BRICK TRAINS SETS

Turn on the Lights!

No School like the Old School!

Brickworld just keeps on getting better this year, the buildings get better, and the venders just get bigger. There are no venders that specializes in trains, but there is one that indirectly influences how people design trains. A vendor that sell small little LED lights to go in the trains. The different uses can vary, but the way to use them with trains are just breath taking. A lot of the convention was surprisingly enough, not all about trains, but some were monorails, some were a grand displays of lego design. These retro styled monorails are fully equipped with classic and original minifigures from such as Blacktron, Classic Space, and M-Tron. These are a great parallel to what we get in our normal train displays. a bit of spice, and everything nice gives the convention center a more vibrant look! it has a sense of imagination, and creativity to create a most wonderful space landscape, full of custom buildings, monorails, and a great use of blacklight if i do say so myself. yeah i am a sucker when it comes to these grand displays, but how can you blame me? I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad that there is other train dioramas not as extravagant, but that they all play a role when setting a scene here at Brickworld. Some are to Awe, and some are there to show off some true Lego spirit! Isn’t that the point of Brickworld all along?

Arm? Leg? No?

The one to steal the spotlight for part 1 coverage of Brickworld 2013, is PennLug, a Pennsylvania based Lego group. Most of the other train set-ups were either hastily thrown together, or totally crazy, which is awesome; but a small town approach surprisingly impressed me the most. Everything was set up, as if it was a small town; such as a set up for a train yard, a small suburban neighborhood, even a downtown area. Other displays use the Lego Creator set buildings to set up their town. They made their own buildings, decoration, and just those little things that make this town more believing. There was a huge cylinder shaped hole in the exhibit, with a train in the middle, the track is actually able to spin and pivot along different set of track! It is incredible what these people at Brickworld think of. Brickworld is still more then trains of course; and with the improved leg room in this new hotel complex, our vision has greatly improved! So many new displays, yet so little time. everything here at Brickworld has been improved ten-fold, and it doesn’t seem to slow down at any rate. The creations just get more crazy as I push forward through Brickworld.

We have seen about two to three Lego sets a year; most of them are very expensive, and they are a bit difficult to have them set up at home without taking up an entire table, or floor. Don’t get me wrong, these cons can be negated with the overall fun factor of having your own train go through your Lego world, but at times it seems it is a bit too big. The trains on the boxes show like a buildings, and scenery and things of that nature, and if we would replicate that, it would be too large, and too expensive. I always wanted scenery with my train sets, so I usually made them myself with rather lack luster results.

To expand on Lego’s theme of trains, we have to look at actual model trains; you know the ones your dad had when he was your age? The trains are small, and you can make your entire table your own personal city. It seems to be a popular practice with Lego now to make HUGE small, but not many people want to make huge buildings to replicate the Willis Tower, or empire state building; so people shrink down the sizes smaller. Case and point, the architecture line of Lego that replicates famous landmarks, in a small scale, why not does this with Lego trains?

The technology is there! I actually really like the idea of having a control panel, and controlling like 3-4 different trains on their own frequency. The motor can be made small enough, and powerful enough to pull multiple train cars at once and they only run on the special Lego train tracks, similar to those of the 9v line. With the Lego trains, they can be made on a small scale, and really the possibility is endless with this idea! We could have a Western styled train with little scenery, a city styled bullet train with skylines and buildings, and perhaps even a space theme! With this new line, it could be even a monorail expansion for it as well. If you want to expand your city, Lego should make small sets to make houses, office buildings, power plants, scenery, just things to make our city alive! It might seem a bit ambitious, but at the same time it looks like we could have done this a long time ago.

These mini-sets would be sold for 30-40 dollars a train set, city expansions could be purchased as well to give your city that extra push, and the multiple train splitter (for more trains to be controlled at once) could be sold separately, or bundled for a deluxe sets! Again, this is not to take the thunder away for the big-boy toys, but a buffer for or a something to hold our imaginations before the next train comes out. But with these smaller sets, the limitation is your imagination of what you want next, isn’t it the overall theme of Lego?

The listing for the 3677 Red Cargo train, has now been listed “retiring soon.” What does this mean? Why was it this set? This means that this will become a very rare Lego Train collector’s item. it is actually a bit strange this set will be retiring soon, as it was out on the market for less then 2 years; funny to say that the 10219 Maersk, and the 7938 Passenger train has been out longer, but are only hard to find. This might mean the Red Cargo train was unpopular, or did not sell well, but i do not think this is the case. The Red Cargo train is a very Beautiful train, it looks different from any train set we’ve seen in the past, but my guess is that Lego is going to make room for the new 10233 Horizon Express train! I don’t think it’ll be long until the Red Cargo Train to leave the station, so buy a ticket while you can!