peterab

I've been quite happy with the upgrade, and the look of the site has improved with the tweaks since it went live, but I do have one minor complaint. When watching a topic with the old board I was able to get only one email per topic that was updated since I last visited. Now I'm getting one for each post, which is quit a spam fest for some topics. I dont want to switch to daily digest because I log on a few times a day and that would not really meet my needs either. I realise there may be little you can do since it's core board functionality, but this change is a backward step.

Mine will be absorbed into my train layout. I bought 35, one of each, and multiples of the more useful town ones.

I've been looking forward to this set since the first blurry photo's were leaked. For my purposes I'd prefer if there were no vehicle with the set, to make it cheaper, but I'll probably end up buying a few of these as my layout needs the level crossings and more straight track is always useful.

And when our dollar is high, there is a great incentive to order from USA S@H via a remailer. My interpretation of the responce from TLG is that they will charge as much as a particular market will accept. The logical responce of the consumer in the internet age is to order from the cheapest markets when the shipping costs allow.

You'll note that it's more expensive than S@H. My guess is they ordered it from S@H, just so they could stock it. Having stock of otherwise locally unavailable items attracts people to the store. Buyers are likely to buy more than one item, so they hope to make an average profit of greater than the 20% markup on the battery. The only place I think it's at all likely to find the battery in normal retails stores at the moment is Moore Educational, but I wouldn't bet on even that.

Retailers often dont want to take fresh stock of an 'old' set. S@H is happy to keep stock of sets with good sales. I think the disscusion of the price of these figures is forgetting that the USA price is a lot lower than that in the rest of the world, and if the supply is limited in the US, their will be upwards pressure from the rest of the world on the BL price. I wouldn't think twice about buying a box in the US at US$2.50 each.

So far I have managed to resist having huge mankinder hissy fits in any LEGO retailer. I have considered it more than once though :-)

Even the train sets are marginal sellers for TLG so it is hard for them to justify removing something else from their production scedule to produce coaches, which have been poor sellers over and over again. The Santa Fe coaches were great designs, had multiple different designs in the same set so are attractive to have in multiples, and failed totatly in the market place. They were heavily discounted on S@H and remaindered at $20 in Australia to get rid of them. My own train coaches also didn't sell well. The 9V set with four freight cars was easily and cheaply available MISB for many years after it was discontinued, which suggests to me that it also failed to sell well. These are all examples of wagons that are well regarded by fans of Lego trains, there just doesn't seem to be enough of us to meet the sales expectations of the huge company LEGO has become. I think the best we can hope for in the future is Exclusive trains will be larger sets with an engine and perhaps three coaches. I at least like this idea because it is a new suggestion, I'd probably prefer the level crossing without any vehicle or wagon, to make it a cheaper way to buy straight track. I like it as is anyway. A very small and cheap wagon as part of the station would be good, as long as it didn't impact the price too much. I'd mostly be interested in the wheels and couplers so a simple flat car would be fine, and I'd be happy to lose the taxi and a couple of minifigs. I'll probably try to buy two of the station as it is, but with a wagon it would be more tempting. On consideration this idea looks like it would make the sets more attractive to those who would already buy them, but I doubt it would increase sales much, perhaps though it wouldn't have a negative effect so it might be worthwhile for TLG.

Well if the past is any indicator, we won't have any new City trains for a few years. We may see a new train aimed at AFOLs but I'd guess that wont happen till it's time to replace the Emerald Night. It's almost certain we won't see extra coaches because their sales levels are not sufficient for TLG. None of this is a problem since as long as we have the basic mechanicals available we can Moc our own wishes into existence.

Four years ago Holiday Train

I really like your use of the wedge plate on the side of the engine, and also your choice of colour.

You could also check out official LEGO instructions for ideas, for example the yellow Creator beach house has a removable upper story, and is somewhere between the modular buildings and the open backed town sets.

I think the big deal is that a wide section of the world views/viewed guns as inappropriate as toys. LEGO's founder had a very strict no weapons policy, which under his son was watered down to 'only historical/fantasy weapons', which under his grandson/TLG has become 'plus modern weapons in licenced themes'. This is a little step further to weapons in Town. You also miss the point, it's not 'crazy European rules', it's a different but very valid European outlook on life. The big deal is many view the militaristic views of Americans brought up playing with guns, as very worrying, and don't want those values replicated across the rest of the world. It's probably too late though.

That a very nice looking loco. Do you have a picture of the prototype? I think you could enter this in the current Flickr train challenge if it's a new build. All the best with your move. Peter

Well played, Sir. I think the agent baddies make quite nice motorcycle leathers, and the pirate torso is OK for more general use, it could be used for a goth out nightclubbing for instance. The only things I can't see an immediate use for are the pirate face and accessories. I don't think thats too bad. You shouldn't feel so restricted by theme KD, with a little imagination these fit right in with the right city Moc. I'll probably get a set of these.

I assumed you had come from NSW to Brickvention (I met you briefly there) :-) Hope to see you at a Mugs meeting in the future.

I really love seeing each new peice of your Vicrail rolling stock. It does always seem odd that I'm in Victoria and dont build local stuff, and you aren't but do though :-)

Thanks for these reviews, while Racers is not very interesting to me, your reviews have highlighted some stuff I am interested in and wouldn't have noticed otherwise. In this I particularly like the minifig (more variety in town minfigs is always good) especially his face and speedos :-) I might try and bricklink one for myself. Peter

I think you've captured all the important features of the prototype photo LT provided. You may not know much about trains but you've pretty much nailed this one. If I had to nitpick I'd say there is guard rails at both ends of LT's photo, and there seems to be a horizontal buffer plate at each end, but of course these could be part of the variations you mentioned between prototypes. You made a really sweet train.

I think Bricktrix has done an awesome job, and even though he's used somewhat non-purist techniques which I probably wouldn't choose my self, I think the end justifies the means in this case. Oh and I'd like to point out that I really like this despite my general ambivilance toward British trains. Ras's tags have also reminded me that I observed a while ago that the Train Tech forum has been quite restricted in handidng out tags, I think this is a case in point. A similar moc in any other theme would probably get calls for a Moc expert tag, so I'll be the one to suggest to Siegfried, Brickster and Ras, surely this deserves a train tag. I know we're a small group, and we don't put out a lot of Mocs by comparison to other themes, but I think this illustrates that part of the reason is trainheads are particular and our Mocs can take a lot of time.

You should get on the SLTC mailing list, it's on yahoo groups. They've been giving a running commentary on where they've found minifigs (and Endor) for the past week. They've recently split into two groups, a small one focused on trains SLGG and SLTC is changing its name to SydLUG and broadening to include all AFOLs. Even if you dont want to attend, the list can be usefull in that you know where to look and where has been cleaned out. The MUGS source has suggested that most Toyworlds were initially stocked with 2 boxes, for a catalogue sale but will get more later. Another rumour floating around is that Targets will only stock the minifigs after they have completed their stocktakes which they are apparently currently in the middle of, thus we only see figs at some Targets at the moment. Peter

I bought three cheerleaders, and two nurses in Melbourne, Australia today, and while I agree with the reports that the grip on the baseplate is less than normal plates, I can't find fault with either the plastic or printing quality of the figs in any way.

One of the AFOLS may have been Sue Ann Barber the MUGS (Melbourne lego users group) Lego Ambasador. She went to Target in the city yesterday to buy figs.

As a little bit of insight, I could never find track stocked by retail stores in Australia, and the price of the Santa Fe coaches was about AU$60, about the same as the engine. So to put together a working train, parents would spend $180 on two carriages and an engine, then need to spend AU$75 on an oval of track, and still need to buy a motor and controller. To do this they would either need to be lucky and find them all in one place (I never did even though I looked at a lot of Lego at the time) or order from S@H and pay shipping from Europe probably about AU$50. Retailers found the sales of the individual items erratic, and didn't restock them. The AU$300 cargo train isn't looking too bad by comparison. At least parents know they'll get a complete working set for their money. Collectors who are normally adults will buy single Hornby carriages, but Hornby still produce sets because they know parents are more likely to buy something that is complete to start with. Even the Santa Fe carriages sold badly, they were finally put on clearance on S@H for $20, and snapped up by bricklink sellers. It's no wonder Lego doesn't do this again.

Hi Steve, Best of luck with the store, but I'm a little uncertain about the name. The word LEGO is trademarked, and since you are selling the exact same thing I think Laygo could easily be argued to cause confusion with that trademark. To me it seems like that name is begging for a cease and desist letter from TLG, and they are very protective of their trademarks, to the point of not allowing fan conventions to use their logos etc. I'm not a lawyer but I think you might save yourself a lot of hassle and signwriting money by avoiding that name. Peter