Back in October I took a trip to Toys R Us. A combination of money off, an additional voucher and a freebie Lego set if I spent over a certain amount saw me come home with a 60051 white passenger train set.
(Geoffrey the Toys R Us mascot was the freebie.)
In the box was a loop of track, the power functions kits and 7 bags of Lego parts.
The train is built on three identical gray modified plates. They are 28 studs long and have holes in so they can be used with motors and the wires can get in and out.
I started with the central coach. A flaw became apparent when building it, as there are no doors. How will the Lego minifigures get in?!?
Also, with shocking disregard for passenger safety, nothing was done to cover up the holes in the floor. (Maybe that's how the minifigures get in!)
But the finished coach looked OK, even if it was a bit short. It looks more like the length of a tram or street metro train.
The roof comes off so you can put the passengers in.
I then built the motorised engine and the dummy rear car. I either didn't take photos of the build in progress or I have lost the pictures. Still, here's a photo of the full train sitting on the current track set up.
In the overhead shot you can see the pantographs. I'm not going to build Lego catenary.
I don't have a passenger station. One is included in the set but it's laughably small and the ungated railway crossing looks very unsafe.
The verdict
Pros
I got this set much reduced and it was a good size collection of parts.
It's a cheap way to get the power functions motor and set up
The train looks fairly sleek and modern
Cons
Not a very interesting build. A lot of the parts are the same and the build got repetitive.
No doors and holes in the floor seem slightly careless design flaws.
The moulded nose cones are tricky to fit and have limited alternative uses.
Because of the moulded nose cones there are only four sets of buffers in the set, making it less of a resource for freelance building than other sets.
The "station" is barely a halt. It looks more like a bus stop.
The train is very light, meaning it flies off the corners way before it reaches top speed.
So, overall, I'm glad I got the set but I'm glad I got it reduced and didn't pay anywhere near the original RRP. I was slightly disappointed in it.
What next?
I have seen people insert extra coaches into the train to make it longer, or even merge two coaches to make longer, more prototypical coaches. However the longer ones have extreme overhang on the tight Lego corners. I am more interested in freight trains, so plan to keep this just for a bit of variety and to run something different occasionally. When I get bored of wagons I might come back and modify it or build a station for it.
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