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?