Space78

If you look at the review by @kbalage posted on YouTube, he states he talked with the set designer for the Wild West Train and changes to the set were made by him in conjunction with Lego designers. If I understood him correctly, an additional train car was added just because Lego track comes in packs of 4. The original design fit on 7 track sections, but Lego would be including 8 because that's how they are packaged. That did not have to impact the design of the set other than the extra track, but Lego & the designer decided to add another train car to fill the 8 sections, add minifigures and additional horses = 500 more pieces and the commensurate increase in cost/price. I very much doubt a BDP designer can unilaterally change/add to an approved submission without approval/consultation/collaboration/input from Lego. We are all aware Lego owns Bricklink, right?

IMO, I don't think there's any doubt there is an AFOL fan base. However, Lego chose to make this the most expensive BDP set in this round. According to one of the reviews, the additions after the initial design added about 500 pieces, which roughly translates into $50 more than it would have been had the original design been followed. I have not seen much movement in the number of pre-orders for the past several hours, so this one may have stalled out. I wish the design and sales well, but I feel like Lego did not improve this set or its potential sales with the alterations.

Thanks for posting that. His other video reviewing the set itself was also a worthwhile watch. Decided not to get this set for multiple reasons, not the least of which is price. Looks like no more trains in the pipeline at BDP, so hoping we get some train items as regular Lego sets this year!

Detailed review of the BDP Wild West Train with lots of photos on Brickset. I did not realize this set was 8 wide, but it's now obvious with all the phtos. https://brickset.com/article/118397/review-910044-wild-west-train For me, I'm still on the fence. Not sure I will buy this set. Eight wide was another strike against it for me.

Brickset posted a detailed review of the Wild West Train with lots of photos. Very helpful to get a sense of this set before ordering if you are still deciding. https://brickset.com/article/118397/review-910044-wild-west-train

Both motors appear to be 6 wide, so not useful for standard 6 wide train dimensions. Also, the controller looks to be two rotating three-position switches, so presumably ON (forward)-OFF-ON (reverse) functions with no speed control. So to me, this system does not look usable for trains. However, what is interesting is battery/controller/motor technology seems to have advanced to a point where 1. battery, motor, wireless communication are all in one box. 2. rechargeable battery life is sufficient such that it can be sealed in the motor box and charged via USB, like a cell phone. So..... the question is, will Lego switch all of its power systems to this new system or will it maintain two completely different power systems (this new one for Education and Power Up)? I'm very skeptical that Lego will maintain/market two completely different power systems. However, to use this new system for trains we will need a variable speed controller, and a 4 wide motor with two axles (in black of course!). Maybe that's coming too?? By the way, the U.S. Lego education press release has a clear picture of the kit showing the two motors from the top, the controller and the separate sensor. https://www.lego.com/en-us/aboutus/news/2025/january/lego-education-science?locale=en-us The motor with the "transverse" axle is 6x10, while the smaller motor with the longitudinal axle is 6x6, but it really looks like it is 4x6 with two 1x4 technic bricks molded into the sides. So, the functional part of the motor which houses motor/battery/controller is really only 4x6. It would seem to be very easy for Lego to make a 4x12 train motor with this system!

You know, I didn't even think about that until you mentioned it. I thought it was supposed to be a trunk or something strapped to the roof. That configuration is strange for an American boxcar. That's what's called a caboose in the U.S., not a "caboose styled boxcar." There is no such thing that I am aware of. Boxcars are for freight and have sliding doors on the sides. I've never seen a picture of one with a cupola-style appendage on the top. A caboose is where the conductor and brakeman sit and any other crew other than the engineer and fireman, who are in the engine. Yes, that's what it looks like to me also, and the battery box/controller for PUp would go in the tender.

Yeah, I don't have 79111. Current BL prices on those are >$200, so the Wild West Train price is certainly competitive in comparison to that. I just can't help feeling I'd be paying for a lot of stuff I don't need or want just to get the train.

Pricing has just been announced for the Wild West Train in the Bricklink Designer's Program: £249.99, $279.99, €279.99. Would be interested in reading people's thoughts on this set with the pricing information. Not surprised at the price, but looking more closely at the set, I wish they had left out some of the items driving up the price. For example, do we need 12 minifigures for a set with one small passenger car? The track looks like standard Lego track on a roadbed made from plates and some other enhancements in tan/brown, are these needed/desireable? The designer has stated the model is designed to be motorized, so I have no interest in enhancing this as a static display. Also can't help thinking the price would be lower if the windmill and water tower had not been included. They are nice looking models, but not essential to the train, and certainly can be built separately, or as models in their own right. I would have been much more excited if this had been just the train and a few minifigs at a sub $200 price. I don't see any train or train-related sets in the next two rounds (series 5 or 6), so this is all there will be for train sets for a while through BDP.

The Lego leadership of today is a long way from that of the late 1980s.

It will be interesting to see if Lego changes Power Up in some way or moves to a new system, which I think is unlikely. For the "train user" the main advantages I saw for PUp vs. PF are: 1. not needing the IR receiver in the engine or whatever was being motorized. 2. Bluetooth instead of IR, which is more reliable for making a connection, and can use a phone or tablet to control a motor instead of the remote. Honestly, I had forgotten that last one when I put a PUp motor/controller in the Christmas Trolley this year. We've been using the remote, but could have just used my phone, which my 7 year old daughter would have found much more fun! For regular trains, I'm sticking with 9V for two reasons. 1. I already have a lot invested in track and motors. 2. Thinking about battery power and the battery level every time I run a train is unpleasant. I also worry about leaving batteries in an engine for too long, fearing battery leakage. Couple that with the fact that you have to partially disassemble the engine every time you have to change batteries, AND that those small batteries are not the easiest to get out of that poorly designed (IMHO) battery box. Given all of that, I really have no interest in powering my train layout with anything requiring batteries. The larger the layout you have, the less it makes sense to be powering it with batteries. For my 2 cents, Lego really needs a better way to power trains. I understand that cost is an issue for 9V tracks and the 9V train system; however, there clearly continues to be interest amongst Lego train fans in this system (FX Bricks). Given the dominance of Lego in the toy industry, and that they are likely making (ever increasing) profits year after year, I feel Lego could afford to "give" something to the Lego train fan community - even if that means a power system that is designed specifically for trains and does not readily extend to other "powered" Lego systems. Just think of the number of new elements Lego has produced the last several years and the cost of each of those for comparison.

For me, I'm not expecting Lego will re-issue either black or blue CS minifigs. I think the Benny minifig is all we are going to get in blue. It seems to me Lego has been showing a preference for issuing new CS colors.

As one who is not really interested in Space sets beyond Classic Space, I'm wondering what direction Lego will take with these "re-imagined" sets going into the future. Are they done with CS? Is the Galaxy Explorer 10497 all we will get for CS? Do people expect Lego to march forward through the years with Space Police, Blacktron II, etc. issuing re-imagined sets? Probably no one knows, but would be interested in opinions.

Finished the build. At first I wasn't sure about this build. I thought there were some odd choices for how to build a few things, but overall, it was a nice satisfying build. One of the better ones of the recent sets I've built from current offerings. It is disappointing how the action of the tie rods are not smooth and "stick" at certain points in the rotation. It's worse going backward than forward. I had a place to display it on my Lego train shelves, and it seems to fit right in with the other Lego trains. I was a bit concerned it would look far too large. I'd have to say the carriages are better proportioned than the Santa Fe passenger cars from the early 2000's (too tall for six studs wide). https://bricksafe.com/files/Space78/IMG_0023.jpeg/1280x800.jpeg I just got some more 9v motors, so I tried my hand at motorizing the train. I put a single motor under the tender, but the combination of the heavier weight of the train, the light weight of the tender, and the resistance around curves of the engine, made this unworkable. I then put one 9V motor in place of the leading truck of each carriage. That worked out well. There is enough weight in the carriages to give better traction, and using two motors provided enough force to keep the train moving around curves. Only slight modification underneath was needed to attach the motors.

Not a Blacktron fan, so doesn't make a lot of difference to me how faithful this set is to the original. Comparing the two pictures, I can see a lot of differences. As an "Icons" spaceship, it is interesting. I might get one, but it will not be day 1 - probably some day in the future at a discount, and it will depend on what the instructions look like. I am not a fan of a lot of "micro-builds" in sets aimed for adults. (Do they think our ability to handle small parts gets better with age?? )

Wonder how many stickers it will have???

OK, thanks, do you just have to ask them for the "correct" sticker sheet and the "correctly printed" tiles? Agree, if I had not followed the discussion here last year, I would not have realized the stickers were wrong or (probably) that some of the tiles are misspelled.

Thanks for that info on your set. I have not opened mine yet, but likely will after Christmas as my Christmas break build. My set will go directly to a display shelf until I figure out how I'm going to power it. On the one hand I can understand why Lego did not open the boxes of sets already made to put the correct sticker sheet in them. On the other hand, hard to believe that a year later they expect people to have to request the correct sheet, especially when purchasing this directly from Lego. The correct sheet should have been put in the shipping box with a note or something for those unaware. Another possibility is they have not had many requests for the correct sticker sheet, so they figured why bother as most purchasers don't care or don't realize the difference?

Set arrived on Monday. Have not had a chance to take it out of the box, but the label on the shipping box lists "Production YYMM: 2311" I assume this means the set was made November 2023. Is this set from the first production run? If so, can we assume that there has not been a second production run? Assume this set has the incorrectly printed stickers given the production date. Country is listed as MX, so assume that means produced in Mexico, or at least packaged there. Date listing below the country code is 231125 (November 25, 2023?)

Ah, yes. I was looking at the status in my Wishlist, where it just said "Out of stock", but on the page for the set it's as you say temporarily out of stock.

Orient Express is still listed at 20% off at U.S. Lego.com, so I guess the sale went beyond Insider's double points weekend here; however it is now listed as out of stock. Could this be the end of the line for this set?

Agree, which is why I did not buy it right away, but waited for a discount. It took a year, but the discount is here. Who knows, it might go on 30 or 40% discount eventually. Did the other parts of the world have a 20% discount this weekend or is this a U.S. only offer?

Yes, I wondered that as well when I saw the discount, though Lion Knight's Castle got a 25% discount on Black Friday last year in the U.S. I suspect there was a surge of sales in the first few months after release, but substantially trailed off after that. When I saw the sale price on Lego.com, I thought maybe it would be promoted on the front page or in the regular e-mail to Insiders, but not the case. So appears they are not promoting the sale, which might not be a good sign either??

Agree trains are just a "blip" for Lego's revenue. A lot of stores in the U.S. don't carry the motorized train sets in store (Target, Walmart). For now things seem to be settled into two lines for trains: two City sets (one cargo one passenger) aimed at children/mass market sales, and AFOL sets offered through Ideas or BDP. We'll see what the future brings. Two train related BDP sets (old train shed, and Brick Cross Train Station) sold out in 24 hours, while the Logging Railway set did not hit 30,000 sales. I strongly suspect the Wild West Train in BDP 4 is going to sell very fast. We'll see what Lego concludes from this data. No train related items in BDP series 5 or 6... We can only hope there is something for train fans coming from Lego in 2025.

The Orient Express is 20% off on the U.S. Lego.com site! So, the wait is over - just placed an order for this set. Glad I did not purchase this set during the November Insiders weekend or Black Friday. No deals then, and the GWPs were not very interesting for me. The current GWP is a ballerina set, and one of my daughters will enjoy that one. With double Insider points, all in all a very good deal this weekend!