This blog is about my Lego trains. Just a disclaimer, I am what's known as an AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego) and I do buy more of the stuff than most grown ups who actually have children to buy it for. Lego is a versatile building tool and crazily well-engineered. We have a Lego Shop in Cardiff and the stuff in there is amazing.

I have a 9v train-set that was produced back in the 90s. This runs in a similar way to classic model railways - power goes through a transformer and is picked up from the track by the engine. It's a nice set - a passenger train with space for cars to drive onto it. However, this type of Lego set has been superseded by radio control, battery powered locos.

I've written about the City Cargo Train (60052) on my other blog, but I thought it might be worth putting some more thoughts out there, so here is a brand new blog.

This is the set.

You can see from the picture what you get in there - a freight loco of a vaguely European design, but which could also pass as American outline. (These sets are sold worldwide so they have to be fairly generic.) Three wagons, of which the cable drum wagon is both the most useful and prototypical. An overhead crane, which is a decent unit to be fair. And an oval of track and two points so you can make a little passing loop.

This is what you get inside the box.

The build was great fun. The loco was probably my favourite part of the build and the finished item is really nice.

The rest of the build was also fun, but I quickly decided to alter the 'cattle wagon' (which was open and entirely unsuitable for transporting livestock) into a 'scrap metal' wagon. The scrap was actually a load of other Lego parts, mainly from Technic and Bionicle ranges, that I have acquired in collections of second hand Lego. I have plans for a small scrapyard - more will be revealed later. (As a bonus I now have a spare Lego cow.)

Here are some photos of the train set in action.

Observant readers may note additional wagons in that last photo. More on them in a future post...

So, in conclusion, what was good or not so good about this set?

Good points

• Really nice loco - nice to build and looks the business trundling round the track.
  
• A decent radio control unit, which allows for excellent slow running.
  
• The crane is a well-designed piece of equipment and looks suitably industrial.
  
• Decent amount of track and two points.
  
• You do get a lot of Lego in the set and the various bits are packaged individually and have their own instruction booklets. I built it over a few evenings to spread out the fun.
  
• You also get a little truck to load stuff on to and a forklift truck to build as well.
  

Not so good points

• The price. The RRP on this is £140. I got it with a significant discount and used birthday money to buy it. But that kind of money puts it into the same price bracket as 'proper modelling'.
  
• The wagons were uninspired. The cable drum one was OK, but the cattle wagon was silly and the other wagon had space for a pallet, a wheelbarrow (why?) and the forklift truck. I'm not sure how the forklift was supposed to get off the train to unload the pallet. The train looked a little odd when running with the three wagons that came in the set.
  
• An over-reliance on stickers. Like most AFOLs, I much prefer printed pieces. However, most of the markings on the train and the crane were stickers. The yellow and black warning stripes were particularly fiddly.