peterab

This is a very nice mod of the emerald night. It removes a lot of the more mainland europe features of the Emerald Night such as the smoke deflectors and doors on the tender, and gives it a much more authentic British look in my opinion. The carriage has a real Orient Express feel to it, and the lights really add to that. Is it just me or is train tech slowly attracting more and more people with peg legs and hooks and eye patches

I quite like this set, though as others have pointed out it has some shortcomings. I view it as a pretty good basis for modding though. I really like the inclusion of the white supports for the bridge, and the four straight train tracks, and the red window frames. Depending on price I'll buy at least one and maybe a couple of these.

The Melbourne LUG (MUGS) has a bulk order in. We were charged AUD$3.99 per fig, no bulk discount, which is the RRP. The box contains 60 figs, so the box price comes to $239.40. We ordered through Toyworld. Toyworld sometimes allows independant toy shops to order through them as well, so some small shops may get these as well, but there are no certainties.

People aren't assuming that the ratio will be the same, thats what has been observed so far. See Alldarker's posts for confirmation of European sets, and Alywin's for confirmation in Asia. Since there have been no reports of any other distribution in undisturbed boxes, it would be highly unlikely that the observed patern happened by chance.

You will have four wheel parts and four buffers with magnets left over so you should have enought for at least two small cars, provided you have enough other parts such as plates to make the bases.

Nice photos Holodoc, I'm in love too, I want a bunch of these too, even more than cheerleaders :-) I can see the syringes being useful in the grittier parts of my town, probably in conjunction with the skater dude, and maybe some punks with exoforce hair. Peter

Welcome to Eurobricks he16767, Thats a very nice locomotive, I particularly enjoyed the photos showing how you made the pistons and the tender skirt clear the wheels around corners. Your model looks very like the prototype, you can be very proud of your work. Peter

I agree, but am greatly disappointed. The $30 dollar saving makes this set far less attractive to me. I still can't obtain a rechargable battery with a recharger for my region, this battey box probably uses 6 AAA's which will be hopeless for shows, and the predicted price of this set in Australia is such that I'm better off ordering the parts I want from bricklink or in the case of PF bits, US S@H via a remailer. Had it included the rechargable that would all have been different.

I don't think it's a new chassis, count the studs on this image and it looks to me theres a nose peice on a standard 28 stud chassis. I think Freddie was talking about the current power functions lights which could be mounted through the holes, they may even be included in the set, but if not it appears they could be easily added. I'm pretty sure the old 9V lights wont reappear, as the whole point of PF is to unify all themes and get rid of the specialist train electronics where possible. BTW I dont think the front is entireley brick built. It appears to use these pieces, and what LT interpreted as a new chassis appears to me to be a new nose piece, which would leave only one row of wedge bricks.

Hi Selander, I agree the Klodfest design is better, but only because it has an accurate number of vents on the side, otherwise it looks the same as your design. I've always been a fan of this train, and plan to build it in 7 wide in the future, after I've finished some other projects.

I'm really pleased you put up the internals photos, I've wanted to build one of these for some time. This is an excellent build and has been a personal favourite of mine since I saw the grey one on Brickshelf. Edit for spelling

I really like all the little extra functions. The doors and rotating fan are really clever.

Now all we have to do is decide if bribery or torture is more effective

That is the only real fact we can state on this topic I think Me too. No disrespect to Mark, but this also appears to be speculation, and I'm not sure I agree. TLG has stated that they wish to limit the amount of custom parts for trains to keep costs down, making a new AAA batery box seems to contradict this. Secondly the return on the investment in the rechargeable battery box will be very low if it isn't included in normal retail sets. Also Duq reported that a more powerful train motor will be included, which may make the current draw higher, and the lifetime of a charge on AAA's even shorter (which will be shorter than the AAs from the old green cargo train anyway). I'm not sure about this, the price of a set, as others have mentioned before, has in the past been cheaper than the individual elements. Besides as above a new AAA battery box has its own costs too. I doubt they would include the rechargable battery box without the recharger. Or perhaps it's not included and will be sold alongside, because you only need one charger even if you buy two trains. That's what I hope. It may also make the volumes of sales to Australia large enough to produce the recharger for our power points. Up till now if we order one from S@H, I'm told by Brad from BricksTo The World, it comes with a European plug. If the rechargeable battery box is included in the set and sold here at retail I'm pretty sure they would have to include a local recharger. I think the flexible track may not be selling very well individually but might be a nice extra if it's included in a set anyway. I'd personally prefer more straight track, but because it's unavailable seperately I'm tempted to get more level crossings and stations There are strong arguments either way, but I hope I'm correct. If I am these for me will be very desirable and very good value (though expensive) sets.

One of the cheif complaints AFOLs had for the last train line was the one piece battery box and RC reciever, which made it hard to Moc smaller locomotives. Part of the problem was the six AA's due to their size. At this stage the AAA's or the rechargable battery are just speculation, based on a blurry image of the box art with what appears to be a battery of the size of the rechargable one. Some think it is the rechargable one, others think its just a battery box of the same size. If so it would be too small for AA's but six AAA's might fit. The extra three batteries were used by the remote.

It's impossible to tell, but if the rumoured prices for Australia/NZ are correct, they have jumped significantly from the previous trains, which would be hard to bear if the new trains don't include the rechargable battery. As others have pointed out a six AA's would be required for 9V, so it's definately not going to be that, if the images on the box of the battery box the same size as the rechargable one are correct. It might be 6 AAA's but I hope not.

Earlier in the thread it was already proposed that that could refer purely to the batteries needed by the remote control. I hope the sets include the rechargable battery, and not a 6 AAA battery box. I'm also looking forward to the rumoured new motor. ETA thread not threat

I'm also no longer a star wars collector, so take what I have to say here as a product of a dodgy and disinterested memory, but I think I saw some yesterday in a Big W for $88. I assume this is the current Y wing with the Asohka (sp?) minifig. This was in Epping Victoria so it may also not be particularly useful info in Perth, I haven't been there since I was 7 :-) If I need to find a set that is no longer widely available I always try Toyworld, but they rarely have the best price, normally full RRP.

I'm not sure, but I think they do occassionally, but just the odd set. The MUGS lego Ambassador Sue Ann Barber is (I think) a costco member and got a cheap helicopter transport a while back. We're having a meeting this weekend so I'll try and remember to ask.

Very few hobby stores are large chains, certainly none the size of Walmart. Lego is a huge multi-national, and the scale of the markets that are attractive to them are huge. Australia is an insignificant market for _all_ Lego because we only have 20 million or so people. All our independant toy shops buy through the same buying group, because TLG only wants to deal with one. If our hobby shops wanted to stock trains they could. The fact they don't suggests they are not attractive from a profitability point of view. When you suggest marketing to model railroad fans rather than kids, I think thats what the Emerald Night represents to some extent, but they have to be AFOLS as well, since most model railroad fans instinctively view Lego as toys. I hope you can see that the much smaller AFOL rail fan market may bring with it more restrictions than the far broader market of kids who like trains. I hope the Emerald Night is a success, in fact I've bought two as parts packs, but given it is an experiment as an exclusive model, and past AFOL style train experiments, such as the Santa Fe coaches, and the Hobby Train haven't been a great success if the fact they were heavilly discounted is any indicator, I'm not surprised that TLG was cautious with it. I'm sure TLG has noted that extra coaches are wanted by fans, I hope in the future exclusive trains will include an engine and at least two or three coaches. I'm happy to trust that if TLG doesn't bring out individual train cars and say its because the sales in the past haven't been good, that they know better than I what they're talking about.

From my perspective neither train is interesting as is, but this one has red drivers, and if it does include extra blind drivers as reported above in the production set then it becomes highly usefull to every German steam train builder. I really hope the blind drivers are included, it will turn this into a must get for me. The Hogwarts Express is dissapointing because it is essentially a rehash of the older one, there is no wow factor, no new parts, not much to get excitied by even as a parts pack. Since its a licenced set then its also likely to be a more expensive set, so not even a cheap way to get basic train parts. Unless your a real Harry Potter fan I cant see why you'd get that train rather than wait for the new town trains that are comming.

The MUGS group in Melbourne have been able to order these in bulk (many boxes full) from Toyworld. We are not sure when we will receive them but expect it to be May/June. Toyworld has accepted our money, so one must assume that they are doing so in good faith, and therefore they expect to be able to fullfill the order. From my point of view (since I'm part of this order) I can't see any stronger proof that they will be available in Australia from at least Toyworld. BTW we have payed a RRP of $3.99 a figure

I've already got an order in for half a box full. A lot of our independant toy stores order together, and my local LUG has a contact through whom we can order :-) I won't get them till June I suspect though. I quite like this particular figure. I missed out on the ninja sets due to dark ages, but I also see this as more broadly useful. The torso in somewhat generic. The hood is less so but still has its uses. I'd like to have a few of these.

It has been posted twice in this thread, read back through older posts to see it.

These are really great buildings. I wish your chosen prototype was German railways like mine so I could more directly benefit from your skills :-) I'd be directly copying your designs if they fit with my layout. Perhaps you should offer the extra axels for sale on Bricklink, they seem to be the hardest to get piece of train wheels.