LEGO announced the results of their latest Ideas round on 25 October 2022. There were 39 submissions that achieved 10,000 votes this round and oddly enough, LEGO selected 4 to become sets. This is after rounds where we’ve had over 50 submissions and only 1 was selected. I’m not sure how they figure it out, but I’m excited as this time a train submission finally made it over the hurdle into being selected to become a set.
Fan Designer Thomas Lajon (aka LEt.sGO) from France built a version of the famous Orient Express using the Bricklink software Stud.io and it was selected to become a set. You can read his 10K club interview here.
The fan design looks good and I’m sure some of the photo editing skills help, but he does mention in his interview that the wheels he used don’t fit on the track so hopefully LEGO can fix this when they get to work. Also, his set is 2,991 pieces so if it stays that large, I could see this being a $300 set (or more with a motor).
Here is a top view of the engine. It shares the same color as #10194: Emerald Night, but hopefully the design is different enough that we won’t see a repeat of that set.
Here is a top view of the passenger car with the roof removed. I wonder if the set will come with options so you can turn the car into a passenger car or a dining car or a sleeping car. Or if LEGO gets really bold, the set could come with more than one car… whoa!
So LEGO…. how can you get this set right for fans?
1 - Make sure this train fits on LEGO gauge rails. I’ve been to multiple places where I’ve seen fans posting about their disappointment in #76405-1: Hogwarts Express Collector’s Edition. A lot of fans were super excited about a details, non-CITY train coming out geared towards train fans. There was a lot of disappointment when the community found out it couldn’t be run on your existing track and it was just meant as a display piece. So keep it on the L-Gauge rails LEGO!
2 - Additional coaches would be great. Or let me rephrase that…. Additional coaches would be great if I didn’t have to drop another $300 on a copy of the set.
3 - Make sure we can motorize this train. Does a motor really need to cost $40? While being able to display #10277-1: Crocodile Locomotive was nice, moving it to some LEGO track with a motor made it that much better. Oh and if you missed the Crocodile Locomotive set, I have one available in my Bricklink store.
To be fair, this is not an easy task. Build a product that does all that and that won’t cause me to break the bank. Don’t worry LEGO designers. I have faith in you! You can do it! I look forward to seeing the final product in a year or so.
In the meantime, happy building!