New Road Plates coming anytime soon?

[Artifex]

So the latest road plates are from 2005... That's 2 years short of 10. A long time for Lego, I'm sure. As I've been buying multiples -- and they are quite expensive down here in Brazil (BRA 65 or +/- USD 20 for a set) -- I get a little afarid of Lego releasing new road plates anytime soon.

I'm fond of the current road plates. Both in color and design. I'd like a couple of green road plates, but that's nothing that you can't do yourself with some green plates or whatever.

Do you guys think new road plates are "about to happen"?

[lightningtiger]

I doubt we'll see a change in road plate design for quite a while to come, if memory serves me correct there has been only 3 different versions of road base plate.

[legoboy3998]

I doubt we'll see a change in road plate design for quite a while to come, if memory serves me correct there has been only 3 different versions of road base plate.

Nah, there has been more than 3. At least two in Light grey, two or three in green, and the latest in dark grey. Sal WFB, WI

[Galaxy Explorer]

Road plates generally have a long run- the first Legoland Town System plates were available from 1978-1985. New plates with bike paths came out in 1986 and ran for ten years until the green plates replaced them in 1997. I think the shortest run for a road plate style were the green ones released around the time of World City. They only had a two year run before the current bley plates for CITY.

Personally I'm fine with the CITY plates, although I wouldn't mind an updated picture for the packaging, and more importantly, TWO of the SAME plates in ONE pack!

[Aussie BJ]

Yes I think they are about to change. Reason being I haven't seen any in my local department stores for over 6 months and trust me I've been looking for another corner for yonks.

I started collecting road plates about 12 months ago and when I noticed them drying up at my local shops I started to buy some every time I made an S&H order. Then just the other day David Jones (Department Store) had 20% off and they had road plates in stock so I grabbed a couple of packets. Worked out to be $11 ea pack AUD or around $12 USD.

[melbs]

^ contrary to your analysis, road plates are abundant here in asia. So I don't think that's the determining factor for new road plates.

Like galaxy explorer, I want lego to sell the same plate in one pack, or just sell them individually like the blue and green plates.

At any case, I would welcome a new road plate design. The progressive evolution is a wider road, hoping for a three/four lane road plate in the future instead of a more wider two lane road plate.

[Jaller8240]

No one but LEGO stores sell them where I am, so I wouldn't know. I'd say they're releasing new ones in the near future.

[eurotrash]

I'm in a quandary. My Modular City is ever expanding, but it's without streets. I quite like the current Road Plates, but TLG's approach of mixing a T junction and a Curved plate or a Straight and a Crossroad is going to give me a bunch of Road Plates that I'm not going to be using.

I'm leaning towards brick building the Streets, but that's going to be costly, but it'll allow me to build precisely what I want (although I haven't yet seen a brick built Curve that looks effective).

If TLG changed their packaging options for Road Plates to give 2,3, or 5 Straights in one pack then this would be a very easy decision to make.

[tedbeard]

... TLG's approach of mixing a T junction and a Curved plate or a Straight and a Crossroad is going to give me a bunch of Road Plates that I'm not going to be using.

T-junctions and Crossroads can both be turned into "Straights" if you build sidewalks using plates (such as pic below). Using a bunch of Crosswalks you can make a straight section of road without center lines which is really good for alleys or residential streets which don't usually have lines.

^ The sidewalk is two plates high and the modified Fire Brigade meets it fine. Unmodified Modular House Standard buildings (like the Pet Shop house on the right) can be lifted to meet the sidewalks using other baseplates or foamboard sheets underneath. And yes, I know I forgot to make a "driveway" for the FB in the pic above. ;)

Edited June 18, 2013 by tedbeard

[scottwb2010]

I contacted Lego last October about the way they distribute the Road plates and if they ever consider return to the previous ways of packaging them in 2 of the same plates ie 2 x straight, 2 x t-junctions etc and here is the reply I got. We are always happy to read about passionate LEGO® Fans. I am sorry, that you

prefer the old way of sending out the road plates. At the moment I can not tell

you wether or not we will change the way of sending them out in the future.

However, LEGO creators in Denmark are constantly creating new sets and are

coming up with new ideas. Maybe, in the future, there will be a set, where we

send out the road plates like you prefer it. Hope this is of use

Edited June 18, 2013 by scottwb2010

[eurotrash]

T-junctions and Crossroads can both be turned into "Straights" if you build sidewalks using plates (such as pic below).

Tedbeard, thanks. I should have realized that myself (smacks head hard on desk).

Chris

Edited June 18, 2013 by eurotrash

[Galaxy Explorer]

A road plate redesign could be disastrous for me. My city is entirely built up on the current plates, so any size change would require moving everything around. Plus it would be a financial burden as well- I've spent around $300 on my layout and it would cost a fortune to start over.

One way I could warm up to a redesign is if they introduce a nice system that could be expanded upon- I would like to see a new 16x32 with a straight road cutting horizontally through. Maybe make the plates available in green or tan as well.

[Xyver]

I love the road plates, and I think it would be great if they came out either singularly, or double packs (I only needs straights, maybe a couple of corners, but no more T or junctions) I don't want a redesign though, some more variety maybe, but keeping to the 8 wide lanes on dark bley. But seeing the way the new City sets are being built on the 16x16 plates, and with tiled footpaths in the new 60026 Town Square, I personally think TLG are doing away with baseplates and specifically road plates, all together.

Add to that the fact the straights weren't available in this years LUGBulk and my fears may be coming true. From what I've heard, they aren't a very good seller, and even worse of a money maker.

I may be time to invest in a lot of bley plates and start doing raised curbs to turn all my cross and Ts into straights.

[scottwb2010]

The latest version of the road plates (2005) is the only time that Lego has sold them as a mixed pack ie T-junction & curve and Straight & cross road. IMO this puts people off (including myself) from buying road plates, as they end up with ones they don't want or need, even though you can adapt the T-junctions and cross roads as some have suggested. I hope Lego return to the original method of pairing up in double of the same plate or even as Xyver suggest selling them singularly. Also having a 16 x32 version would be good too.

[Artifex]

I think the 2005 road plates sets (straight & X-roads, curve & T-junction) is the best way for Lego. Although the straight road plates sell themselves, I don't think the t-junctions and curves sell as much. Hence they are packed with straight road plates (and as many people have said, you can adapt T-junctions and X-roads to your needs).

But I do hope Lego won't end this 2 sets for another decade; my town is based on those!

[antp]

I don't think the t-junctions and curves sell as much.

They could simple produce less of these then!

Anyway as I have many of the first model (light gray with large sidewalk and no bike path) I only buy my roadplates in second-hand :D

[The Jersey Brick Guy]

The lego shop at home store here in the US always seems to be out of them. According to the site, they won't have any for a few more weeks at this point.

[Aanchir]

I wouldn't mind a completely new road system myself, particularly if it were based on the full 3.2mm. plate thickness versus the current, thinner road plates. A road made of 8x16 tiles would be ideal because...

1. ...it would be compatible with both models built on baseplates and models built on standard plates without any change in elevation between the two (a plate attached to a layer of studs is level with a baseplate sitting on top of studs).
   
2. ...it would be compatible with sets like the Modular Buildings that include their own sidewalks, without having to transplant them from their original bases.
   
3. ...it would allow more customization potential, such as putting crosswalks at intermediate points on a block (currently possible if you have your sidewalks plated over, but not if they're level with the road surface) or creating inclined roads.
   
4. ...the new 8x16 tiles don't have molding marks on the top, making them ideal for printing.

I've been meaning to make a LEGO Cuusoo proposal for such an idea for a long time, but I still haven't gotten around to it because I don't own 8x16 tiles in enough quantities to make reasonable mock-ups for demonstration purposes. I also don't know if such a Cuusoo proposal would ever succeed because a road plate pack of this sort, with a matrix of plates underneath for reinforcement, would be more expensive than a current road plate pack, and because I know a lot of people are VERY resistant to change on this level (those who don't appreciate the constraints of prefab road plates often prefer to make custom road plates using SNOT techniques). Still, I plan on trying to acquire some 8x16 tiles in bulk at Brickfair this year and trying to throw a proposal together, just to see how many people are open to the idea.

But currently, I don't know if TLG sees enough money in any different sort of road plates to change them up considerably. Even though the current road plate set on sale was released in 2005, I'm sure they've been producing them relatively consistently since then, so it's not like they will run out of original 2005 copies of the road plate packs and have to release a new version.

Edited June 19, 2013 by Aanchir

[Kivi]

There is probably some reason (commercial, I believe) to put two different road plates in one pack - you are just forced to buy more packs if you need more plates of certain type. I would greatly appreciate too a return to packs with two identical plates. I wouldn't mind having more identical plates in one pack though I doubt that packs of 5 curves, T-junctions or crossroads would sell as good as 5-packs of straight roads.

[tedbeard]

One way I could warm up to a redesign is if they introduce a nice system that could be expanded upon- I would like to see a new 16x32 with a straight road cutting horizontally through. Maybe make the plates available in green or tan as well.

So, you want a half-sized straight road plate? A friend had some so I made two for myself. Not really difficult, you take a regular straight and cut it in half with an exacto knife. :)

[Bricknblue]

I can't believe people buy them. They used to be $8 for two 15 years ago, when the regular green and blue baseplates were still $5. Now they are $15 or something silly for two and you can't even get two straight ones.

I just stick to plywood, lot cheaper.

[Aanchir]

I can't believe people buy them. They used to be $8 for two 15 years ago, when the regular green and blue baseplates were still $5. Now they are $15 or something silly for two and you can't even get two straight ones.

I just stick to plywood, lot cheaper.

It's kind of interesting that you say that, because I'm often surprised how few AFOLs use non-LEGO elements in their displays. TLG used to sometimes encourage the use of non-LEGO elements in their various publications (even the LEGO Studios Movie Maker kit from 2001 used a baseball to reenact the boulder scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark in one of the included demo videos), which is kind of surprising considering that they have a vested economic interest in getting people to buy more LEGO. But at the same time, I suppose by encouraging kids to explore their creativity outside the limits of LEGO building they build their brand's reputation with parents.

[Bricknblue]

It's a surprise to me too. I have seen a lot of layouts a meter by 2-3 meters and they are nice, but it looks liek all the money went into the roads and not into their buildings. I rather see some awesome building than a road.

I have one base model (literally the base of a main street on a beach) that I never built up on and used all my titles it seems, that has a road, but with a train track in it.

But if I'm just doing a small city layout I use wood, or even big sheets of paper. All you are doing is making roads, it saves so much money than incredibly overpriced baseplates that half of them you won't use.

Plus you could always use the plywood later.

[legoboy3998]

It's a surprise to me too. I have seen a lot of layouts a meter by 2-3 meters and they are nice, but it looks liek all the money went into the roads and not into their buildings. I rather see some awesome building than a road.

I have one base model (literally the base of a main street on a beach) that I never built up on and used all my titles it seems, that has a road, but with a train track in it.

But if I'm just doing a small city layout I use wood, or even big sheets of paper. All you are doing is making roads, it saves so much money than incredibly overpriced baseplates that half of them you won't use.

Plus you could always use the plywood later.

When I finally get to building a layout, I plan on doing the scenery the same way as traditional model railroaders. I recall seeing a LEGO modeler on Brickshelf who did similar.

[Scorpio]

I would recommend brick-built roads. There is an issue of Railbricks that has different standards you can build. I'm partial to the 1xN bricks to build my road with 6 wide sidewalks on either side. They can be built on 32x32 baseplates and highly customized.