black ones when there were available back them.

There seems to be many definitions of purists.  Pick the one that fits you and enjoy your hobby. 

 

[Toastie]

38 minutes ago, dr_spock said:

Pick the one that fits you and enjoy your hobby

This is so well phrased!

That is my world.

[koalayummies]

Yeah I don't really like the looseness of that bogie plate connection either; 2x2 turn table plate is a decent alternative and eliminates the need for technic plates or those huge limiting train baseplates.

[Mr Hobbles]

8 hours ago, XG BC said:

you know what i hate about official lego trains is that they all have yellow bogie plates wich are so ugly if you have a red train. why cant they just produce all of them in black i dont get it.

XG BC

I think it's because over the years there has been complaints of certain parts being difficult to see in instruction booklets. Dark grey vs black, light grey vs grey, etc, and it gets more tricky when you have to spot the new piece in the new page of the instructions, and the piece and the build you're placing it on are the same color. So they tend to use contrasting colors for pieces that are near each other.

Cue random blue 2x2's in the middle of a fire truck, or a yellow train plate under the wagon.

[XG BC]

your explenation has explained it to me. I would prefer instructions like the fischertechnik building kits wich have only the parts that are added in colour and the rest is in a very light grey.

XG BC

[Capparezza]

14 hours ago, XG BC said:

your explenation has explained it to me. I would prefer instructions like the fischertechnik building kits wich have only the parts that are added in colour and the rest is in a very light grey.

XG BC

Well, maybe for you but not for me. How can a bogie plate be to small to be seen in the instructions? While it indeed makes sense for small parts, or in the event of Technic axles to distinguish between odd or even lenghts, this is absolutely overkill for such big parts as train bogie plates....

 

If one would only be able to order bogie plates in black.

Edited February 22, 2019 by Capparezza

[zephyr1934]

On 2/21/2019 at 7:21 PM, Mr Hobbles said:

I think it's because over the years there has been complaints of certain parts being difficult to see in instruction booklets. Dark grey vs black, light grey vs grey, etc, and it gets more tricky when you have to spot the new piece in the new page of the instructions, and the piece and the build you're placing it on are the same color. So they tend to use contrasting colors for pieces that are near each other.

Cue random blue 2x2's in the middle of a fire truck, or a yellow train plate under the wagon.

I don't think it is for ease of construction, there are several dark colors that are still hard to tell apart in the instruction books (e.g., dark blay and dark tan). I think it is to make customer support a lot easier. Non FOL will not know to call something an nxm, so it is a lot easier to just say "the red thing".

[TeriXeri]

I don't see the instructions as an excuse to make a part a different color.

In the old days maybe, where they didn't list each part needed at each step, but now they do.

[Capparezza]

5 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

I don't see the instructions as an excuse to make a part a different color.

In the old days maybe, where they didn't list each part needed at each step, but now they do.

Well, the thing is that they did not use weird colours back in the days of those "advanced" instructions. I'm still not sure about why they have started adding ugly colours and dumbing down the instructions at the same time.

I just finished constructing 6430 Night Patroller with my 5yo son and he didn't have any problems spotting which parts he had to put where. And there are a lot of same coloured bricks in some steps, mostly black and white.

[ivanlan9]

@Aanchir Hang in there, "dude."    I, for one, read all your posts (in Trains, anyway).

[technic70s]

I for one am loving the new train ramp, we have a show coming up where we will use the ramp with kids building a train carriage and this would make it much easier for them to put it on the track.

Track Ramp by Stephen, on Flickr

[Aanchir]

On 2/23/2019 at 2:30 PM, Capparezza said:

Well, the thing is that they did not use weird colours back in the days of those "advanced" instructions. I'm still not sure about why they have started adding ugly colours and dumbing down the instructions at the same time.

I just finished constructing 6430 Night Patroller with my 5yo son and he didn't have any problems spotting which parts he had to put where. And there are a lot of same coloured bricks in some steps, mostly black and white.

For a lot of the more generic bricks used in interiors I know there are also other justifications for using brighter colors… for example, it can help offset the cost of recolored elements that might otherwise not be used in many sets, like how many of last year's and this year's sets have used colors like Bright Bluish Green in places they're otherwise not visible. Also, more varied colors makes it easier to differentiate between parts that are similar in size/shape and quickly find the one you need when they're all in a pile — whether in regard to an individual set's contents, or your personal collection. I don't think either is a particular issue with parts as large or functionally specific as a bogie plate.

I think the reason that functional elements like bogie plates and Technic pins/axles/gears are often color-coded has more to do with the fact that attaching the wrong piece, or in the case of bogie plates, attaching the right piece in the wrong place, can have a much bigger impact on a set's playability than an average brick or plate. The design of the train base pieces, with three adjacent Technic holes, means there's room for error in terms of where you attach the bogie plate. And a less experienced builder isn't necessarily going to anticipate the possibility that putting the bogie plate in the wrong plate might screw up the train's turning radius, or keep the wire from the battery box being long enough to reach the motor.

And unfortunately, the number of low-quality toys out there means kids whose LEGO sets don't seem to work right aren't necessarily going to recognize it stems from errors on their part — they could just as easily think the design itself is defective, and end up costing LEGO money in unnecessary customer service calls, or even refrain from buying future sets. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if some of these design decisions were actually based on feedback from LEGO Customer Service about what design features tend to cause the most confusion or frustration for kids and parents.

At BrickFair New Jersey a member of LEGO's customer service department at BrickFair New Jersey explained that responding individually to a customer service call about a set can be enough to cancel out the profits from that set's sale, so LEGO generally wants their customer service department focused on resolving serious issues like missing parts or quality defects, not troubleshooting building mistakes that clearer product and/or instruction booklet design could have prevented entirely.

[TeriXeri]

One set example where they use odd colors is the Police truck on this year's Sky Police Diamond Heist set, the red and green parts.

While I can understand them using 1x4 modified tiles with 2 studs instead of 1x4 plates (to reduce stress on the 2x16 plate by avoiding 32 connected studs), still uses 8 of them in red.

And the 2x2 and 1x4 plates also used in the same set in white/darkblue, yet they use some green and red ones too.

Now I am not complaining, I just find it interesting choice of colors in that one vehicle build's wheelbase.

Mainly noticed it via the Jangbricks video, then looked up Instructions.

Edited February 25, 2019 by TeriXeri

[technic70s]

The yellow bogey has been used since 2010 in 8 sets.

 The last time we had the black was 2013.

 The red bogey plate  was produced in 2016 with the Winter Holiday Train 10254 which needs a red plate to suit that train.

I would say due to storage space, they can only have two colours at a time and they have not dropped the red part.

[Capparezza]

On 2/25/2019 at 7:32 PM, Aanchir said:

For a lot of the more generic bricks used in interiors I know there are also other justifications for using brighter colors… for example, it can help offset the cost of recolored elements that might otherwise not be used in many sets...

That sounds reasonable, a very possible thing indeed, Thanks for that.

On 2/25/2019 at 7:32 PM, Aanchir said:

At BrickFair New Jersey a member of LEGO's customer service department at BrickFair New Jersey explained that responding individually to a customer service call about a set can be enough to cancel out the profits from that set's sale, so LEGO generally wants their customer service department focused on resolving serious issues like missing parts or quality defects, not troubleshooting building mistakes that clearer product and/or instruction booklet design could have prevented entirely.

Hm, I don't know about you, but I'd prefer wondering about building steps in comparison to getting damaged parts Yes, it costs money having busy customer service, of course. I just can't believe that the instructions have been so bad in the past to justify adding costs per set anyway, in the way of dumbing down the instructions and thus doubling (or maybe even tripling) the total sum of manual pages.

[Laura Beinbrech]

While I tend to agree with the sentiment that the set would have been better with a more vintage style locomotive, I'm definitely getting this:  With the addition of some Powered-up/PF motor & battery box/controllers, and a few other modifications, I can use the locomotive for one of my main evil-aligned factions, the Grand Duchy of New York, which is ruled by a mad scientist & tends to reflect the dark side of technology, so having a modern styled locomotive in the current trend of the soulless iCrap design philosophy that seems to have taken over everything these days would be perfect for them.

Also, speaking as someone who is in PennLUG, which is a fairly train-heavy LUG, particularly when it comes to public displays, I'm interested to see how the ball & socket method of coupling cars compares to the magnetic couplers.  The reason being that when we run shows, even with the old-school open-magnet magnetic couplers, we have to put small rare-earth magnets between the couplers in order to run trains that have more than like about 4-5 cars in them.  If the ball socket connectors do a better job of holding together (even if it's not as easy to couple/decouple cars on the fly), I'd gladly switch to those, especially if I can get the parts to make more of them for cheaper than even the brand-new sealed magnet couplers (it would be funny if they use the exact same system I came up with almost 10 years ago for my narrow-gauge trains, which seems to work pretty well).

And speaking of public displays, I'm pretty sure that the LUG could use a few of those railing ramps for rapidly setting up the trains for shows (and I'd be more than happy to more or less permanently loan mine to the LUG, since I don't have any kind of permanent display at home and would most likely be running my trains on the LUG's display at various shows anyways.)

EDIT:  Also, in regards to the train windows/bogie plates thing that also came up earlier in this thread I have the following observations to add:  First of all, while it would be nice to see the old type train windows come back, I generally find that the airplane windows/generic 1x4x3/other modern equivalents are generally satisfactory for train use.  Secondly, again, based on my experiences as a member of PennLUG & working with the LUG's train layouts, I can say for a fact that the bogie plates are not only not necessary, but actually an inferior option to using 2x2 turntable plates for connecting the bogies to the base of train cars (not to mention way, way, WAY cheaper):  After all, that's the method that @Cale & Brick Model Railroader uses for all their rolling stock, and that method seems to work better for keeping the bogies attached to the bottom of the train cars.

Edited February 27, 2019 by Laura Beinbrech
Just thunked of something else....

[Aanchir]

45 minutes ago, Capparezza said:

That sounds reasonable, a very possible thing indeed, Thanks for that.

Hm, I don't know about you, but I'd prefer wondering about building steps in comparison to getting damaged parts Yes, it costs money having busy customer service, of course. I just can't believe that the instructions have been so bad in the past to justify adding costs per set anyway, in the way of dumbing down the instructions and thus doubling (or maybe even tripling) the total sum of manual pages.

I think you and I are on the same page there. Damaged parts are definitely a bigger problem than confusing instructions, but that's part of why LEGO wants their customer service department's time and budget going towards logging and resolving those kind of serious complaints, and not stuff like play features not working because the builder made a mistake without noticing. Any of us who have been on hold with LEGO Customer Service know that any time they're on the line with a customer is time, another customer is probably on hold, possibly with an even more pressing issue!

The added cost of additional instruction pages may add to the production costs of a set in some small capacity, but besides preventing customer service complaints or buyer frustrations that might result from excessive ambiguity, they also can help make the set accessible to a much wider audience. In a sense, some of this perceived "dumbing down" has enabled sets to become more complex/intricate while still being accessible to an audience as wide or wider. Consider the differences between https://brickset.com/sets/10210-1/Imperial-Flagship and https://brickset.com/sets/70618-1/Destiny-s-Bounty. The latter is much bigger in terms of both weight and piece count, has far more detail and complexity, etc… but it is accessible to ages 9 and up rather than ages 14 and up, probably in part because it has clearer, less confusing instructions and fewer flimsy areas that might frustrate younger builders.

Likewise, https://brickset.com/sets/6590-1/Vacation-Camper from 1988 was marked for ages 7–12, while https://brickset.com/sets/60182-1/Pickup-Caravan is marked for ages 5–12, despite being way bigger and more complex. I don't think it's realistic to assume that five-year-olds today are simply smarter than they were 30 years ago, or that LEGO either severely underestimated their building ability back then or is severely overestimating their building ability now. Rather, the user-friendly features they've implemented like numbered bags, clearly color-coded elements, and longer, clearer building instructions have made it so that bigger builds and more advanced techniques can be used in sets without the same risk of confusing or alienating younger builders.

[Digger of Bricks]

If you guys check out the discussion and speculative deductions made so far in this below posted topic of @Vilhelm22's, there may be some chance we'll be seeing a rerelease of the Emerald Night for this year. 

 

[technic70s]

I have just seen some conjecture by Ashley Bognar on "Lego Train Fan Club" Facebook page that the wheels for the trains may have had the metal axle removed. Here is what he posted.

"So, Lego has redesigned the 3×6 Train wheel to not use a metal axle anymore. Each wheel is individually moulded with an axle stub and is held into it's own clip. Thoughts?"

New Wheels by Stephen, on Flickr

It certainly looks to me that the holders have a "U" shape to them for a pin.

Just to be clean, we don.t know if the wheels have changed.

Highlighting the different look of the pictures is just a way for the community to look at and try to work out if a change is coming. 

Edited March 10, 2019 by technic70s
Added unknown if its a confirmed change