As I’ve stated, more Harry Potter sets to review… This one is #75955-1 Hogwarts Express. It was released on 5 September 2018 in the US and retails for $79.99. I picked it up on sale at Amazon.com and since buying it the set has moved up to 20% off. Anyways, the set has 801 pieces and 6 minifigures. It works out to $0.10 per piece at retail (obviously less if you get it on sale). That’s right about average in my mind and not bad for a licensed set. Onto the review…
Standard box… Front shows the set with all of the minifigures. The back shows the play features with the Dementor appearing 3 times. I think this set will be popular just for the Dementor alone.
The set includes 7 bags of parts, an instruction book, and a sticker sheet.
Bag one starts to build Kings Cross station to include platform 9 3/4. It also includes the minifigures for Professor Remus Lupin and Ron Weasley as well as a baggage cart. 9 3/4 is a wall on Technic pins that rotates when you run a minifigure into it. Bag one also includes a piece separator.
The second bag includes the rest of the station and the Harry Potter minifigure. One of the nice features of this set is the mix between stickers and printed parts. The 2x2 newspaper tiles are printed which are 2 less stickers to worry about.
The station itself is pretty simple, but to make it any bigger would bring the price up. For the set, I think the platform gets the key part which is the wall to go through. If builders want more of the features, they can build them on themselves.
The third bag starts the engine itself with the wheels and the bottom part of the engine. The wheels are a pretty simple assembly as compared to the Emerald Night set.
The next bag completes the engine. I was glad that the front curved piece (what’s the official term? Nose?) was printed as well as the “Hogwarts Castle” rounded tile piece on each side. The only thing that confused me on this set are the turning ratio of the front 4 wheels. There is an assembly that can be moved up to allow the wheels to turn and then put down to lock them into staying straight. For someone like me who plans on motorizing this train eventually, this piece seems unnecessary. I would rather have the front able to turn all the time without the awkward piece to lock it into place. This will be something that I redesign eventually.
Everyone else has brought this up and I have to as well. This train is not motorized. There are numerous videos and sites out there where you can see how others have motorized this train. You can use Power Functions train motor or an M motor with some Technic pieces. Either way, it is possible to motorize it without totally wrecking the design. While I would have preferred for the train to come motorized, I think this would have brought the price up pretty high… maybe over $100?
The fifth bag adds the tender and Hermione. The tender is a very simple build and it is connected by Technic pins versus the magnets of trains of old. My guess is that this helps to keep the cost down. Thoughts? I’ve heard builders complain about them and others say they are okay so we’ll see…
The next bag starts the passenger coach with a Trolley Witch. The coach is a pretty simple build and is fairly small. I think I would have made it larger, but it fits the scale of the engine. I will add that to my to-do list… re-designing the coach and adding some more.
The seventh bag completes the coach and adds a Dementor. On the positive side, the Dementor is a cool design and in my mind it matches the actual character well considering it is a minifigures. On the negative side, the coach is small and only has 4 wheels. If you go back to the coaches in the Emerald Night or Horizon Express, they have 8 wheels and each set is on a piece that pivots with a Technic pin that fits into the car itself. This one has wheels that are just attached to the car without the ability to pivot. Since it’s such a small car, the wheels are closer together and it shouldn’t be an issue that they don’t pivot. This car is similar to this old set…
So I realize that I am not the intended audience for this set. After all, the box says it is meant for ages 8 to 14. I would have beefed up the coach, motorized the engine, and added in a few pieces of straight track. I will add “building more coaches” to my LEGO building to-do list. In the meantime, I think this is a great set. It does the Hogwarts Express good justice and I think the play factor for this set is good given there are 6 minifigures. While there were a lot of stickers, I think they added some good detail to the set and they weren’t too bad to apply. In the end, I recommend buying this set. Try and pick it up on sale at Amazon.com, Walmart, or elsewhere.
Happy building!
