Legoist

Good thing indeed! I don't understand why so many FOLs like parts to be rare or unique. The more common, the easier to get them into your MOCs. Rares should make someone happy if he's a fan of profit, not a fan of Lego. Which obviously you can be both if you wish... but the first doesn't have much to do with the second or at least shouldn't spoil the second for everybody else! Back on topic, how would you like a passenger wagon like this behind the BNSF? Does it have too much of an "antique" look to match with the BNSF? Perhaps the red in the roof should be converted to yellow, orange, green or black to improve the matching?

Do you guys know if the real BNSF locomotive is ever used for passenger trains? Since everyone is suggesting trucks here, I take it's used in cargo trains only... Do you think it would fit to pull passenger carriages, and in this case what colour scheme would you suggest (beside green or orange...)? There are strange phenomena, when the set is in production it seems people are not buying it because it's too expensive and Lego seems not to make much money, then it goes out of production and suddenly everyone wants it and pays 3-4 times as much But maybe the truth is in the numbers: perhaps it's more difficult to find 10.000 buyers for a 50$ set than 100 buyers that would pay 200$ for it.

My guess is minimum 40$, so it might still be more convenient to try eBay to get the whole wagon at once.

Thanks, this solves up everything

Aha, that's great! You should copyright those doors They are very useful when having only a 2 studs width.

Yes, I was afraid of this... And I think the old windows with tabs are forever gone out of production, so no chance of getting green ones ever. Please do :)

If you mean money value, then then don't have much. But if you mean building value, there are comments around that these old rails were not sturdy due to the fact that they connected with studs to normal 2x6 plates (instead of the different, sturdy method used by 12V rails). I can't say much about this because I never had blue rails, but there have been discussions about this topic in the forum. The only other question is whether you like the look of blue rails or not. Some people cannot stand them because they look too plastic and not like real steel rails. Personally I wouldn't mind having a blue section of rails in a layout, as long as differently-coloured rails (including old gray vs new gray) are always clumped together in sections and not just alternating randomly. Furthermore, I'd gladly use blue rails rather than grey ones for non-train uses, such as narrow-gauge (or single-rail) industrial-type carriage systems.

This is really great. It really is a very faithful and detailed rendition of the original locomotive. And it's 6-stud wide, isn't it? Have you tried or are you willing to try to put doors? It looks like there is only a 2-stud space there so it might not be feasible. I have been wondering about what could be a nice colour scheme for a new loco model to build, and this orange+black is an excellent option.

From the box front it looks like the red truck has one large container, but if you look at the flatbed wagon it carries a small container and has room for another... Maybe it's intentional that you can put either the large container or the small one on the flatbed.

Thinking about it, if someone just wants the pigs it will be much cheaper to get 3-5 impulse sets. I am curious to see for how much they will sell the pigs on BrickLink and eBay. My guess is that the first batch will be sold for more than 5e each pig to buyers who will not realize that later you can get it for 3e from the impulse set...

Excellent Great use of colours, nice details especially those to give a "dirty" or "damaged" look. Could you explain how you built the water tower ? It has a very nice round shape.

This is maybe the only set from the first round of 2010 I'm looking forward to get, and of course that's only for the pigs Thanks for the review, but could you add your personal opinions, especially on the construction of the three elements? From the pictures it seems the build isn't one of the best, there is some details on the tractor but nothing particularly interesting. Also how about the piece selection? Overall it seems quite overpriced for its size as all the Farm sets, but the fact that they included 4 pigs is a big "+", considering the pigs are probably the reason for 90% of those who will buy this set

For the moment unmotorized/unelectrified, so just building parts for trains except the motors and controls.

I was not aware of this feature, I'm fairly new to Bricklink. I will try this out. I am not however particularly interested in targeting the cheapest shops but rather those with a larger selection of train related parts (not sets). It's hard to guess that just by looking at the shop size (number of lots on sale), because there is no way to tell if they are useful for trains until you go and check the shops one by one. BTW did you notice that several BL shops artificially increase their lots number by having thousands copies of a few totally ugly and overpriced sets that nobody wants? I am afraid they do this do gain visibility (since you'd rather check out a shop with 100,000 items than one with only 1,000), and if they put up 8,000 copies of a horrible 50-piece Belville set for 100$ each they are pretty sure nobody's going to verify they really have them...

How about adding a couple of green window shutters in the middle area, to create one or two opening that might hide some measurement or control equipment?

Thanks for the review! The design of the car is average, but I think it's great to have sets this small, they're practically only a little more than an impulse set but at least there is something to build.

Hi all. I've never used Bricklink but I've been recently taking a look at it for Trains-related parts. Since the amount of sellers is very high, it's a pain to browse for shops that offer a decent variety of these parts. Using Search is good when looking for a specific piece, but not if I am just looking for many different parts for Trains and hoping not to have to buy each from a different seller. So which BL shops do you know that are kind of specialized in Trains spare parts, and would suggest to someone looking for a good amount and variety to create some "parts pool" for building trains?

In a way, all diesel locomotives are ugly, but that's the beauty of them

It's a tough decision. I think TLG has had the target of making PF a long-lasting power system, especially since it can be used to motorize and electrify anything Lego, and not just trains. Having one only system of motors, lights, sensors etc. is a great thing. With this in mind, we can hope that PF will last at least 10 years, but if they manage to update/replace individual elements of the system without breaking compatibility, it might even last indefinitely. But we don't know... we can't be sure that it will remain financially convenient, it's not impossible that TLG will have to ditch PF in a few years and start again. Personally I am delaying the decision. Since I don't have the space for a train layout at home, I'm just trying to use my diminutive time available to build the trains themselves and not the track, therefore currently I prefer to buy/build unmotorized locomotives. Ultimately, I think one big thing for future Lego trains will be remote (wireless) powering, but unfortunately I understand that this technology is still in its infancy, and nobody knows if it'll take 5 or 50 years to become commercially available. I guess that PF (or any other battery-based) trains would run on 9V rails with no problems (unless there's some grip problem) so you could buy 9V tracks and have both 9V, RC, and PF trains running on it. 9V tracks are more expensive, but you can't do the opposite (you can't use 9V trains on tracks that aren't 9V).

But I like the Creator sets too... It's just that I don't like the 1x1s flatties. You cannot use them to connect much together. Anyway I made this remark here because I was thinking that in some Creator sets those 1x1s significanly increase the piece count and might give a misleading low price-per-piece.

I agree with those who don't mind the large pieces of the tanker. The overall look is fine, even the holes give it some sort of "industrial" look which is fine for a tanker truck. It's an average set hence it's good

It is true that we AFOL often take a look at the piece count to judge if a price is right. But I guess this is otherwise irrelevant for KFOL and their parents. And certainly it would need to be a very significant piece count increase to have any effect. I do think that nowadays many sets have too many pieces, particularly the exclusives and Creator sets. For the latter it's generally understandable (more smaller pieces instead of fewer large ones means more ways to combine them), however what I am referring to is TINY pieces like 1x1 and 1x2 plates, round plates and tiles. These pieces have only 1 possible way to attach them (2 if you count up and down for the plates) and therefore they have the smallest building value: their main use is decorative, particularly in case of the tiles. In my personal opinion there is too many of these 1x1 pieces everywhere nowadays. Overall I don't think there's any secret plan by TLG when doing this. It seems there are quite many factors that contribute to what pieces effectively end up in a set, that I beliece TLG itself wouldn't have an easy time if they wanted to artificially increase the piece count to have some sales advantage.

Fortunately I will never run TLG, because I'm quite sure that most of what I'd do would result in a financial loss : - completely eliminate exclusives, meaning to make all exclusives in fact non-exclusives - make every piece produced available for individual purchase in pick-a-brick - re-introduce old colours (greys and browns) into production, without discontinuing the new ones - improve Factory to allow people to easily re-create and order any set of the past - invest in production research to keep reducing production costs without moving factories to the 3rd world - reduce the sizes of boxes to be just slightly bigger than the minimum required by the content - promote the educational and creativity aspects of Lego with more campaigns in school and workplaces (including smaller things like reintroducing Idea Books and pictures of alternate models in the back of the box of every set) While I personally hate almost all licensed themes, I wouldn't terminate them if they are profitable and there's enough fans.

Well, it might help if someone in the US tried to imagine how he would feel if in his specific state prices were artificially set higher than everywhere else by TLG for pure marketing reasons, AND the customs/import taxes made it impossible to save money by buying it in another state. Just a mind experiment, but perhaps a bit more solidarity from fellow AFOLs overseas might give us comfort Do you refer to the 2nd-hand market, or have you tried to buy new sets from abroad? In the latter case I'm curious to know: doesn't the customs office impose you a bill if the item comes from the US? I know that if you buy e.g. from Amazon.uk/.fr/.de you have to pay the VAT difference, but that is not very high. But if you buy from Amazon.com, doesn't the (higher) VAT difference + import tax make it once again unconvenient? If you buy a MISB set from eBay or another private person (but not an online shop), does the custom office require you to pay the same taxes? I've never done these kind of purchases in fear of a bad surprise, like first paying a convenient price online and then have the item stuck at the import customs where they ask you to pay so much in tax that you end up paying more than if you had bought it from S@H Well... I am not so sure we're so rich Blue collar work an public office work are perfectly decent here, but if you're middle class (e.g. engineer, designer, lawyer, doctor, researcher...) you make MUCH more in the US than in Finland. Sometimes I think prices are higher here because Finnish people don't value money and property as much as others, and are not afraid to spend their money, so companies can overcharge without losing much in terms of sales.

In this thread I want to ask the married guys who share their Lego hobby with their wives: how did you manage to raise her interest in this hobby? That of course assumes you were originally the only one of the couple to be hooked on Lego... Note that the question applies also if you aren't technically married but just in a relationship. At the same time I ask the girls who were brought into the hobby by their husband/fiancee/boyfriend: how did he manage to take you on board? Clearly, I have a wife who needs conversion Note however that I'm not yet heavily into the hobby myself due to severe lack of time (two toddlers), and one reason I would really like to hook her is so that she would in return boost my own interest too. It's just that I am hoping we could all share at least one nice hobby the whole family together, something a bit more creative than watching movies and playstations. By the way, more than hearing reasonable but imagined suggestions, I would like to hear the story of how Lego became such a shared hobby for you two!