This is the Summer of Lego Trains!

Hey there, thanks for tuning into Duck Bricks. I'm Chris, and this seems to be the summer of LEGO trains, or at least vehicles that run on rails. Because not only did they just release three brand new roller coaster sets at the same time, but they also released three brand new trains under the LEGO City lineup. These all released on June 1st of this year everywhere in the world, basically except for North America, where they will release on August 1st to take advantage of the Christmas season hype. Now, there are three very different vehicles here, and I have a lot to say about all of them. There's a classic steam train, which to me is probably the most interesting of the bunch, especially because we haven't really seen anything like this from LEGO City before. There is a more modern, realistic train with a lot of play built in to load the different cargo containers onto the train, and then onto other vehicles that the set includes. And then finally, there is a tram meant to transport people from one part of city to another. Doesn't really technically count as a traditional train, but it sits on the same rails, and I wanted to count it in this video because it really feels like for the first time, LEGO is really reinvesting a lot into the train sub-theme and the train idea. And back in the 80s and 90s, we would get entire waves of LEGO trains, and we haven't really seen that for years and years. And this year, it seems like they're kind of back. So there's a lot of exciting stuff to get into here. Let's jump into the details right now. The three LEGO City train sets we'll look at today consist of the following. 60511 Vintage Steam Train retails for 90 US Dollars, 90 Euros, or 80 British Pounds, and comes with 575 pieces. It's also one of the only times we've gotten a classic style of steam train from the LEGO City lineup, which typically tends to focus on more modern city train offerings, making it a very unique outlier in the city train system, and one that personally I hope will do well enough that it'll necessitate LEGO creating more stuff like this for the LEGO City theme. The next one goes in entirely the different direction. Instead of a classic steam engine, we have the Harbor Freight Train. This is 60509, it comes with 803 pieces, and retails for 110 Dollars, 100 Euros, or 90 British Pounds. In contrast to the vintage steam engine, this is entirely focused on play in a more industrial setting. You have four different shipping containers, which can be lifted utilizing the crane provided in the set on wheels, and then placed onto the orange truck for transport elsewhere. Every single one of the four containers has a different type of cargo inside, from a refrigerated container, to a standard one, to one holding a tractor, and even one holding engines which are currently being worked on. And despite the fact that this is a more industrial focused set, it does include a very bright and colorful teal engine, which definitely makes it stand out. And then finally we have a set that isn't really a classic train at all, but instead a beach tram, or streetcar, depending on the region you're based in. 60506 is the classic beach tram, and it comes with 693 pieces, retailing for 75 US Dollars, 70 Euros, or 60 British Pounds. It's a very classic streetcar style of build, and it's not something that we've really seen from LEGO City before done with such detail. Most of the time when City does a streetcar included in a set, they typically don't include tracks for it, and it's very simplified to go alongside some larger city buildings. But for this one, the entire focus of the set is on the streetcar, and the beach that it brings you to, which is really interesting, and something that LEGO City again hasn't really ever touched before. I really wanted to put out a video on this because it's our first time in a long time that we've gotten three different trains released at the same time for LEGO City, and each one is so unique with its own level of details and playability. There's a lot to say here, so let's jump in right now. Alright, with the details out of the way, I want to briefly talk about each of the trains here and why it's personally exciting to me that LEGO is doing this. Typically for LEGO City, maybe we'll see we used to actually get maybe a train every few years, and there would be entire years that go by with no trains, and we were in a period where LEGO trains didn't really seem to be a priority for the company. And now it seems like they've kind of gone back to the roots of a lot of the classic LEGO play themes, where LEGO started off by doing a lot of train sets in the early days of the 70s and 80s and 90s. Trains was an entire theme, it wasn't even part of City, and now of course it makes sense to have these be part of City, but I really like how they're giving us three very different offerings in one release cycle alone. And that's not even mentioning the that we saw earlier this year in March that was fully motorized and a little bit more along the action-adventure theme with a helicopter coming in to grab the train cars up from the tracks. That set is crazy and probably one of my favorite trains this year for the play value alone, and if you want to see a video on that, do let me know. I haven't really done a ton of focus on LEGO City, but I love trains, it's just not something I talk about a ton on this channel, and that's why I wanted to showcase these, and if there's enough interest in this video, then I'll look into making a video on that one. Now last year we got the fantastic motorized LEGO Arctic train, which at least for me personally, as somebody who likes the more sci-fi futuristic style of trains that LEGO can do, that is absolutely one of my all-time favorites. I know a lot of diehard train fans don't like that one because it's so different than what you're expecting to see in the real world, but then we get to this summer and these are actually a lot closer to what you would see in real life, and I feel like it is so cool for LEGO City to do that, where it's not just focusing on police, or fire, or rescue, or whatever the sub-theme is for the summer, like jungle or something like that. We're getting actual expansions to the LEGO City in the form of these three very different trains, especially this classic steam-based locomotive, which is just so pleasing to see. I love the color scheme on it, and that I think is easily my favorite out of the three trains here. Now there's a lot to get into here, and one thing I do also like is that these come in at relatively different price points. They're all larger sets, but they're not all the same price, and they really do give you a lot of variability. If you are a collector who prefers the more realistic style of modern trains, then you should get this one. If you like the more classic style of locomotives, then get this one. Or if you like something that's more based on public transit that you would see in a city, then, well, this set is for you. So they all each operate in their own very different niches, while still giving us more LEGO trains in one year than we've seen in the past several years combined. So without further ado, I want to jump into my personal favorite of the three here, and that is the steam locomotive here. So let's jump in right now. Here is the vintage steam train. With 575 pieces, this retails for 90 US dollars, which, on paper, does not sound like very good value, and honestly in practice, still isn't really good value. That being said though, price aside, this is probably my favorite of the bunch. We have never really gotten a steam train like this from LEGO City, which typically tries to do more modern and realistic freight trains like the other one that we looked at in this video, or tries to do its own thing, bring the trains into a more sci-fi aesthetic. This is something very different. It's most reminiscent of what the classic LEGO train theme would look like today, where back in the early 2000s and even the 80s and 90s, we would get steam trains all the time. And this is kind of like a modern remake of that classic archetype. We have our passenger cabin here, the actual steam part of the steam train, and then you have the engine up here as well. Now the set only includes enough train tracks to make a fully straight track here to allow the train to be displayed. If you want to use any other pieces to make a longer track or something that circles around, well, you're going to have to look elsewhere. And LEGO does sell tracks separately, but it is a little unfortunate that they are basically only including you with enough train tracks to put this on one track here, because there isn't really that much play that a kid could get out of this. Majority of what you can do is to move it on and off the track. So I guess this is kind of cool to be able to see it going back and forth, but for $90, I feel like they could have done at least a complete circle, even just a small circle. I don't know, it just definitely feels like for the price that you're paying, I would have appreciated getting something a little bit more like that. Now that being said, this does have a little bit of a station as well, and honestly it's not that interesting. I'm going to go ahead and remove it for this video, just so we can take a closer look at what the station has to offer. You have a stopping point here, so this can actually go over and cause the train to stop, or you can just kind of have it raise or lower depending on how you see fit. There's a ramp for passengers to get up, and then it's just ever so slightly elevated so it can attach onto the tracks. You've got a nice little, very simple waiting area here, and you have some plants here, and I like the usage of the relatively new flower bud element, as well as the handlebar piece for the streetlight. It's quite nice, but otherwise it is just kind of a flat gray platform, so it's really not the most interesting thing. I would have loved if they included even just a little sign with a sticker, maybe showing a map of LEGO City or some of the train times, something you would see on a normal platform, but this is literally just a bench, a little area to cover your head, and then just a light. Now the focus, however, is on the train itself, and this is remarkably well done. Nothing in here is way too complicated, but I will have to note that every decal is a print, so the two pieces on the side of the passenger car are printed, and then the number 317 is also printed on the side of the train, which is quite nice. Now of course, you do have the usage of the newer train linkage element that they wanted to use to actually have the train roll along like so, and that is so satisfying to see it roll. You know it would have been more satisfying to see it actually roll alongside a number of tracks, rather than just the straight one that you get here, but you can still have a bit of a motion with the train going back and forth like so. Now there's a couple of points about the train I want to point out, and to do that we are going to separate out every single one of the cars. The track itself is very simple. There is a small little stopping point here, but nothing too crazy going on with the track. This is very, very simple, and then we can go back to taking a look at the train itself. Now I'm going to start off by taking a look at the engine here. Now the engine, I think, is the best part of the model. You can see how the wheels operate like so. It has such a classic nice color scheme. The bright red, the dark green, and the black and gold just work so well, and I feel like this is such a classic train color scheme. It really works for me, and I definitely like the amount of detail that was put into making the color scheme work out well. You've got a bit of studs in the side detail here, with a strip of red going under the train, and then you have predominantly green back part, and then the black and gold front. This right here is also a piece that I didn't necessarily recognize. It may have appeared in some other sets, but it's been a while. I'm actually a little bit behind on building some of the newest LEGO sets, but I believe this is either new for this year, or new in general. It's kind of like a bucket element that they're now here using for the top of the steam engine, which is really nice. I mean, the shaping of that is perfect. If it's not new, it really feels like the piece was made for this. It reminds me of an upscaled version of the old classic palm tree elements, except this one can actually stand on its own, which is quite nice, and I'd love to see them recolor this in brown, and maybe do a stack of them for a palm tree. Now, moving over to the back here, removing the conductor minifigure, which is pretty standard. You can see the inside of the steam engine. There is some fire there for you to load the coal. There is a simple little wheel there for you to actuate it, and then of course, you have the ability to remove the roof, but there's not much else you can do inside the train from there. Otherwise, it's just a nice classic little design for a steam engine, and of course, going on from that, you've got your coal car. Now, this is very large for what it is, and I've seen some complaints that the coal car is basically like two-thirds of the size of the passenger car, which feels very out of proportion, but for a LEGO playset, I think it does make sense. It feels a little larger than it needs to be, but I also understand they wanted to utilize this classic train element and all of that, so this kind of set the scale right here with how they wanted to have the coal be working. But as you can see, you have this coal mounted here at an angle, which is interesting, and that opens up to reveal nothing on the inside. Sometimes, classic LEGO trains would hide like a rat or something in here, which is quite nice, and unfortunately, they did not do that here, but that's because this is meant to house a battery box. So basically, when you actually have this powered up with power functions, this basically allows you to hide some electronics in here, should you wish to power this up at some point. So I assume that's why they made it so hollow, and that's why it's built with a hole down in the center here, so it is nice that they do give you that option, should you wish to motorize it, but then again, it does end up feeling a little oversized compared to the rest of the train. Still, though, I do like the color scheme and aesthetics. Now, finally, we have the passenger car, and this is very nicely done. I love the usage of brick-built detail here. These are actually fully built in, and it actually tricked my eye for a second. I thought that was our classic molded element, but no, this is actually all brick-built detail, which is really nice detailing for a LEGO City set like this. You have a red light on the back. Would it have been nice to get another passenger car for the price you pay? Yes, I think that they could have included another one of these and still charge $90, but alas, it is what it is. However, they did make the most usage out of this, which seems to be a hybrid dining car. There are seats for four passengers, and they're actually utilizing the newer style of 2x6 jumper plate introduced for the January City sets to mount your passengers, which is a really nice touch, and then you have some snacks and beverages on the inside, which really just helps add to the immersion of this train. So, altogether, the passenger cars are usually my favorite parts of LEGO train sets, and the only thing about this one is that it feels really small for what you get. Again, they totally could have had your standard two wheels in the front, two on the back, had them rotate, and actually had a longer passenger car like what we're used to from LEGO, and they just chose not to do that, which is a bit unfortunate, which makes the entire thing feel a little bit undersized. Other than that, though, I do love the color scheme, and the entire train just looks really nice on display. I feel like it gives you a very nice sort of starting point for you to expand this particular style, this particular system of train. If you like it, you can make a bigger passenger car, you can add more cars to it, and all that, and it's very much a toy for kids. So, this isn't the kind of locomotive that you would see for the more adult collectors, but it's definitely something that I'm sure that kids would really enjoy picking up and playing with. I know, if I was still a kid, I would really, really enjoy playing with this model, just like I love playing with the original Santa Fe engine, and even this style of engine that I had when I was a kid, back when LEGO train was still thriving, and they had so many different colors of passenger engines, locomotives, steam engines, and all different cars that you would want. And sadly, those days seem to be behind us, but this is a really nice addition to the now-growing modern play theme scale of trains from LEGO, which is quite nice. With that though, I think we can move on to the next model. Alright, we've summed up our look at the steam-based locomotive, a phenomenal set with a great color scheme, as I mentioned, the dark green, the red, the brown, it just looks so nice and is really cool to see out of LEGO City. But now we're actually going to transition over to another type of train-adjacent vehicle, and that is this tram right here. Now this is really special because it's one of the more detailed trams we've gotten for LEGO City before, and the tram is only really a small part of the set, as opposed to the other two sets on the table here, where the train is the vast majority of the focus, this is maybe half the set, and the other half is dedicated to having a really nice docks area for you to actually have the tram be parked at. Very San Francisco vibe here, so let's get into this one right now. Here is our classic beach tram, or the classic beach streetcar, depending on the region you're in. It comes with 691 pieces and retails for 75 US dollars, which is remarkably fair, especially given the amount of stuff that you get in this set. While the main tram build of the set is the namesake of the set, it actually presents a much more complete scene, even more so than any of the other trains that we're going to be looking at in this lineup. You have the tram as part of the set, and I love the usage of the azure color scheme for this, I think that's a really nice and bright color for it, but then you also have a really nicely fleshed out beach scene featuring a ton of different animals. Crab, fish, pigeon, a sea lion or seal here, plus a little puppy dog, which I think is probably the most exciting animal of the entire set, because it is brand new as far as I can tell, plus a really nice overall aesthetic for the build, which feels very different compared to a lot of other LEGO sets we're used to. So I'm going to start off actually by looking at the streetcar here, because this is the namesake and the focus point of the set. First of all, I love the fact that this is somewhat asymmetrical, you have a much larger open air section on the back, you have the usage of the gold bars here to keep everything together, and you actually do have some printed components being used on the top part here, which they also used as the passenger car for the other train to really make all the trains feel like they're within the same system, which is really cool. Now, of course, you have this really nice addition of the kind of curved glass here, or the glass at an angle, which I feel is very realistic compared to what you would see in real life, and I love this very pod-like aesthetic of it, it's kind of retro style for the design of the train, almost retro futuristic with how it curves down with the single light in the center, but it works really well for what they're trying to get at here, and I feel like this just feels so much like a realistic lived-in vehicle. Now, you can lift off the top to get access on the inside, and there's seating for four different minifigures to sit down, many more to hang off on the bars and to stand around, as well as a seat for the conductor, making it five official seats in general, plus a long bench on the back, so lots of nice stuff you can do here, and there's some really cool stickered advertisements on the side of the tram as well, advertising a city tour, the beach of Lego City, even a mermaid on the side there, which is quite nice, featuring that classic Lego starfish piece, which I don't think is in production anymore, so that's kind of a nice reference to get on the side there, plus the ice cream logo, which you'll find in another part of the set as well. Overall, this is just a really nicely built-up vehicle, I love the way it's designed, it feels so realistic and real, and I like that they didn't go way too kiddy with it, in the sense that this could totally work out in a more realistic city, the color scheme isn't way too flashy or bright, and really the only downside is that they utilize these larger kind of train jumper track pieces, these were pieces introduced last year in case a train gets derailed, it kind of puts it back onto the right railing, which is really nice, and also acts as a platform for you to walk across, but it only exists in a straight configuration right now, and this is only the second ever set it comes in, so if you want to integrate this into your actual Lego city, you can either make it run in a fully straight line, in which case good luck trying to amass a large quantity of these very expensive components here, or you're going to have to wait till Lego maybe puts out a curved version of it, which I'm sure maybe they might be working on at some point, but again, you are relatively limited in what you can actually do if you do choose to want to integrate this into an actual city. That being said though, I think this provides a really nice scene, and unlike some of the other train sets on this list, which I really feel would have benefited greatly from a larger track system, this feels about right to me. It's a station, it's just a loading dock for the tram, and then of course you can pretend if you don't have the train tracks and you're a kid, well you can just have this drive off on its own and have it be kind of its own free driving vehicle in your city, so there's of course a lot of play that you can do. With the tram driven off though, you can see the platform is nothing to scoff at, you have a really nice caution strip here leading you onto boarding the train itself, and then of course you do have the nice transition in between where the train tracks end and the sidewalk begins. You have a gray sidewalk, a bit of a ramp, so it's accessibility friendly as well as ice cream cart friendly to be pushed up here, you could go through the archway for pier 32, and I love the usage of the stickered components there showcasing the seal or sea lion piece, that's a really nice touch there, and then of course you have your docks, which look really good. One of my favorite things about the dock section here is that it actually is able to utilize some LEGO Minecraft ladder elements really well, so you have the addition of the smaller scale Minecraft ladder to showcase the fence around the docks, you have the new life preserver piece they introduced earlier this year for LEGO City, there's a pigeon, a bucket full of fish, some sunscreen, and a fisherman going fishing, which is very cool. Another really nice touch is I love the little pug they have introduced apparently for this set, I could be wrong, I don't think they've included this in any other set, it's such a cute animal, I love how they produced this, and it's again another one of those really nicely done LEGO City animals, which easily is already one of my favorite animals that we've gotten from the LEGO City lineup, so it's just so cute. The pug is definitely one of my favorite accessories to get in this set. You have a surfer reusing the torso from the LEGO Ideas prize machine for Paradisa reference there, which is quite nice, this really does feel like an honorary Paradisa set, and you have a brand new color for the sea lion or seal here in a shade of brown, it's the ochre style of brown that they have only kept restricted to skin tones and animals so far, no actual bricks appear in this color yet, and we're going to have to wait and see if they're restricting it to just animals and people, or they're going to use it as a building material as well, but so far it's just used for creatures and people, which is quite nice and makes it feel very special in the set. Now over here, you have a little ice cream cart, and I was honestly surprised at how much effort they put into this. There's two sets of stickers here showing the prices of ice cream, I guess the pink one is more expensive than vanilla for some reason, there's ice cream inside the cart there, and then of course you have your store or your stall owner right here utilizing a recolor of the Nami hair piece from One Piece in a brown color scheme, which is really cool to get so many unique minifigure components here. This one also uses the Lego Movie 2 Rex hair in black, which I also think is a new recolor, I could be wrong on that one, but that felt new to me, and of course while this one doesn't have any recolors, you do have a really nice dual colored dark orange hair which goes alongside the beard and the blue cap which they use in the Jaws set, as well as for Lego Dreams for Cooper there. So altogether, $75 feels really solid for a set like this. I love it when Lego City does things outside of the fire and police and hospital sub-themes, and they try to depict something you would see in a city, which I feel like Lego Friends does way better than Lego City, but City is catching up with sets like these, it really does make the city feel lived in and very unique, and I love how this kind of feels like a real world location, this could be like a San Francisco style location or something like that. And another really nice touch, and you can't even see it at all, it's almost a shame, but underneath the docks here, I'm gonna have to destroy the docks to showcase it, but they have a number of transparent elements, like these transparent roof tile elements, being used as the waves that are only there, you'll only see them when you're building the set to showcase the waves kind of crashing on the beach, and that is such a small detail that I feel like if this were any other Lego set, they would not have bothered to include that because you literally cannot see it for the final product, but it made the building experience so much better, and it makes it feel that much more realistic if you just peek underneath there and see the amount of transparent pieces that you can find inside underneath the dock, so altogether a really nice set, absolutely worth the $75 in my opinion, and now let's move on. With our look at the tram summed up, there's only one last train here, now this one is the most modern realistic style of train that we're getting, a full-on cargo vehicle here with a really nice color scheme in teal, now there is the option to upgrade this one in particular with powered up functions, so you can choose to motorize it if you want, but the motors do not come as part of the train, they are all sold separately, so for now we are just going to take a look at the train by itself, especially because obviously I'm not home, I'm in New Zealand right now, that's how I was able to get these before their August 1st release in the U.S., so we're just going to focus on what we have right now in front of us, which is the cargo train, with a few additional vehicles here as well, so let's jump in. Here we have the Harbor Freight train at 110 U.S. dollars and 803 pieces, I am struggling a little bit to see the value here, but I will admit that this is a very playable model and every single bit included is fully optimized for play, you have your train with cargo, you have your loading crane, and then you have a truck to transport the cargo, so altogether you pretty much have everything you would possibly want to have out of a set like this. Now for me personally, I will fully admit my bias here, my interest in LEGO trains and trains in general, really focuses a lot more on the classic style of steam engines and all of that, those just excite me a lot more, and I know that a lot of people have the opposite opinion, where maybe they're not excited by the steam locomotives and something like this, which feels a lot more realistic and industrial, is what excites you, and that's awesome, it's just not necessarily the thing that excites me the most, which is why this is probably the least exciting set for me, it's also the largest one we're looking at right now, but I must admit that even as someone who isn't that interested in trains like this, this is a lot of fun to play with, and let's take a look at it right now. The main core concept of how this set works in terms of play is you have a loading crane right here, and you can extend out the boom, raise it up and lower it, and you basically can get it fully positioned to hook on to one of the cargo containers. You can then lift it up using the technic axles, actually you need to make sure that the train latches are off, so then you lift it up like so, you can pull it off, and then this truck drives right here, you line it up, and then you can, in one motion, without even having to move the crane with your hands, you can lower it back up a little bit, again this might be a little tricky to get unhooked, okay, we got it, you know, for the most part, there you go, didn't even have to touch the crane, and then you can let this drive off and you're good to go. It's such a simple system, but it reminds me a lot of classic LEGO play, and the way that LEGO would design their sets, especially their train sets back in the day, which often had mechanisms like this, and because of that, it feels to me like a very classic style of LEGO play, and that's something I really appreciate. Again, it is super simple, this one's a little bit heavier on one side here, but I'm going to try to lower that down, boom, there you go, you can see if we can get this unhooked, and unhooking it is definitely going to be the hardest part to do without touching it with your hands here, but all right, come on, there you go, unhooked, lift this up, drive off, and then you can lock the cargo containers into place and have your train drive off, so this is a very, very playable set, and that is definitely something I want to applaud about it. The vehicles are super practical, this basically does exactly what you would need in order to allow the train to be played with, so you've got your option here to raise and lower the crane, you can extend and retract the boom here, and then of course you have your hook mounted on a mixel joint, so it's a really nice model, and definitely something super simple, nothing crazy going on in the building techniques department, but it is what it is, and it's all blue and black, which is a nice color scheme. Now here, of course, we have a very simple truck, and honestly, this truck does not excite me in the slightest, it is very practical in the way it's but just not the most exciting thing, it's just a plain orange flatbed. The nice detail about it, though, is that the designer actually managed to include a little bit of studs in the side detailing right here, with the sloped elements being used for the headlights, which is just a nice touch, they did not need to add in all that level of detail, but I like it because it makes it feel just a bit more unique compared to your standard truck, which otherwise, in a LEGO City set, would be very uninteresting, in my opinion, for something like this. But of course, the main focus is on the train, or specifically the cargo that the train can hold, so setting aside these vehicles, we'll look at each car one by one. I'm going to start off by taking a look at the engine here, because despite the fact that this is just an industrial vehicle, LEGO has done their best to make it feel a bit more interesting. You've got teal, white, and orange stripes here in the form of arrows, which look nice, a cover light at the top, as well as an antenna, and some kind of equipment on the top there. Of course, the entire thing lifts off, including the windows, and you can see the operator of the train on the inside. It's super simple, but it works as a nice toy, and otherwise, there's not really that much you can do with it. You can open up this part to see the engine built on the inside, which is nice, they added in that layer of extra detail, and you can actually power this up. I don't really know how that would work, I'm going to have to look at the instructions. They do provide instructions if you wish to power it up, and that's something they do advertise, but this train is so compact, I would imagine that you would basically have to gut the entire inner section to fit the battery box on the inside there. But you do have the option to make this motorized, should you wish to make this actually move on its own. The parts are not included for that, but you do have the option, which is quite nice. Now, I do like the choice of teal for the train engine, it definitely does feel a little bit utilitarian in its usage, and it kind of reminds me of Rock Raiders and all of that, which really heavily use teal as a more utilitarian type of color scheme. It's not the most exciting thing, but again, they did what they could with the concept of the set being this very blocky industrial train. Now, taking a look at the cargo components here, there's quite a few different ones, and I really appreciate how every single one of the cargo containers here represents something different. You don't just have the same exact pieces of cargo, everything does its own thing. So your first one right here is engines, and this appears to be actually being worked on actively right now by an engineer. But going on the inside, you can see some brick-built engines, you build two of the identical engine, and you can remove them, which is quite nice. And I guess part of the play is that if you want to, again, it's not meant to do this, but you can maybe try to put an engine inside the train and use the pieces there. I think it would have been really cool if they had some sort of way to swap the train engine in and out based on what it was transporting. But again, these are very different engines than what you would see in a train, so you really just have to use your imagination there. Our next one here is a refrigerator truck, and this is actually a refrigerator cargo container. And this is actually my favorite one. I really like the design, I like the fact that you have like an AC unit on the back here, you've got your winter warning or cold warning, and on the inside you've got just two ice cream cones that are just kind of rattling around in there, which I find really funny. There was zero attempt to make like a pallet of ice cream or a package or anything like that. No, they're just kind of thrown in there. And yeah, that feels a little bit last minute to me, but I guess it's better than having a fully empty crate, which is what you have here. This is your standard cargo container. There is literally nothing inside. It is just plain gray, very utilitarian, not the most exciting thing in my opinion. But again, it is nice because obviously this is something that you would realistically see in a city. You know, your cities don't always have the most exciting crates. That one literally is just a gray box. And then probably the most interesting is this one, which includes a drivable tractor. So this is mounted on a brick, but you can remove it and actually drive around the tractor, which is quite nice. So you do have that option there, rotate the wheels back and forth. And it reminds me of the kinds of little cargo containers we would get in even some of the more modern era of Lego trains that they would do for cargo trains, like the ones we got in 2009, 2010 era, which had bikes or all sorts of other vehicles inside. For $110, I do feel like this is a little high, and I honestly probably would have been happy to just get rid of one of the vehicles in order to keep the price down to like $90. And I know that both vehicles feel very required for play. You probably only needed this one, like this is a bonus to drive off the containers, but I don't know. Or just price it better and leave everything in, because again, this has under 900 pieces, but is $110. So $110, I think that's way too high for something like this. I really am not seeing the value here, but it is fun to play with. And it really won me over as a Lego set. Out of the three trains, I will admit this was the one I was absolutely the least interested in. I thought that the other two just did something very different. We've seen a lot of industrial trains from Lego before. The other two are very different in what they do and what they offer. So I was much more excited about the other two, but this one really won me over with the play features because this is so easy and simple. You literally can just move the containers, raise and lower them. And it just feels so right in order to do that. Look at that, like it's all good to go. Drive off with the containers, drive back on. It's just so much fun to play with. It's very satisfying to load the containers from one vehicle to the next, and it's just so much fun. So definitely would recommend this. I had a lot of fun playing with it. I think it is one of the better sets to play with from the City Line, which is what cities should all be about. It just feels a little expensive for what you get from me. But now, let's sum up my closing thoughts. All right, and with our look at all three trains summed up, it's now time to talk a little bit about the value of the trains and just my general enjoyment that I got out of each of these sets. Now, talking about value first, especially when it comes to LEGO trains, value is kind of all over the place. The steam engine here has a little over 500 pieces, but retails for 90 US dollars. The more freight train based set here has about 800 to 900 pieces and retails for $110. And then the closest one to being actually good value here is the tram, which has a little over 700 pieces and retails for $75, or I think it's 600 to 700 pieces. So altogether, based on a pure price per part ratio, these probably seem really overpriced, but I think there's a little bit more to it than that. First of all, they all include the actual rails for the trains, and despite the fact that you don't get a full set or a full circle of rails, actually there are no curved rails here, which is a bit unfortunate, and thankfully they do sell those separately, but these really just exist to place the train on the track. You do have the rails, you do have some of the larger elements that take a little bit more refining to make, like the train engine pieces themselves for the wheels and all that. So these are a little bit outside of your standard price per part ratio comparison, but I am going to say that I do feel that unfortunately a lot of these are kind of skewing on the overpriced side. Not as bad as maybe a 500 or 600 piece set for $90 would be, but still pretty bad. So this set for $90, and again I did mention that this is my favorite of all the sets. I love the way it's built, I love the way it looks, I think the color scheme is great, it's a ton of fun to play with. $90 is way too high for something like this. I just don't think that's really reasonable at all. I'm definitely not a big fan of how this was pulled off at this price, and I really do feel that they could have potentially sold this even for something closer to $75. I think would feel a little bit more reasonable for this. Again, it's got only over 500 pieces, so I still feel like that is a little bit of a stretch, but $75 for this train I think would have been acceptable. $90 is just way too much. The actual freight train here, the Harbor freight train being $110, is maybe a little closer to value, especially because you have these large containers, and then you've got all the other vehicles, but honestly I probably would have been a lot happier just maybe doing away with one of the vehicles if they could have just reduced the price down. I understand that the vehicles are there for play. You have the loading vehicle, which puts the crate onto the transport truck, so you kind of feel like every vehicle is required, but if we could have gotten this for $90 and just not had this truck here, and instead maybe you use this crane and load it onto the ground or something like that, I don't know, or maybe you can buy this separately as a different set where it's a transport truck and a lot bigger. I feel like there were different ways they could have done it to just get the price down a little bit, especially when you consider the fact that while there's a lot of mass here, all of these are essentially hollow containers. They are fully empty shipping crates, so while it does feel like you're getting a little bit more for the price, it's not really that many pieces, so I feel like especially this set, I think $90 would have felt a little bit more fair or a lot more fair. Maybe $100, so this doesn't feel as crazily overpriced as this one. I think $100 I would have been a lot happier with for a set like this one in particular, but $110 is just pushing it a little too much for me. Not quite as much as this one, but it is pushing it a bit over. Now $75 for this one, I'm actually relatively happy with that. Funnily enough, the tram is one of the more detailed train pieces that we get out of all of the sets here. It actually is a lot larger than a lot of the engines of these other trains, and a lot of detail was put into making the tram feel realistic, so for $75, over 700 pieces, or I think it's like close to 700, it's around the 700 part range here, it actually feels relatively fair, and I think a lot of that is because this also has a ton of animals. You have a new color for the seal, as we mentioned in the review. You have the very cute new pug. I believe this is a new dual mold. I don't remember seeing this appear in really any other sets, so I still have to build the rest of the summer sets, but it's really good to get that one. The pigeon, the crab, the fish, and then you have this whole harbor area with a little bit of beachside terrain that you can explore. I really like that, so this set feels very much like a complete scene to me, and that's why I love it at $75. I actually think that is the closest to being reasonable out of all of these, but again, it still does feel like, I mean, this could have been $70, this really should have been $75 in my opinion, max. This probably could have been $100, so they all still feel a little bit too expensive for what you get, but then again, LEGO trains have always been very, very expensive, and they've always been more expensive than the standard LEGO set when you look at just the stuff that you get. It's not necessarily an excuse for why these should be so expensive, but historically, it is along the trends of LEGO train pricing, so to that degree, I guess it does sort of make sense. Now, I do like these a lot. I think that they are really nice builds. I definitely love the steam engine the most. I think the least interesting was the harbor freight train. To me, it's just not the kind of thing that excites me a lot. I feel like it is realistic to see this in the city, but it's also the least interesting build because you build the identical cargo containers over and over again, and then you basically just have some rectangles on wheels for the back of this train, so I feel like there isn't that much visually to find interesting about the set, and they try to spice it up with the engine being teal, and then you have the arrows going alongside the engine, but I don't know. I feel it's just not the most interesting build, just for me personally, and that's just my personal opinion, but honestly, aesthetically speaking, while this one still remains my favorite engine-wise, I think as a complete set, the tram is definitely one that takes the cake for me. I ended up liking the tram way more than I even thought that I would, and honestly, kind of now want to find a way to figure out how to somehow integrate that into my city, so definitely very happy with that one, and with that, I think we've summed up our look at the three brand new LEGO train sets. Let me know in the comments, are you excited about these? What do you think of LEGO's newest train focus with the Arctic Train last year, the Police Train earlier this year, and now three brand new trains for city, and are you excited to see potentially more trains coming from LEGO in the future? That's all for now, thank you so much for watching, and be sure to like and subscribe for even more LEGO news, reviews, discussion, and analyses coming your way very soon, and for the folks who made it this far in the video, first of all, thank you so much. Comment down below, hashtag DuckTrain if you are at this point in the video and watched the entire thing, and also, I appreciate all of your patience as I've been filming a lot of videos and reviews outside of my main studio while I've been traveling in Australia and New Zealand. I am trying to make the hotel room space work as much as I can, so I appreciate your patience with not having the normal setup, and stay tuned because in just a few days, I will be back home for literally a day, and I will spend that entire day filming videos, so when I go to my new apartment in New York, I will have a lot of videos in the backlog to schedule out filmed in my collection, so thanks for your patience, and bye for now.