Helmantel

If you browse this list, I'm sure you can figure out what you have. Bricklink train overview Gray era train stuff is numbered 7700-7800

I got 7727 back in 1984, I think it was. My cousin and best friend had a (in my 8-year-old eyes) huge amount of blue 12V trains on loan from some other, older, cousins of ours and I desperately wanted a train too. I was afraid they were too expensive, so I was investigating all kinds of scenarios (push train with a separate motor etc.) to find out a way for my parents to buy me a 12V train. In the Netherlands, we have something called "Sinterklaas", which is similar to Christmas (in terms of getting presents anyway) and celebrated on the 5th of December. I already got the 7820 post waggon earlier in the afternoon at my grand parent's, so I thought things looked promising! In the evening, I got the 7727. I guess my mother just wanted to buy one box and be done with it. I certainly didn't complain :). For my birthday, two weeks later, I got a transformer, track etc. Later still, the collection got expanded with a goods terminal, more track, light posts, signal, a 7755 locomotive (my brother got that one) and more. Two years ago, I was bitten by the Lego virus again, after surfing the web a little looking for some information about Lego after my brother had given my newly born daughter a box of Duplo. I guess that was an expensive and time consuming mistake :) I now have all the gray era trains and accessories and most of Classic Town from the 80's (the only exception is that I only own one gas station, fire station, police station etc. and I'm missing some of the special ones that weren't available in Europe)....

Nice review of a nice set! I got this really nice set recently off Ebay. I was actually bidding on something else from the same seller (forgot what it was) and he offered this one too. I actually wanted to draw the lines for my Town collection at 1980-1990 (to go with my gray era 12V train collection, but since this is such a nice set, I figured, what the heck, I bid €45 with no expectations of winning the bidding. Well, I didn't get the other set but this one for just €42. It turned out to be in great shape with all (32!) stickers still in place. Only the two yellow containers were missing.

Almost 10kg of beauty I still need to build my fire brigade and of course buy the Grand Emporium so that I can build the same street. Then it needs a road in front of it. Unfortunately, that means taking the buildings apart and moving them about 8 studs, so that the side walks can be on the studded part of road plates. That's of course not necessary, but it would look silly with 8 studs between the side walk and the street. I've been wondering what road plates would look best. I have many old light gray ones, but maybe the new dark gray ones have a more realistic color? Opinions?

I think German steam engine builders will disagree with you :) Of course, red wheels were already available from BBB (as were the black ones), but now there are both black and red large Lego train wheels, which is great. The rest of the train doesn't interest me much.

The nice thing about the 10170 is that they contain very few (if any) unique parts: Parts list I think you can find all the parts on Pick-a-Brick. Although that's not a guarantee for a bargain it shows that it wouldn't be too hard to make them yourself. I guess it depends on how much the parts end up costing. If the difference is small I'd probably buy the real thing.

According to Duq at least. Somebody at lowlug also asked him about the wire and he wasn't sure but thought that it was attached to the motor. Duq actually posted in this topic earlier, so maybe he'll comment on it.

Somebody at lowlug.nl who's been at Lego in Billund (Duq) wrote the following regarding the train motors: The motor strongly resembles the 9V and RC train motor. The internals are new and it has a PF connection. The internals are stronger and more efficient than the RC motor. Lowlug discussion I guess that means that you don't have to worry about the weak RC motor anymore. Regarding the price, I don't understand why people try to calculate them based on what separate PF components cost. I mean, that's about the same as trying to calculate the price of the Grand Emporium (or any new set) based on Pick A Brick prices or the price of a new car based on what the dealer charges for a replacement engine and gearbox. Parts always (much) more expensive seperately then in a set, which is true for just about anything. As a 12V collector I can give the following example: motorizing a 7715 push along train with a 12V motor and 2 packs of middle (electric) rails was more expensive than a 7735 train, which had all the 12V parts to begin with. I'm sure there are many more examples. Also, now that they're going to produce (or order if they come from a supplier) the PF components in much bigger numbers than the relatively few adults who chose to motorize their Emerald Night with them, the cost price will probably drop a whole lot. I doubt if that will also result in greatly reduced prices for the separate components at S@H. Except for end of production sales, Lego prices usually tend to increase, not drop....

But they only come in black. For the popular German engines with the red wheels you would still need the BBB wheels. Nice wheels! I'll order a set when they come out. Nice engine by the way. Those great looking tankers that it's pulling, are they made of parts of the MOT 10016 tanker? That would make them 8 wide, which I think looks too big on that one, but on yours they look much better in proportion. They look like 6 (2 x 3) wide, but they don't exist.

The old 70's blue style fell easily apart with only half the sleepers, but the 80's style with the "click" sleepers is pretty strong. Actually now that they're 20-30 years old and have become harder and brittle, it's easy to break them when taking the tracks apart. The 9V system is much simpler and more reliable and looks good too. I have a lot of 80's 12V trains and track but find building the track the most boring part of it all, so even though I'm a bit 80's 12V fan, I like the 9V track better.

I understand that the Santa Fe cars were sold at large discounts (wasn't into Lego at the time) which is probably what Jamie Berard was referring to when saying that seperate cars didn't do well in the past. Since this commercial failure occured in the middle of the financial crisis at Lego, management has probably become reluctive when it comes to the release of train sets. The 10183 Hobby Train set was also sold at half price after a while, so I guess that one didn't too well either. I can imagine that they said something like: OK, you can design a train, but just one and it better be a success! Had Lego been as commercially succesfull in the early part of the past decade as it is now, they probably had forgotten all about the Santa Fe cars not selling well and just remembered how much money they were making back then

Does that say something about the size of your lego collection or more about your memory?

That's what I did. I bought three for 80 Euro each (discounted price at an online dutch shop) and sold two locomotives for about 70 Euro each. At the Swedish S@H, they're 1199 SEK (~115 Euro) and they were out of stock at the time, which is probalby why I got a good price.

I understand it's not really what you meant but two Maersk trucks from the 1980's were also 6 wide. Unlike the many 6 wide trucks from the 1970's, these included minifigs and can be considered be part of Classic Town. Maersk truck 1980 Maersk truck 1985

Somebody on lowlug.nl who looked at the dealer catalog (from which the pictures were taken) said that it included the rechargeable battery. I don't know if he/she assumed it was that one because it looks identical or if it said so in the text. Regarding the price point: somebody mentioned that the price for the goods train in New Zealand would be 399 NZD, while the old RC train was 349 NZD. Both included a (different) remote and train motor, while the RC train had a special chassis with battery holder, and the new one has a rechargeable battery and IR reciever. It seems to make sense that for an extra 50 NZD they're able to delete some (rather expensive) parts and add some other (even more) expensive ones.

I don't think there will be a steam engine. It wouldn't really fit in with the rest of the City line. Apparently, that wasn't an issue in the early 80's, but back then, steam engines may have been old fashioned, but were still in use about 10 years earlier. Maybe there will be a follow up for the Emerald Night? It seems to be a success, so who knows?

Does anybody know if the current RC trains have been succesful? Here in Sweden, the bigger shops usually have them. Who knows, if the new trains are a success, there may be all kinds of nice extras for it (cars, goods stations etc.). I think that the last time Lego offered a lot of train stuff in the early 2000's (Train shed, MOT line, etc.) also coincided with the financial trouble of the company. I don't know if poor train sales were a big part of the problem, but they probably weren't the money making line. That may explain the reluctance of introducing new train sets. It would be nice to see what the new trains will look like. Hopefully it's appealling to adults too. After all, it's much easier to convince parents to buy a train if they like it as much as their kids :)

I doubt that. Kids are not as stupid as adults sometimes think

You can use flex tracks, but those are mostly intended to fill gaps between track sections that don't line up. Regular track is cheap and looks much better. The current power functions set intended for the Emerald Night is indeed expensive. A cheaper and (much) simpler alternative for the Holiday train would be to use the train motor (12 Euro) and the big battery box (around 10 Euro I think). Combined with the remote and receiver, that would cost about 50 Euro. Alternatively, you could use 9V track, motor and transformer, but that limits you of course to the second hand market and they aren't giving that stuff away for cheap (although for the price of the current PF kit, you can buy quite a lot of it). Lego is going to introduce new regular trains (=not like Emerald Night but intended for kids) next year, which are said to have (some version of) power functions, so you can always wait and see what they offer next year and then determine how you are going to power the train. Your son can probably wait untill then, but I'm not so sure about his dad

Nice coaches! Like others have mentioned, those were the colors of the original TEE, which inspired the 7740. Of course, dark red and tan weren't available in 1980. If I counted right, they're 12 studs longer than the regular Lego length for such coaches (28 studs). Do they take curves well?

I own 555, 6364 and 6380. The 555 is nice looking. I actually like the look of many of the 70's buildings. They're simple and lack details and are not very well suited to minifigs, but the "architecture" is usually pretty nice and more realistic than most later buildings. But I'm going to sell it because I don't collect 70's Lego (I want to keep my collection focused on 1980's town and trains as well as new stuff like modular buildings and trians like the Emerald Night). The 6364 is neat too, like all the little buildings from that era. Very simple and small, but somehow that doesn't seem to matter. I remember I didn't like the 6380 when it came out. I figured it was just a bunch of windows, which it is, but now that I bought it last year I think it's neat and blends in nicely with the other town sets from that period. It also has a decent size, which makes a bit more convincing as a (small) hospital.

I agree that kids should move around, but so should trains :) The cargo train looks really nice and although it may not be intended for 3,5 year old children, I don't think that's a big problem if he's enthousiastic about it. I also understand though that you prefer a non-motorized train at this age. Replacing the motor with wheels and some other parts is entirely possible, but a bit of a hassle to order separately. Also, your son may be a bit upset if you take out the most interesting parts and hand him a separate bag with wheels (although you can probably find a way so that he doesn't even notice :)) Maybe the Holiday train #10173 is a better option. It looks like a fun train for young kids, has no motor and you can just hand him the box and let him play with it. It's not available anymore, but you can find several new ones on www.bricklink.com from $120 (probably cheaper used on Ebay), which is a bit cheaper than the cargo train. It doesn't come with track though, so with two boxes of those to make an oval and shipping cost added, you probably didn't gain anything. Also, motorizing it later on won't be easy. There are basically two options: using the old 9V system that Lego stopped producing (although you can find used track and motors rather easily) or using the new Power Functions system, which Lego is going to introduce next year (at least that's what they say, so nobody knows all the details yet). Maybe it's easiest to buy the cargo train after all. Or wait until he's five and play with the yellow bus in the mean while :)