LEGO said that the Orient Express cannot be motorized. They were wrong.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 พ.ย. 2023
- After the reveal with the Ideas team interview and the detailed building review, here is my 3rd video about the 21344 Ideas Orient Express set! LEGO has said that the train is too heavy to be motorized, but we're going to give it a go today anyway!
Click here for the details of the set on the official site - racingbrick.com/product/21344-2/
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#lego #racingbrick #motorization - ยานยนต์และพาหนะ
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Funny how they didn’t say the bucket wheel excavator wasn’t too heavy to motorise, that thing won’t move at all unless the clutch is brand new
I cannot make that thing move or make it run smoothly, do you know any solution to make all the mechanisms run smooth, and not look like it's struggling to breathe?
@@imaplaguedoctor2146 I removed the clutches altogether and then ended up running paired motors on it
@@wrench8677 Yep, this! Although the single XL motor is good enough if you made sure that all parts in the chain are not too tight and can spin as free as possible.
@@Kasapin5033 that does work in some cases but mine still had way to much resistance in it so I ran an xl and a large paired through a heavy duty diff
sure because they know the modern train axles suck bad. with a heavier load they drag a LOT. 9V metal axles, the pre assembled ones, that was peak. extremely low friction and smooth action. all plastic and new metal axles are so. damn. bad. sadly.
So lego misspelled the city names on the stickers, were too lazy to even bother to motorize the train, completely changed the original engine from the original ideas submission, and were still like “yeah let’s charge 300 for it.”
Pretty pathetic from a billion dollar toy company! The community comes through many times giving other LEGO fans what they want, while LEGO itself keeps disappointing it fans more so every year and making huge profits in the process. There will be a point in time reached where US LEGO customers will make a stand that enough is enough! LEGO keeps thinking they can milk the money from their customers because they have no competent competition to bring their prices down.
This. +1
Are they all made in China now?
@keithparknison4228 No they're made in a variety of factories but I don't think any are in China .Lego just cheaps out on things because they'll make money either way
@@jamesreilly5905 Legos are moulded in Billund, Denmark; Nyíregyháza, Hungary; Monterrey, Mexico; and most recently in Jiaxing, China. If I'm not mistaken they're also building a factory in the US.
"we tried for months' Fixes the problem in a few hours.
To be fair, non Lego pieces were used
I have NO idea why LEGO decided that it can't be motorised. I've seen realistic LEGO trains with meter-long wagons easily get pulled by a standard LEGO motor. Also the city names are very annoying. LEGO really didn't do the OE the justice it deserves.
I love how the Crocodile locomotive looks with the wagons. Absolutely great!
We see in this video a reason behind WHY they said it couldn't be motorized....because the dipshit that designed the set failed to include rubber traction tires on the driving wheels which is why the train had mass wheel slip. The train only ran fine AFTER he added the red rubber rings from the Crocodile loco because I assume it didn't have any before as he didn't show nor mention removing any prior to adding the red ones.
This leads me to believe the set doesn't come with traction tires and is the entire reason it 'can't be powered' because they didn't have enough grip to make it reliable. I think it's honestly just another scummy Lego practice of cheaping out on a model so we have to end up paying them more for things that should've been included but weren't.
Also, what's with Lego making every other new train have a different coupling system? We have the little ball and socket joints, pins, magnets, and something else...STICK TO A FUCKIN' BRAND WILL YA?!
@@darkstone_official_2427i can't get over how bad this set is.
Yeah, that set looks way way easier to motorise than some of the crazy trains I ran on my Lego railway, and considerably lighter too...
@@darkstone_official_2427 To some extent a new coupling system is to be expected - magnets are great for the 'toy train' Lego trains, but probably won't hold up to the resistance of pulling these heavy monsters round a corner or over points. But something more sturdy that can take that load isn't very good for to play with in the toy train style.
@@foldionepapyrus3441 Maybe over time, but I remember doing a lot of really stupid things with the old 9V and Magnet Couplings. Even had my cat go Godzilla on the train and the cars never came apart.
The fact that they couldn't be bothered to check a few city names on Google is INFURIATING. Really??? It's so sloppy. But yes, $300 please...
What's wrong with them? The city names are spelled in their respective national languages, Munich=Muchen/Müchen, Vienna=Wien, Bucharest=Bucaresti EDIT: I now see that Bucharest and Munich's spelling is slightly scuffed... it took a while to see due to certain photos of the set.
It's spelled "București" in Romanian. Two "u"-s.
@@vedranlucev1837 I'm seeing different ways of spelling it, including Bucaresti and București in the same sentence... At first I thought it was some modernized spelling, now I'm falling down a rabbit hole.
@@JM-oh4yiMünchen lacks the Umlaut, it is printed "MUNCHEN" instead of "MÜNCHEN". Can't imagine how that slipped through considering this is a LICENSED set, Lego worked together with Orient Express on this and none catched the error
@@gegessen159 Now I can't un-see this, also apparently without the Umlaut München can be spelled as "Muenchen". EDIT: Looking at a photo of the real world carriage shows that Munich and Bucharest are indeed spelled "Müchen" and "București" , so I guess Lego did an oopsie. :S
From the amount of easy to fix errors in this set, it seems like it wasn't a important priority for lego and/or didn't want to make it
Good comment!
I believe it should be a rule that every train that LEGO releases should be able to be motorized but also include at the minimum instructions on how to do it. I have spoken / This is the Way !
Emerald Night came unmotorised but with instructions on how to fit a motor. Still my favourite train and I bought it RRP when it came out.
In fact the Emeral Night would be a much more appropriate engine for the Orient Express than this ridiculous freight engine.
God I wish I had been able to get one. I'll have to settle on this one, sadly.
@@joanaguayoplanell4912 I've seen them second hand at silly prices. That's lego madness.
@@Pugwash.cheapest I found was 600 cad used which is around 450 usd. Just insane
I found my emerald night second hand in a box of legos at a good will.(slam that lid shut so quick when I saw it inside) I think the entire box of legos plus the train I got for 10 -15 dollars? Such a long time ago. It had everything but the conductor and it needed a resticker but it was the best find to this day.
Really any lego set can be motorized if you really try
What about Brickheads?
@@FlymanMS you just need to try hard enough
What about friends?
@@rensfassbender5585just gotta try hard enough
What abt 1x1 studs
This is what I love about Racing Brick and the Lego community in general. They'll fix the stuff Lego messes up and give more value to sets like this that should've been there from the beginning
I guess youll love shopping at legos competition, where for 300€ you will get 2x if not 3x the size sets with motorisation and parts that are actully the same color tone unlike lego.
@@martinmorsch7507 im new to this. what competition?
@@joshc1590 Mould-king, Cada, Cobi, Bluebrixx, Pan-tasy and those are just hte ones I recently have looked at. Many of them use "Gobricks". Gobricks is a brick manufacturer and lemme tell you: LEGOs bricks are simply trash compared to gobricks. The colour, the fit, the lack of extrusion points, just better.
Its a myth that LEGO is the inventor of the toy bricks we call "LEGOs". In fact they actually took the Idea from an English company and after the pantent expired began selling them.
They are by far the biggest company in this section and have been abusing their popularity in my opinion. There is no reason to pay 300€ for 3-4kg of plastic. Its just utterly insane.
Achko
Balody
BB-Part-Packs
BB-XL-Part-Packs
CaDA
Cobi
Cogo
Daia
Decool
Diverse
DK
Forange
FunWhole
Gudi
Happy Build
HengTai
HPD
Hsanhe
Jaki
Jekca Limited
Kaiyu
Kazi
Lele Brother
Lezi
LiMei Toys
LOZ
Modbrix
Mork
Mould King
MoYu
Others
PanBo
Panlos
Pantasy
PinZhiXing
Q-Man Brick
Qiaoletong
Qihui
QiZhiLe
QunLong
Reobrix
Sembo
Sluban
TaiGaoLe
UrGe
Wange
Winner Bricks
Woma
XiangJun
Xingbao
YZ-Diamond
ZHE GAO
@@joshc1590
@@joshc1590 Cada, Cobi, Mouldking, Q-Man Brick, Wange, Panlos, Sembo are the most important one
Thanks for testing the large motor! I'm glad to see that it has sufficient power in a configuration similar to the one that I plan to use.
Coming from HO model trains, a solution to increase the "power" of the locomotive is to add more weight to the locomotive. If the powered up motor has enough power, the control behavior is also better.
That doesn’t work for lego. Ho scale and L gauge are two different monsters. Instead you need to increase power to the engine by adding a second motor.
@@gamerfan8445Power isn't the right word, but adding more weight will increase tractive effort. If the wheels stop turning, you need more motors, but if they are just slipping, adding more weight can solve that.
@@scottthewaterwarriorwouldn't that result in a negative feedback loop similar to what rockets have. the more fuel you have the more fuel you need to get into orbit
@@pieterpretorius1014 I mean, maybe if you put a lead brick on the train, but the amount of weight we are talking about isn't that much. Also a rocket is having to overcome gravity, a train is just fighting friction and inertia.
@@pieterpretorius1014 No. The problem is you dont have enough traction. You already have plenty of power.
Friction is usefull for a vehicle to begin moving. Its bad when your already moving.
A car on the highway wastes energy through friction. Frictions usefull when going to/from a quick stop or a quick go, but is otherwise a drain.
A train however, is gonna be on the "highway", all the time. Its wheels are metal and purposely have very little friction, very little bends on the road, and small gradients.
Bends cause the wheels to rub unecessarily on the sides of the tracks. Bends introduce unwanted friction.
This Lego set has alot of bends, therefore it requires traction to counteract that.
Traction is gained either by the rubber bands, or by increasing weight.
Yeah.... i think the only reason they say its not motorizeable because the specs are just outside the motor specs.
So its one of those situations they cant say it works because chances that it doesnt, or breaks, are higher.
Not by much, but enough for them to put their high quality confirmation on it.
The easiest and least intrusive way to motorize is , just simply swap out 1 or 2 bogies from a train car with 9v motors, for those who have 9v track 😃
Bring back 9V!
Yes, I think the 9V system is the best solution. I would love to try it, however I don't know if the tender will derail as seen in the video
@@mareotisfossae9387, TH-camr 'Alex Nunes' tried this method and it seems as though the weight distribution combined with insignificant traction from the 9v motors gave him disappointing results. This was my initial plan as well, but it seems like motorizing the engine in a similar way to the Emerald Night is the ideal solution for powering this behemoth.
I would just put the 9V motor under the tender, then stuff it full of coins to increse the weight over the drive wheels and thereby traction. That's the solution I've used on both my steam trains.
@@scottthewaterwarrior I'm always afraid to use a singular 9v motor these days, especially with heavier trains, don't wanna wear 'em out since they are so expensive to buy used. One of those i'm sure one would work just fine under the tender for you, but for this one personally i think i would use two and leave the tender alone and stick it under the passenger cars, thats what I did with the emerald night. Guess we both will see what works best, whenever we get our hands on one, happy building! 😃
Two reasons I think they didn't want to provide official power:
- derailing tender in reverse
- motor overheats due to increased weight
Could even be that it is fine on its own, but they have a standard of any powered set must also be able to carry x number of extra cars from other sets..
Pretty good job. Motorized trains make sense. Under the Christmas tree such a train would be perfect. Come on, lego. You can do it better. I know. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and test performances. I love it. Keep up the good work.
Agreed, this set would look great under the Christmas tree. I think the size of this train warrants a larger track radius than what was used in testing. A track around a Christmas tree would use a wider radius and would run better motorized.
I think lego (and its designer) left the power up function to make us spend more money. Also, Why do i feel like some people may modify this train to look like the polar express. (As the colors are almost the same).
I’d say it’s the opposite, they left the motor out to make an already expensive set not more expensive, also the polar express is black..?
@@NoobyNubguyI think he’s talking about the coaches, they are blue like the polar express.
@@panzerkorps2122 yes, that is what I meant. Mostly the roof segments from the coach cars
@@NoobyNubguy I guess it can go both ways. Look at the UCS Venator. You don't get an interior (yes, you do get figs) , apart from that you pay like $700.
LEGO motors seem really pricy these days. I know inflation has been a thing, but powering a train now is like 2-3 times the cost it was during the Power Functions era!
I wish Lego sold more motor and electronic parts.
They are really missing out on Official Lego LED kits, lighting brings another level to Lego.
I was thinking it would take a few weeks after release to have the set motorized, I was way off! I think part of leaving it out was the cost, a lot of people are complaining about the $200+ sets and want cheaper options.
Considering the value of the last expensive set I bought (4514 - the Castle) I'd not complain at these sets clearly aimed at AFOL being more pricey if they have the quality and parts to justify it. But that could well be the problem, the costs of these bigger sets while huge is probably not enough really - rather less profitable than the £60 end for Lego.
I think really leaving a motor out for a set like this makes sense - it really is too big to really run on lego tracks sanely for most, it just swallows up that default oval/circle rather too completely. But tossing in a few parts (if required) and instructions on how to motorise it really should have been done.
That's not a bad idea. Sort of like DLC for an online game. An advertisement and form for ordering the optional "motor kit". Comes in a nice little box, and complements the set.
One other consideration is that the front four on the engine are the rubber band version of the train wheels; if they're not being used to drive the train's motion then they're adding friction. Might be worth swapping them out for metal axle versions if you want to reduce friction a bit.
All wheels with rubber bands are powered, they are essential to be able to pull the train. Without them the wheels simply spin in place, there's no traction.
@@RacingBrick I mean the four smaller ones at the very front, not any of the driven wheels that have the red bands. Those tiny ones at the very front are usually used in conjunction with a train motor to drive city trains, hence why they've got bands, but in this scenario you are not driving those little ones, you're driving the bigger ones that you had to add bands to, so leaving the front tiny ones with bands is just unneeded friction.
@@neothermic1 I see. Well those could be swapped, but then they probably wouldn't roll at all.
@RacingBrick you can take the bands off the small train wheels. Not sure if it would help much here but it helps a ton in larger steam engines like big boys and such
@@chrisd1364How do you get them off? I've tried doing so on a few of my trains and they were pretty stuck on there.
This set makes me believe that Lego might again be entering into era where the marketing department and bean counters decide about all the things. As a result, quality is pushed down to increase margins.
Don't hate the player, hate the game. They're doing exactly what they should under our market system - try to make as much money as possible to the shareholders.
@@PAcifisti I agree that this is the result of the game if we assume that they want to optimize for the next quarter only. I would argue that keeping the quality higher would provide higher profit in long run but it would go against short-term profit.
We've been in that era for years now. Almost every set is just made to look decent on the box and when you actually build them you get some half finished facade for houses for example. Modulars being a saving grace still.
Or the quality issues on the yellow fiat 500. Or Lego being unable (as a billion dollar company) to get a good repeatability on the prints of the racing stripes for the Mustang... I wont go into chinese knockoffs but the guys at Cobi have mastered stuff like this while being an infinitely smaller company and while not trying to sue their way into being the only game in town.
@@ArchonCommando Yeah, the last set I considered really good was Lego 42043 (Mercedes-Benz Arocs). No custom blocks, lots of features and the pricing was sensible.
@@PAcifisti That only works if you don't have good competition. Unlucky for Lego, they have quite competent competition with companies like BlueBrixx or Moldking (and many others), who have even surpassed Lego in brick quality last year (they get better each year while Lego quality is dropping sharply). The air is getting quite thin for Lego and reducing quality is not the way to compete with the cheaper competition.
Other than the design of the locomotive, I think we have the best case scenario for this set. Lego train enthusiasts use trucks/bogies with roller bearings on 3rd party wide radius curved tracks. Even a single train motor could pull ten cars if they all have roller bearing wheels. I think your theory about cutting cost is correct. Lego designers released the set knowing those that have an interest would get the train motorized and running smoothly. Those that don't have an interest in motorization don't have to support the cost of the additional parts.
Yes. But then why are they not honest?
@@thomasl.4081 We don't know if they are not honest. As mentioned in the video we don't know the criteria. We have no clue about it effects the components in the long run. To me it doesn't look healthy how the train runs throu the loop. Has anyone tried running the train through a switch, I have seen only simple loops?
For me I think that locomotive makes sense - putting the focus on those huge carriage and having two makes it so long even before you get into the stunning original concept locomotive - almost nobody could actually display it with the larger locomotive, and a locomotive with just one carriage looks wrong...
Of all the early attempts from other TH-camrs to motorize this set, yours is the best in terms of function and aesthetics. Great job!
This shows that "LE-O" needs people like you with passion and not for money. A combination of business and pleasure.
Funny thing is the old school powered rails would do this easy, Its so sad lego went with battery powered trains instead of power through rails like model trains.
Brickstory motorized the tender with the normal Lego hub and train motor. It doesn't look great that way, but it works fine. 😀
I would assume part of the issue with motorization of Lego trains is just how tight the curves are.
As we saw in this testing the city Loco was doing fine on the straights, but the curves saw issues.
fx bricks have released some L gauge large radius curves.
I motorised the hogwarts express and struggled with this until i used a technic hoop to allow lateral as well as rotational movement😊
I remember the old days when you could buy the motor kit separate and the build instructions would let you build the thing with or without a motor.
This was back in the days of the high-speed motor of course, but even the weird early mindstorms geared motors were still pretty good (and dear god they had torque for days)
Now we know The Lego Group straight up lies to us.
This should have only been $250 motorized.
Nicely done, I'm very glad to see a video where you show what's possible to fit in the engine, no one else has opened the boiler part up.
I just powered the tender, it's a lot easier I think. But I could care less what's powered, I just want it to run
In my youth, on my Interrail Journeys, I occasionally saw the Blue Pullman wagons luxury train, on some of the major stations (mostly Paris) with ore.
If this locomotive had been black, I would have bought it in a heartbeat.
I thinkt if you replace the Trainwheel elements with the old metal axle version it will ride more smooth as well. Maybe put some 2x6x2 weight bricks into the locomotive.
Thank you for showing your testing. I had done those same steps in my head so thanks for saving me time! Totally should have been motorized!
my guess is it had to do with long term stress to the motors and obviously the pricepoint for an already expensive set be driven even higher
Brilliant video!! It's amazing how far Legos have evolved and the people who make them do things they weren't meant to do. And the fact you found a low power/low heat solution that actually makes it run decently makes Legos all the more timeless. I run a lot of the smaller trains like the N gauge sets and the tiny Z gauge Marklin sets. But the Lego Polar Express would make a beautiful "under the Christmas tree" running set.
I haven't looked into Power Functions stuff in like 15 years now, but my goodness, this stuff is actually overpowered. I would've smashed so many builds back in the day lol.
I heard about this problem and was interested to find out if they had used the tender to hide a motor as well. Turns out that the tender us hollow and it would be perfectly easy to get a motor in there
I might get this, but it'll be a static display parked somewhere in my small city. I don't have space for a running train layout at all, let alone a train this long and wide. I do think it's odd that they didn't include any option for motorization, and I'd be tempted to add that, but the reality is I'd never run it anyway. Lego trains (and model trains in general) are the sort of thing I build and run once and then never touch again.
My personal theory about why LEGO said this set can't be motorized is that they want their engines to be overpowered. Specifically they want the engines to have a reserve of extra power for if kids end up attaching more cars, create custom cars, or just put more into the cars than what comes in the set. (or maybe so that the motors can still handle the load when the current starts to drop off) I think the cars may have been too heavy to allow the Express to have enough reserve power, and they couldn't find a way to lower the weight of the cars without removing a lot of the detail.
Hey that L-Motor solution looks a little familiar! 😁
Glad to see that it works ahead of my own plans to motorize the set. If an ‘unofficial’ solution can be put forth for the fans to adapt, I’m sure more people might be swayed into picking up this set for themselves.
I feel like I've seen it before somewhere . . . 😉
@@train_of_thought_creations anything to get the job done.
@@ToledoRails Yes sir!
Both of your solutions were inspirational from the EB topic :)
@@RacingBrick Yeah! Your design's a real neat melding of the EB crew's ideas!
could you please do a how to video on which is the best set to buy to get all the needed parts and how to implement the motor the best way?
Watched several reviews of the Orient Express, this is the most useful one. 👍
They may have said it was "too heavy to be motorized" because of motor load and wear. If the motor struggles, then it might cut down the lifespan of the motor unacceptably much. And if that is the case, then they would have to design a new more powerful motor just for this set. Or gear it down and have the train run slow, which is not much fun either.
Hopefully LEGO will release an official service pack with rubber bands for the wheels to fix this issue.
Be carefull using Buwizz, not because it's bad, on the opposite, is far superior to any Official Lego Battery box element/software, but recently, Sariel was "Removed" from TLG, they didn't tell him why, but I just assume that was because he uses and support awesome 3rd party elements like Buwizz and Circuit Cubes...
Regarding the Topic, I build my own trains with 6 Kilos, almost 4 meters long and can run smoothly with two 10 years old used powerfunctions elements. The Lego designer saying that little thing is to heavy, make me laugh a lot!
I have a video with a 2000 parts Locomotive with 2 PF train motors and a Chinese lowcost battery, pulling a 10 meters long container train :)
Keep the with your channel, you are doing a great job!
If you check my channel I have literally dozens of videos with 3rd party accessories like BuWizz and such. I am 100% sure Sariel's offboarding had nothing to do with his TH-cam content.
Awesome review with excellent production value and some very good critique. New subscriber! 🤩
Hey racingbrick! You could try using a very light oil on the connecting rod pins on the engines wheels as well as the slot where the rod reciprocates at the engine. I bet the train would be much much smoother as I firmly believe the whole issue is the friction of those connecting rods and not the weight and taking them off all together might be the be solution. Sucks that its a brand new piece too!
I love your reviews. First, i LOVE the cars in the set. The engine -- not so much. I realize that Orient Express wanted to concentrate on the cars, and that is the main section but the dumb-downed the engine so much - how sad. I think the said they cant make the engine power and it would have gone overbudget. Lego sets a price for each set to achieve and with the power functions its over that price. I’m glad you got it work - maybe some might want this more now.
Congrats for 200k
Congrats on 200k
See in Australia the Orient Express is $469.99, which is quite expensive for a train with no motorisation considering the city trains are $299 with motorisation
Try testing it with lots of curves on the tracks. S bends and the switches are were i find all my train issues when building my trains.
Exactly! The train also has to be able to go though LEGO switches which require more power and stability to not either derail or get stuck
weird they didn't mention extra price with motorised components, or include it as an add-on. Maybe they didn't try the red elastic bands around the wheels that the gator uses. who knows
Thanks for the solutions. I think that makes up my mind and I will buy since it can be motorised. Although, I'll wait to see if the stickers/misprints/typos etc. are addressed in a later batch and buy it near the end of life.
Speaking of end-of-life, how long do you think this set will be available? Do these kinds of products usually stay on store shelves for a couple years, or do they tend to be more "limited-time" releases?
So I just powered the Orient Express tender, which is way easier I think, with the hub 88009 and train motor 88011 then swapped out the front wheels on the locomotive with the ones from the older Harry Potter train 75955 (cuz there much smoother) and it seems to run fine with that setup so far
Von Mould King bekommt man übrigens mittlerweile den eigentlichen Entwurf des Orient Express für ungefähr 200€ voll motorisiert, mit Licht und Qualm aus dem Schornstein.
Lego kann echt nix...
Great info on the Orient Express; I will definitely pick it up on sale.
Congratulations on 200k subs brother!!!! Love your videos 🤙🤙🤙🤙
One way to weight down the small tender is by using small 2x1 plates, and stack them together.
Which should give the max amount of possible added weight and still be easily to assemble/dissasemble
I think extending the tender with 2 battery packs might be the simpeler but more expensive option that will make it work. The advantage is it will look closer to the original submission also
Don't know why you'd need two battery boxes, but if you make the tender a little bigger and fill the empty space with coins, it will probably get enough traction. That's what I've done with my steam trains.
Fun thing with the trains... it's not really about power, but getting that power to work. Depending on how many drive wheels contact the rails and how much weight is pressing down on them, compared to the force reuired to pull the train, the wheels will slip and turn freely.
Since the drive wheel size was directly connected to top speeds with steam locomotives, the cylinders created slightly uneven torque depending on where in the stroke they were, a noticable lag in reaction of the engine to throttle commands AND a purely mechanical throttle had limited fine adjustment capabilities, it was pretty difficult to ride the razor edge of enough torque to pull the train and too much torque to not slip.
Add rigid axles and lack of individual electronic monitoring of each wheel, and the steamers had their work cut out for them.
Old 12V Lego trains often included large, 3tall 2x6 or 2x8 bricks with heavy metal weights inside, to include in the engines. It increased the train weight, but in the good way: more pressing down on the drive wheels.
So maybe just try and increase the weight of the engine, by stuffing some fishing weights or so over the wheels?
I'd assume LEGO would hook some meters up to the motors and analyze the power consumption and strain. they likely have limits they don't want to exceed, so as not to wear out the motor too quickly.
I kinda feel like having a proportionally increased 8W emerald knight as engine would have done wonders for this train set. But there is always the issue of LEGO curves just being too darn narrow for any sanely proportioned train :/
Yes, all you need is the battery block, that weird one with 2 outlets, two powered train axels, 8 wheels (4 for each of the axels, and 4 beams (2 for one axel to hold the wheel to the axel)
Thanks for sharing that. Looks pretty simple really. Definitely a must buy when the other retailers have it. What I want to know, is can you use that engine as a base to build up to the original design. Damn that was a cool locomotive!
The tender needs to have one of the wheels able to slide to stop the derailing. I added a 3rd set of wheels to the tender on my Hogwart's express and had to make the extra set of wheels slide a bit.
The lack of being able to motorized was what was stopping me I have wanted a lego train for years
It’s not really about weight. It’s more about the cars being much longer and the curves being too tight so of course when they hit the tight curves they’ll create more resistance. Another reason is the locomotive itself. Unlike diesel or electric engines steam engines driving wheels are much larger and fitted rigidly to the frame. As the flanges on the driving wheels brush against the rails in a tight curve it creates resistance and could slow the locomotive down unlike powered bogies which have much smaller wheels and can swivel around curves easily. Using wider curves can help solve that problem. And this might sound counterintuitive but the locomotive itself would need to be heavier ( including the tender so it doesn't get bumped off the track as easily. If there are flangelass wheels for the center axle on the tender that might also help ) as opposed to what Lego says so that enough weight presses down the driving wheels on the rails and create enough tractive effort for the locomotive to pull the train smoothly otherwise the engine would be running on the spot
Lego: This train set cannot be motorized
RacingBrick: I am RacingBrick and I am a motor genius.
“Dramatic camera shot of lego train steaming into a city”
what i can offer is find a suiteble soft O-ring in your local parts store and also add wheel bearing in to the coaches
so..they already made the tender battery ready, and putting a simple motor and some bands was enough… why on earth didn’t they provide official modification options?
I REALLY want this around my Christmas tree, but I think I'm going to wait for double points or a discount somewhere else as well as hopefully fixed city names.
Thanks for doing this!
Now I want to see the set powered with the older 9v system
Here's a lesson in trickery!
Old HO scale (oo if eastern country) steam engines with tenders had the motor stashed in the tender. The steam engine didn't actually move, the tender had the driving wheels. You could take an old motorized self propelled tender and hook it to a powered steam engine for MAXIMUM POWER.
Thank you very much for this video. So much important information.
With the same price per piece as the freight train, a motorized version of the Orient Express would have cost almost € 400,- and would therefore be harder to sell. Remember this not a play set, but rather meant as a display set targeted at adults. There never has been an incentive for LEGO to motorize this train.
That I thought too for the Unimog... There I build in a air tank between the axles... The space there is just enough ^^
Mine constantly derails on switch track, it seems to be the tender and the small wheels at the loco. Made sure that the switch track provides a smooth change to over, yet it still happens. Configuration I have is a a motor in the loco connected to a powered up box in the tender. Have tried other configurations but not strong enough to go up a one plate per track slope.
the fact youre paying £250 to get misprinted stickers is so frustrating. surely something this expensive should have printed bricks instead.
I'm happy the set doesen't include motor, otherwise it would be too expensive for me to want.
But I do find it weird they havn't included instructions for powering it like they did with the Crocodile.
I'm going to get the set at some point. But I will try and rebuild the locomotive, especially the connecting rods on the side, they look too weird and toyish for my liking. Otherwise I do like how the loco looks.
how is the performance through switches? Do any of the configurations you tested more better or worse when the train goes through a switch?
I have a similar setup on my MOC steam locomotive, old PF XL with BuWizz, works great.
Whenever humans are told “You can’t”, the response is usually “Watch me!”
Neat and informative thank you!
Thank you. I wish you have a few more details on how you geared the engine. I pull 4 to 5 cars with my Emerald Night with no issues. I was going to make the tender larger and add 2 motors under it. That was what I did with my Disney Train.
LEGO has become the embodiment of skill issue.
Sooo, my side of the story is, when I heard the orient express was gonna be a LEGO set, I was getting extremelly excited, until i saw what the set would end up like. It was a disappointment, mainlybecauseof the change of style and measurements, but over the past few months I got over it, so I decided to buy it anyway. Next thing you know this vid pulls up on my 4u page. So I still want to buy it, but I think I wanna wait a bit as he said, seen the things that need fixing. Besides, I only wanted the set for display, so i dont really need any motorisation... for now...
Could you put out a parts list so people could know what parts to use to motorize the train itself
I like the color of this Orient Express. It's a deep, rich blue color that stands out very well. I'm glad to see that others in the Lego community have figured out ways to power the train including yourself!
defenitely think I'm going to buy it, since I collect the lego trains. but it is kinda sad there's no official motorization option
I wonder, how would it run, if you combined the two motorizing methods at the same time - i.e. motor inside the loco and inside the railcar. That should give it plenty of power, if properly set up.
It's weird seeing modern LEGO train tracks don't have metal on them. Trains used to always be powered through the rails so they wouldn't need any batteries.
That "always" period ended almost 20 years ago...
@@RacingBrick It's bad form to remind people exactly how old they're getting, lol.
@@Nyerguds well, when I was a kid train tracks didn't have metal on them *yet*, so I'm that old :D
@@RacingBrick Ha. Weren't there really old systems with some kind of gear teeth, too?
@@Nyerguds there were several iterations, when I was a kid I had the 7715 Steam Train that had separate gray track pieces.
love your content!
Instead of the weight, you should measure the friction force of each part in straights and in curves. I suspect especially the steam engine part is slowing things down.
Maybe measuring the force can be too tricky, but you could find some kind of proxy for it.
The change to the look of the locomotive and wagons makes this a sad set that I was hyped for
"If there's a will, there's a way"
In the uk i have seen powered up motors for sale at the counter of lego stores and they are always in stock on line i wonder why
It’s a fantastic model. I’d get it and motorise it if I had the space for a train layout (using third party wide radius curve track of course).
Third party track is one of the only unofficial Lego-like things I can justify the existence of. Lego just doesn't give us very many options for creating more realistically scaled train layouts.
@@InventorZahran agreed. They are the only third party parts which are actually essential and represent a gaping hole in LEGO’s parts inventory.
Is there a way to buy the original idea submission
yay you hit 201k before end of year
Honestly, i bet it has to do with wear and tear of the engine and its parts.
As you said, the lego city trains move fast, very fast and that' because the engines clearly aren't under as much stress as they are when pulling the orient express train. These are parts that are (supposedly) meant to hold for years, and as a 18+ set, its clearly a collector's piece, rather than toy.
Should you then have the engines die on you, years later where spare parts are non-existent because they've moved on to different kinds of engines. Then that kind of sours it for you.
I found out the old lego 9v train engines for the moon trains have a tendency to seize all these years later because the rubber bushings inside of them turn rock hard, and there's no lubrication for the engine. I bought one such train that looked brand new, box and everything and the engine was still dead.
I wouldn't put it past Lego that they did this to guarantee engines aren't worn out or break and they'll be stuck with a bunch of warranty issues.
I mean, they are the ones who built the engines, so clearly they should know their limits and what will risk breaking them.
I had a lego (OCTAN) tow truck with a motorised winch/crane on the back. That had a tiny 9V motor about the size of a 'OXO' cube, that would easily fit in that train!
I recently saw and ordered the Mould King Orient Express: it arrived with two motors, rechargeable battery box, loading cable, remote control, led lights, a functioning smoke module, 32 big radius tracks, fine prints and cost around €170. When built, it looks very much like the original Lego Ideas submission, is strikingly beautiful - the locomotive in particular - and all the parts are of a much higher quality than what you get from Lego!