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Subject: 
Re: Does anyone accually like 4561?
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.trains, lugnet.reviews
Date: 
Sun, 3 Oct 1999 23:00:57 GMT
Viewed: 
1759 times
  
Yeah - I like it, and my mate Chris (a non-Internet AFOL) does too.

I just got my 4561 on Friday and it looks a lot better built than
it does in the catalogue. I won't say it's perfect - it has it's good and bad
points.

The obvious bad point is the engine looks silly because it's too short.
But the carriages are the sleekest, most elegant ones I can ever
remember seeing on a Lego train, with their huge windows. It looks
slightly futuristic which perhaps won't please a lot of people -
I think it's definitely intended to be a luxury train - it has an in-train
cinema.
Sticking it next to my 4559, it looks like a fast modern inter-city train
next to an ageing old thingy that hasn't yet been retired.

On the minus side, the carriages would have looked a bit better if
they'd been a bit taller instead of having those blue rails along the
roofs. Also no doors on the little motor cars - which is really thick
since the cars have 1x3 bricks along their sides in the position
where the doors would have been - so it would have been trivially
easy to replace these with doors. And a common bugbear of mine -
stickers that cross several bricks. I *HATE* that. Effectively stops
you ever being able to separate the bricks again.

On the plus side the little motor cars do still look great - apart from
no doors they are
quite typical of the way vehicles were built in the early 1990s.
Lego have also sorted two problems that annoyed me with the 4559.
There are magnets on both ends of the engine and both carriages
so you can run trains together. (4559 was short of magnets to do that).
And the lights work.

AS far as being juniorized is concerned. Its appearance may be
unrealistic but no real problems with the bricks. The new nose pieces
are a bit annoying but arguably no more juniorized than Metroliner
nosepieces - or the ones that have been used on aeroplanes for
years. The only questionable brick as far as being juniorized is concerned
is the painted-on grille on the lorry.  The 1-piece 4x6x1 roof bricks
on the carriages were very disappointing - I'd much rather have had
real roof bricks, but the same is true for the similar 4x4x1 and 4x2x1
bricks that have been used for the tops of aeroplanes for a long time.

The set does lack some realism and I'd definitely complain to Lego
about that - especially that silly looking engine. There's a lot of little
flaws
with its design - Lego could have done a much better job -
But it's not juniorized in the way that town jr is.

As for parts -  goodies and rare bricks it contains include
10 silver 1x2 grille plates
Lots of the 1x2 bricks with vertical grooves down one side and horizontal
grooves on the other side: 24 blue, 4 red, 4 yellow, 4 green
Various green bricks
12 1x2 bricks in transparent red
2 windscreens as used in adventurers cars but without anything
drawn on them
24 transparent 1x4x3 panels
16 transparent 1x2x3 panels
Lots of 1xn tiles in various colours
12 white  2x6 roof bricks - the ones with a 1x6 plate cut out

Also the sunken 6x34 waggon plates are in black - which is a lot
easier to fit into different colour schemes than the yellow ones
of the 4559 Cargo Railway. In fact the black plates just merge
into the background and blackness of the wheels - you can
hardly see them on the train.

I've only had it for a few days and I'm already thinking I'd like
another one.
(Well - you know, if it's that bad that someone who's bought
one wants to get rid of it - you can always make me an offer...)
I think it'd look great with two of them back to
back to make a proper train and a few modifications (longer
engine and taller carriages)

Simon
http://www.SimonRobinson.com

In lugnet.trains, Jonathan Wilson writes:
I think it is garbage. At least 4559 was remotely usefull for parts but • 4561
stinks.
I think that 1999 is the first year where trains have been fully junorised


--
Jonathan Wilson
wilsonj@xoommail.com
http://members.xoom.com/wilsonj/




Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: Does anyone accually like 4561?
 
snip (...) Yes. The stickers are stupid. I cut mine off so that they were not stamp'd (...) This is just reverting to a older way of doing things. I have plenty of 1*4 bricks with printed grills on them. James Powell (25 years ago, 4-Oct-99, to lugnet.trains, lugnet.reviews)
  Re: Does anyone accually like 4561?
 
(...) Juniorization is more than just over-reliance on SPUDs and POOPs. It's the dorky design, the missing doors, the lack of realistic details. You know, everything you pointed out as being wrong with the set's design. I've got an old 4.5V tender (...) (25 years ago, 4-Oct-99, to lugnet.trains, lugnet.reviews)

Message is in Reply To:
  Does anyone accually like 4561?
 
I think it is garbage. At least 4559 was remotely usefull for parts but 4561 stinks. I think that 1999 is the first year where trains have been fully junorised -- Jonathan Wilson wilsonj@xoommail.com (URL) (25 years ago, 3-Oct-99, to lugnet.trains)

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