rriggs

It's a good question; Passenger trains have more playability and stations are generally cool buildings Freight trains are more interesting to build, easier to MOC and have more potential for adding accessories. I voted freight. Cheers Rog

I have thought about this a lot in the past; I came up with a couple of ways using technic pieces together with tiles and curved plates of building the articulation and the floor above the articulation but always struggled with the flexible body section. The closest I got was using heavy paper folded and then attached to technic pieces but this still left gaps and looked iffy. I think some kind of frame maybe with material over it might work but I've given up trying! Good luck!! Cheers Rog

Hi While I love the detail and the design of the 7900 Transporter Truck it is a bit big for integration with the rest of my Lego City and Town sets. At 8-wide it's more Model Team than Town and makes my other 6-wide trucks look small. This is my solution: As you can see it is a 6-wide version of the transporter truck. I have kept all the key features and the overall look so that it is still recognisable as the 7900 truck but it's scale matches the current crop of Lego 6-wide trucks. Now I just need to recsale the trailer to match... Here it is amongst its 6-wide contemporaries: Comments welcome as always! Cheers Rog

I think this is a great torso to use for a bluecoat. The buckle and torn shirt add to the realism. Just look at something like Sharpe to see that the foot soldiers don't always look perfect! Looks good to me. Not so sure about the gold epaulettes though? Cheers Rog

.....here I am! (points at his sigfig) Cheers Rog

A great review of a great set. I used to own this set and it is just as good as it looks in the pictures. However, I sold it for reasons I'm not sure of even now. I regret it though... Cheers Rog

Cheers Rog

I would like to be able to vote "both" too as I haven't ever really seen them as separate themes. For me, trains are just as much part of Town as police, transportation or farms. They are certainly not mutually exclusive and I couldn't choose between them. I do buy more Town than Trains but this is simply because there are more Town sets and they are cheaper! Cheers Rog

That is harsh! We've all been there though! Why is it so much harder to recreate a model than it was to build it in the first place? And why is it that no matter how many photos you took they are never quite the right views to recreate the tricky bits of the model? Feel for you buddy! Cheers Rog

I like the trucks and the little pickup. The garage has some cool features but does need a roof - but that wouldn't be hard to add! In answer to people's criticisms: 1. No doors. I agree that this is a shame but this does seem to be the way with this style of Lego truck. Even more of a shame as these trucks are hugely detailed in every other way. However, it is not a big problem to add doors to this style truck. You can use an inboard mounted 2x1 technic brick with two holes/two half clips to secure the front of the truck leaving the outboard 1x1 spaces for the doors. The doors actually hold the windscreen in place just as well as 1x1 bricks. Here's an example of one of my MOCs built in this way: 2. Wheels on the blue pickup (and on the mail truck). I think that it's right for the wheels to vary between vehicles as this is more realistic. In this set it makes even more sense as otherwise you would have a little pickup driving round on the same wheels as the much larger trucks around it. It's a shame that the pickup doesn't have warning light and some tools though... 3. The price. I am going to wait until it hits the shelves before passing judgement on this. Lego have a history of bumping up the RRP only for retailers (like TRU, Woolworths, Tesco, etc) to actually all have them on the shelves for much less. Most recent example of this is the bulldozer. Lego RRP'd this originally at £30. However, it has never been on sale anywhere that I have seen for more than £20 - And that includes Lego Stores. Tesco and Smyths both have sold it at £15 since the day it came out. I think that the high RRP is used in some cases as a marketing tool allowing retailers to advertise at £10 off or 1/2 RRP, etc. Cheers Rog

Ere ya go: It's

Thanks for this review - I only ever looked quickly at this set in the shops and online and did not realise that the third building was a school - I had assumed that all three were houses! The scale of the school looks good to fit in with regular Town/City sets as being a public building won't feel oversized like the houses might. The design is very like many of the primary schools around where I live whic his nice too. Great stuff. Now where to get a load of minifig kids...?? Cheers Rog

I agree about the doors. It would have been nice to see two half-width doors in the same frame. Would have been much more realistic. If they had saved money by not creating the 2x1 cheese they could have made a mould for half-width doors! It is a shame that the bus is yellow. Red and white like the bus in 379 from c1979 would have been nice. Maybe I'll LDD one in those colours and then I won't need to buy the buildings I don't want just to get the bus... Cheers Rog

Great review! Thanks for that! For me, it's a shame that the bus isn't available separately. I love my Lego vehicles but am not really bothered about most buildings. This means the bus works out of very expensive for me as I have to pay for the pizza place and bike sho pthat I don't want too! Why they couldn't release it as a set along the lines of all the trucks over the last couple of years I don't know! That said, the bus looks great - I'll just have to figure out how to rebuild it for the UK. Right hand drive layout for a start and I'll want to lose the centre door too! Cheers Rog

I have used dry transfer lettering (available from all good stationery stores!) with great success on models I have made in the past. They adhere very well to LEGO bricks and give a much better finished product than stickers or labels. Cheers Rog

I like that you get the impression of a large town/street from a small set. Really has the feeling of a big city like NY. I also like that you have set the traffic lights differently for the different approaching streets but would perhaps look even better if you used clear round plates for the non-illuminated ones and just have the red, green or amber on the opposing sides. Nice work Cheers Rog

I do this. To download instructions, I use Peeron for older sets (more than 3 years old) and Lego's website for newer sets. I then use LDD to reconstruct the sets followed by either Bricklink or Factory/PAB to get the actual parts. I tend to focus on the 1980 to 1995 period but also have recreated the Town Hall from the 50 year anniversary and the blue truck from the current cargo train set. Cheers Rog

I don't think that anyone on here disputes that Lego have the right to increase prices or that any of wouldn't expect that to happen from time to time; we're all (supposed to be) AFOLs on these forums and we know how the world works. The issue with all of this has been the extent of the price hike initially not the fact that the prices went up. Other retailers are experiencing low inflation and low interest rates but falling consumer spending and the general action that retailers are taking is special offers, discounts, sales promotions and so on. They realise that even some sales with a low or zero margin are better than no sales at all. Lego appear to have taken a different view... Cheers Rog

Prices are back down from the more than 200% increases we originally saw, however, I have priced up a couple of models and the price increase overall is still in excess of 50% on average. With inflation (in the UK) currently at 0% and deflation potentially on the horizon justification of an increase like this would be nice. If it is (for example) because PAB and Factory have been running as loss leaders until now LEGO could tell us this. An unsubstantiated 50% increase just seems greedy without any explanation! Cheers Rog

The only increases when they released the Factory Space sets were for the custom space pieces (torsos, printed tiles, etc). Other prices remained broadly the same. Cheers Rog

GOOD This is a really great change to the pallette and a massive improvement. A quick look through and I can see all the parts that I have been missing for the last god knows how long. It means rebuilding some of my models but that's no hardahip as I can now build how I wanted in the first place! BAD The price increase is rediculous! A built a 4-wide truck based on 4546 Road n Rail maintenance using the old pallette and old pricelist and had uploaded with purchase in mind (some parts were out of stock). Anyway, this original version cost £7.75. I have rebuilt using the new pallette and pricelist and it now costs a whopping £16.58. I make that a 113% price increase! It's not like LDD models were a bargain in the first place. I'll be surprised is they sell any at all now! Cheers Rog

Oh OK. Cheers guys - I seem to have managed to miss the sets that I am now most excited about!! I'm sure I must have checked that thread at some point but only remember the farm and construction stuff. Cheers Rog

Anyway, does anybody know any more about these models? Release dates? Is the red cab a separate model? What else will be in the range? I am so excited! They look sooooo cool and I want them now! Thanks to those of you who were able to understand my humour! Cheers Rog

vs Cheers Rog

Blimey! Don't take it so seriously guys! Cheers Rog