domboy

Awesome, thanks for posting this! I was actually mulling over the possibility of such a solution, but hadn't worked it out yet... you probably saved me a whole bunch of time. :)

Sorry to go slightly off-topic... are you talking about the tender in 10132 Motorized Hogwarts?? How bad is it? I assumed that since it was an official set this three axle arrangement must be ok, but I have not tested it extensively in real bricks (was working on a tender in LDD based on it). Does it not work at all, or is it just not ideal?

If money were no object I'd buy it (well two), as my Dad is French and I LOVE the orange and black color scheme. As a train fan, modern electric passenger are probably near the bottom of my list of what I find interesting though, and the fact that I'd have to buy two to make it complete is a bit of a financial challenge at the moment. Still I hope it sells very well so there will be future train sets like it. I too would be interested to know if it has sold well or not...

I absolutely love that little mail car!! Great job on the whole thing too!

Really?? I've found it'll go in, but it won't go through. At least that has been my experience with the two sets. I can park the locomotive most of the way in the shed, but I cannot drive it in one end and and out the other. Not without modification anyway. There are two pieces that will hit, I forget exactly which off the top of my head, and both sets are taken apart at the moment. Pretty sure it's this piece on the engine, it sticks out sideways from the section between the bogies/trucks (I'm not sure what the official name for that part of a locomotive is), and I believe the sideways studs hit something that is a little too close to the tracks in the shed.

I actually like this line a lot better that Kingdoms, which I bought almost none of. I don't care for the really small sets, but I'm fairly sure I want to get two of the middle ones. 70403 Dragon Mountain - I love the dragon (have all three fantasy era ones), and the little ruined castle bit itself is kind of neat. 70402 The Gatehouse Raid - love the dragon knight, and I like that the castle wall has technic connections on the side. Sure this line may not be LOTR, but as somebody that is rather broke, there is no way I'm getting into LOTR... it would trigger character collection obsession, and I would be even more broke!

Not the same set, but awhile back I decided to "Bricklink" a train set from scratch myself. I wanted a 10133 BNSF, but had a hard time swallowing the going rate on the used market. When it was all said and done I calculated I ended up spending around $170 IIRC, which at the time ended up being close to price I could have gotten one already complete. Maybe $5-10 less. That said, it was a fun processes, and it's ended up being a lot more personal than if I had just bought it straight up. Another thing is I strung the cost out over several months, so it was a bit more affordable in that sense. I guess I could have just saved up instead...

I also use rechargeable AAAs with the 88000 boxes, and I have one 8878. The main difference I've noticed between the two is that with the 88000 the train will start slowing down as the batteries drain, where the 8878 gives a consistent speed the whole way through and then suddenly stops. Not sure what trains you're going to power, but I've been much happier with my Emerald Night with the 8878 box, as it seemed to drain AAA rechargeables much faster (though I may have had a case of older batteries loosing their ability to hold a charge). The Maersk runs fine on AAA batteries, but it's somewhat of a pain to have to pull the box out to get the batteries out to recharge them. But I can live with it. $13 plus batteries is a bit easier to swallow than $50, but I am glad I bought one of those.

Yay, the 2007 dragon is back!! That right there makes this line so much better than Kingdoms... which other than the introduction of the bucket helmets wasn't very interesting to me (I guess I prefer fantasy over the real world). Only question now is whether to get the dragon set for myself or my little boy...

What I find neat about the original locomotive is the giganitc drivers it has,which look like they might be twice the hight of the engineer (hard to tell for sure without somebody actually standing by the wheel). Unfortunately the drivers from the Emerald night are nowhere near big enough if you're doing a minifig scale replica. Not sure where you could actually find a lego wheel that would work that could also run on rails though, so you've built a nice model within your constraints.

Our local Toys R Us has all three city trains on the shelves again (including 3677), I guess for the Christmas shopping season. So they're still available for now...

Well, the closest one to me is also 2 hours away... but I occasionally go through that city for other reasons, so I try to coordinate... it's not like I get to purchase big Lego sets at a whim anyway.

Maybe you don't have a Lego store in your area, but that's where I got my Emerald Night and Maersk. The only things I've bought from Lego online were power function bits, and one of those times was actually an in-store order (free shipping that way). Yeah, they don't have as wide-spread availability as regular toy stores, but all the Lego stores I've been in were in very large malls or outlet malls... i.e. lots of people... I've even seen the Maersk in one of the store front display windows once. That's what I've been thinking would be a good idea, since the new train is being released under the "Creator Expert" theme. A 3-in-1 Creator set would be a good way to release an expansion set for trains. Shucks, it doesn't even have to be exclusively a train set if that's too risky, make one of the other models something that isn't a train car. Seems a set like this would be cheaper to design and produce as other than train wheels, creator sets are typically made from more basic parts, don't include minifigs (or if they do they're pretty basic), and so on. I understand companies wanting to maximize profits by trying to make product that appeals to the majority, but you always have potential customers that want something the majority doesn't want (less popular), and I guess trains fit into that category for Lego... so I'm glad at least they do sell well enough that Lego continues to produce them even if it isn't ideal compared to traditional model trains...

I guess I don't understand your perspective... even if ME never sells any more track, they were designed to be compatible with Lego's track, so why are they suddenly rendered mostly useless?? And assuming BBB track system does includes a transitional pieces (as previously mentioned), why would you have to completely replace the Lego tracks? Why can't you use all of them??

I had that thought myself. Only trouble with that is right out of the box that won't be possible, unless Lego includes two extra regular train wheels. Probably not a problem for most people on this forum of course...

Yeah, that crossing shouldn't have had a maintenance vehicle in it... it should have had a baseplate instead. But in my town it was available in the local Toys R Us, which is where I got my copy. I'm hoping that moving the exclusive trains to be creator sets that future releases will be a 3-in-1 where you would get multiples and build either the locomotive or two different rolling stock models. Oh, and ditch most of the minifigs. Though such an idea may not work very well, as in the case of the Emerald Night, the locomotive and tender look nothing like the passenger wagon. I dunno. Maybe I just don't understand what is supposed to be the concept behind "Creator Expert".

Yep. It was this piece. Posted in the thread track compatibility. Hopefully the BBB track system will include a piece similar to this, as it would greatly increase the usefulness of the system and we wouldn't need to fiddle with some of the tricks to match the two up as discussed in that topic.

It's reaching EOL already? Seems like a rather short life for an exclusive. Is that typical for Maersk sets or something?

I find it amazing that way back in the 12v days the steam engines actually had working connecting rods and pistons, but Lego never did this on anything again until the Emerald Night. I guess 12v really was the golden age...

Yeah, I'd also hope for a transition pieces. It seems to me these track pieces are a closer match to the old 4.5v/12v track system, and while combining them is possible, it is a bit tricky...

On top of all that, in this day of Internet access on all sorts of different devices (PCs, smartphones etc), how hard is it to Google "Lego train tracks"??? So the tracks aren't in stores... so order them from Lego.com. Is it really that hard? If it is really that hard, how about putting a note on the train set box or instructions saying that track is available for order. When I was a kid a lot of our Lego was ordered via phone from the cataloge by my Grandfather... today it's so much easier!

I understand not wanting to buy an older train set outright as the prices they go for are usually not pretty. About 1.5 years ago I decided I really wanted a 10133 BNSF but I didn't want to buy the set so I also decided to do a reconstruction project on it. I think I calculated at the end I probably spent around $170 which was not far from the cheapest one on Bricklink was at the time (and still outragous considering it was originally a $40 set...). In retrospect it probably wasn't the best idea, as that locomotive has quite a few parts in either rare colors or rare for train parts (dark green and orange, specially the train windows). The positives about it was I was able to spread the cost out over a few months time, I had fun, and it's a bit more valuble to me due to the trouble I went through to gather all the pieces. My biggest issue with a reconstruction project is the question of stickers if the set includes them. So I'm curious if you've thought on how you are going to handle that part. I guess I need to go read up on your progess. Edit: Side note: I've also reconstructed 10027 Train Engine Set and the My Own Train sets (10013-10017) and had much better luck as these contain a lot more common (cheaper) pieces, and no stickers... I just don't have any hard price numbers as these projects got mixed in with other unrelated projects so I lost track. Guess what I'm trying to say is whether it's cheaper to "bricklink" the parts to build a set or buy the set outright might depend on the set. So again, I'm curious to see how your project goes...

I could be mistaken, but in the video I thought he said they were printed... Oops, my bad. I guess I missed the

This train is awesome... I love the Lego orange color, so a steam engine in orange and black (and red) is just incredible! I wasn't familiar with the real locomotive so I had to go read up on it. You really did a great job, as it really does look like the real thing!

Nah, it'd have to be an orange and black steam engine to do that, something along the lines of this MOC. I do however love the Lego orange color, so that's huge plus. And probably the one thing that might tempt me to consider this train... What American steamers are you referring to? The Toy Story and Ghost trains?!? Those are the only American steamers that I know of in recent years (and I'm not sure the Ghost train really even counts). Even though modern electric trains aren't high on my list of favorite train types, I can appreciate how much this model looks like the real thing, so that's another plus. The other plus is the printed panels on the sides where the black bar starts. Why couldn't they have printed a piece like this for the Maersk paint scheme? I really dislike stickers... I am very glad that another detailed train set is being produced, and that all the people who have been asking for a detailed electric train finally are getting their wish. I hope it sells well so there will be more of these in the future as these "Creator Expert" type trains are probably be the only trains I'll be buying for me from now on (though my 10 month old boy will need a city train set someday...).