I don't review a lot of LEGO City sets as they tend to repeat. The fire fighters, police cars, and others tend to repeat every year. The cargo theme along with a few others, tend to repeat less often. I saw #60169, Cargo Terminal come out and was interested. It originally came out on 27 May 2017. However, the original retail price is $79.99. With 740 pieces that comes out to $0.108 per piece. I found that to be pretty high, but thankfully I picked it up on Amazon.com for 20% off for $63.99 or $0.086 per piece. So definitely better. Sadly, the set was only 20% off on Amazon.com for a small amount of time. Keep watching it though and it may come back.
Onto the review...
The set box is similar to most city sets. The front shows the full up set. The back shows the play features along with the standard minifigure that is saying "Hey!"
The contents include 8 parts bags numbered 1 through 8 to go with the instructions. Bag one includes a piece separator as you can see in the picture. There are 5 instruction booklets and then a sticker sheet. Thankfully the stickers are mostly license plates and a few others so it's not a massively stickered set like some in the past have been.
The first bag is a forklift. This is not the first appearance of a forklift in a City set. It has been in the Cargo Terminal #60022 from 2013 and Cargo Truck #60020 from 2013. This one includes a female minifigure, a hand cart to move things around and a small pallet with miniature LEGO sets on them. These have appeared before to include in 2010's LEGO City Truck (#3221). Not too much has changed on this forklift design although it is in red versus orange or yellow.
I pictured some of the extra small pieces included at the bottom of the photo for reference.
The second bag is a crane that has a movable arm. That is the arm rotates up and down but the hook part does not move in and out of the arm. The hook attaches to a crate that you build in yellow with the LEGO logo stickers on either side. The forklift can load the pallet of LEGO sets into this crate. The set includes 3 other crates that can be picked up with this crane.
The third bag is the start of the truck to carry the crates. Nothing too special about this part of the build.
Bag number 4 completes the truck. It comes with a driver who has a beverage and one crate with a mini-jet ski or similar type item in the crate. The truck has room for 2 crates in total.
The fifth bag is a trailer that attaches to the truck to carry additional crates. This allows you to load all of the crates that come with the set onto the truck. Nothing too impressive about this build. My only complaint is that the front axle has a ball attachment to the back of the truck and then the axle itself is on rotating plates. When you attach it to the truck and have it turn, it can over spin. I would go with either the ball attaching to the truck or the rotating axle, but not both. Too be fair, it doesn't take away from the trailer or the set that much... it's just a nit picky complaint that I have I guess.
The sixth bag is 2 additional crates. One has a small four-wheeler and the other is... um... maybe a snow plow that is supposed to attach to a larger truck? I'm not really sure. You could pretend it is a number of things I guess. The crates are built similar to the others where the fork lift can lift off the cargo and the crane can pick up the crate itself.
The seventh bag is a small hut that could be the entrance to the cargo area. There is a female minifigure that sits inside with a coffee maker, some cookies, a camera with a view of traffic, a wrench, a walkie talkie, and a barrier arm that swivels up and down. Like many City sets, this leaves a bit to be desired with no back wall to the building and not a lot else to it. It's sets like these that I enjoy because I can then use my own pieces and parts to expand upon them to make them better. Also, it can be a good addition to a larger cargo yard that you are building.
The eighth bag is a rack where the forklift can place the pallets. There are four slots for the 4 items with the set. As mentioned with the building, the shelving could stand to be expanded, but that's where your imagination can come into play. It's a good start to what could be a larger cargo yard.
Here is the entire set. In my opinion, it's a great set. There are lots of play features, there is room for expansion, and it's not a repeated City set that you see re-hashed every year. Definitely a good set for a kiddo or for a nerdy adult like me who builds city scenes with LEGO bricks. Look for the opportunity to get this on sale. In early May 2018, the set is around 19% off on Amazon.com in the US. LEGO seems to add to the cargo theme every few years versus annually so if you can't get this one, you'll have to wait a few years.
Happy building!
