BRICK TRAINS SETS

Today, we went to visit The Great Midwest Train Show, at the Dupage County Fairgrounds in Wheaton Illinois. We had the grandest of times here at the Train Show; we saw trains from yore, and trains of now. This Train show is mostly for those who are interested in miniature train models; there is everything to train vendors, train demonstrators, and special services. When I said you have to be “interested” what I meant by that, is willing to invest a lot of time and money to make your own miniature model train set. There were not that many Lego Train model Exhibits, but the ones that were here, are only in Exhibit 1. The other Exhibits are mostly Lionel, or MARX train exhibits and vendors.

Exhibit 1 is the first. And only exhibit to have a Lego Train Model, but fortunately it is the very first thing you see walking Into the Dupage County Fairgrounds. When we got to the train show, almost all the parking spaces were taken, so many in fact they had to let People Park on the grass, away from the filled up parking lot; but good thing there is free parking. Now this ain’t no Cantigny Train Show, but surprisingly it is just as enjoyable, even though there aren’t that many Lego exhibits. In this exhibit, there is a lot of Lionel, and MARX train vendors, but none of them were worth the price, or worth the quality. I think most of the trains selling at this convention are older than I am! Besides the train vendors, there are also a couple of Lego vendors as well, but it is located around the proximity of the Lego Exhibit, but it wasn’t anything special. All they sold there are Lego sets they are selling now, nothing from the 90’s, or the 80’s which disappointed me in some ways. The Prices of the Lego’s were actually rather cheap, the cheapest thing there is a medium sized Kingdom set sold for about $5.00 but in retail it would be $20.00, I was expecting a bit more variety but what I saw was not much. The main Attraction, the Lego Train Exhibit, was located on a stage near the entrance of the Dupage County Fairgrounds, in plain sight but not many people were over there. The Exhibit, in my opinion was mediocre at best, but that doesn’t mean it is a bad exhibit. It includes a lot of Lego sets, everything from Harry Potter to SpongeBob. If you read my other Blog posts, my favorite type of humor, is random humor, I don’t really like pop-culture-y references, so this was refreshing. An example of this, is in a traffic jam, there is a Star Wars walker in the road, try to find them all! I have enjoyed this exhibit, but I didn’t goof around much, straight to business, after all I had 4 more exhibits to go to!

The Great Midwest Train Show is a convention that people from all over the country meet up to bring you this convention. From wooden trains of old, to the modern trains today, and everything in between. That is not what i am here for, i am here to see the creative Lego creations this convention has to offer. This convention takes place every month, the next meet is on September 11th 2011. Hope to see you there!

An arm and a leg? Oh boy! what a deal!

The Botanic Garden was a mix between the Michigan ballroom exhibit, and the River ballroom exhibit, because it had a mix of mature, and well made Lego displays, as well as something to buy. Unlike the River room which sells Custom Lego minifigures, and Lego parts, the Botanic Garden sells old and new Lego sets, and they don’t come cheap either. The price for a modern set we have today, such as Alien Conquest, would be double or triple the retail price! I understand that the older sets from the 80-90’s would cost double or triple from the original retail price, but why new set? Right next to the sale of expensive lego sets, there was a build your own minifigure booth! It was very different from the Lego store minifigure builder, because there are more parts, and accessories to experiment to create your own minifigure. In the Lego store, you have to make three minifigures that contain, head, torso, leg, hat, and accessory, and they sell for $9.99. The booth at Brickworld however, charges one minifigure with head, torso, leg, hat, and accessory for $5.00, or three for $11.99. This might seem like a rip off, seeing how you pay two dollars more for minifigures you can get cheaper at the Lego store, but these minifigures have more variety of what kind of head, torso, leg, hat, and accessory that can be chosen. The parts I assume, come from new and old Lego sets that were dissected because of that exact reason. I didn’t buy either Lego store minifigure, or the minifigures from Brickworld, yes I do find that Brickworld has more variety, but both are a bit pricy for a minifigure. Besides all that, the displays there where big, creative, and had a lot of things going on. You can see many conflicts within the display itself, such as a normal gas station, people filling up their car, truck, tie fighter… Wait what?  Well at least the prices on the display are better than last year… The trains are not as impressive, a few caught my eye as being unique, and or something I saw already, or just a set slapped on the track. Overshadowed by its older brother, the River exhibit, it has better trains, and better things products to buy.