REVIEW: 10002 Railroad Club Car

[Nobrux]

Name: Railroad Club Car

Ref: 10002

Theme: Legend

Year: 2001

Pieces: 273

Minifigs: 05

Intro

First of all, I would like say a few short words. Since I was a kid, I have always been a huge fan of lego. The trains, in especial, used to keep my imagination rolling. Nevertheless, I've never got the chance of getting the coolest lego sets when I was a kid, since TLC did never produce or sell their eletric sets here in Brazil, where I live. My parents also couldn't afford to import those sets, because of the high costs. I once had the chance of buying the #4564 Freight Rail Runner when I travelled to Germany, but that was it.

Now that I'm grown up, I decided to recover some lost time, and started to collect my favourite train sets, which include the RailRoad Club Car. So I trully hope you enjoy the review of this excellent lego set, which, by the way, is the legend version of the #4547, as many of you already know.

The Box

Here it comes.

It's all black and white, just like the legend version of the Metroliner.

It seems that the employess of my train station are having a little trouble with some very angry passengers. What could it be?

I think i know what the problem is. Do you all recall that the old lego sets used to come with lots of minifigs? Well, although the Metroliner is considered one of the biggest passenger trains ever produced by TLC, I'm afraid there ain't enough room for all that mob.

This is getting worse. They're taking hostages now!

We better get started then!

Inside the Box

Here is what we got:

The first thing that caught my attention: 2 sticker sheets?

Wrinkled structions. Can't blame the seller. It's been almost 10 years now, since that box was first sealed up.

Oooops. Extra page? I believe TLC made a little mistake in one of the instructions pages.

That's right. Where it should be page 21, they repeated page 19.

Now it's right!

The minifigs

I'm not sure if the other angry passengers will like the idea of a brand new and already crowded Railroad Club Car...

The building begins

Sinks! Nice touch.

The passengers better be carefull not to get their heads wet while sleeping.

A radio, maybe?

Some colours! And a glass of lemon juice in the back. Yes, that day was particularly hot.

In my opinion, this is one of the best colour schemes that TLC has ever come up with.

Windows!

More windows. And more lemon juice.

The second floor.

Simple mechanism, yet very effective.

The car in it's full glory!

Only one blue piece left. (and a sticker sheet )

Hmmm. I smell trouble. The new passengers are already boarding the Club Car. They should have let the angry passengers go first.

OMG! The hostages!!! I wasn´t fast enough.

If those new passengers have any love for their lives, they shouldn't leave that Club Car.

What?!?! Is that Admiral Ackb.... "It's a traaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap!!!!!!!!"

Oh no. They should have listened to Admiral Ackbar. Regarding traps, he never lies.

I guess now we'll need a new driver for the train. Who volunteers?

Let's take a look at the full train.

Overall

This is indeed a magnificent set. It fits perfectly with the other cars. A must have for any Metroliner owners. Nevertheless, I must say that the train gets quite heavy with this extra car, making it hard to move with one single train motor. If you have a spare one, I suggest you use it.

I hope you enjoyed this review, as I much as I did preparing it. See ya!

Edited April 4, 2010 by TheBrickster

[Captain Zuloo]

Supurb review! High quality images detailing exactly what the set contains, the build, and even some of hostage situation! Fantastic work there, you've produced a top quality review.

[Nobrux]

Supurb review! High quality images detailing exactly what the set contains, the build, and even some of hostage situation! Fantastic work there, you've produced a top quality review.

Thanks a lot!

By the way, I´ve just edited the text in order to fix some english mistakes and mispellings.

[henryhotspurs]

Thanks for the review! I have just completed my metroliner by piecing it together via Bricklink. Now I know what my next project will be!

[Noworries]

When Ackbar took a look out of the door i almost pimp'ed ^^

Very nice review of the best addition to a great train!

[Topsy Cret]

Thanks for the review on this one!

[dr_spock]

Thanks for the review.

Reminds me of Amtrak's Superliner Lounge car.

[legofan]

WOW!

Wonderful and superb review on one of the most highly sought after train sets! The legendary club car! MISB! That's a heavenly gift!

Congrats on getting one of the best train cars set MISB!

Great humour in a nice review! So i guess Admiral Akbar started getting sir-sick with all that flying? Haha ~

Thanks again for a humourous and wonderful review! Cheers!

[WesternOutlaw]

Nice review,

I think this Club Car was ahead of it's time. It's got some really neat playability aspects and complimented the Metroliner nicely.

I purchased this as a Legend, but still never opened it up - saving it for whatever reason.

If compared with the Santa Fe cars, I think it's a better set. Thanks for sharing the review.

[hoeij]

Nevertheless, I must say that the train gets quite heavy with this extra car, making it hard to move with one single train motor. If you have a spare one, I suggest you use it.

I hope you enjoyed this review, as I much as I did preparing it. See ya!

Loved the review!

By the way, I would definitely not recommend two motors in this train. If one of them starts to wear out, then the load you

put on the other one, the one that is still good, becomes more than what it would have been if it were pulling the train

all by itself.

A much better solution is to make the train move more easily by "making the cut" (see the end of page 51 of railbricks #2).

That's really the best way to make your motors last longer. My metroliner has one more car, but these 5 cars (with cuts

in the wheelsets) is the same load on the motor as 3 cars without cuts.

[lightningtiger]

Now how did I miss this review eh ?

Great review, interesting club car - don't they have these in Canada ?

Anyway I wish these kind of sets were still being made, ah well I could build one from scratch I guess.

I'm a conformist! !

[hoeij]

Anyway I wish these kind of sets were still being made, ah well I could build one from scratch I guess.

That's not easy because the windows at the top are hard to get!

[ZeldaTheSwordsman]

This is an excellent review of the Railroad Club Car. You covered every last bit of detail, you photographed the build from angles that gave a good view of how the set actually works, and the little story you included for the building process was very entertaining (Ackbar made me laugh XD). It certainly makes me want this set or the parts to knock it together very much!

However, I challenge your story's apparent premise of the Metroliner being unable to hold all of its included passengers. Between the bunkroom in the one power car and the dining room in the other, and the central coach itself, there's seats for 8 of the nine passengers. Plus within the coach, the corridor ends have room to stand or sit a figure or two, someone can sit or stand at the sink, and it looks like the same holds true for the rest of the corridor alongside the actual chairs. So there's one passenger from the set itself who doesn't get a chair or a bed, but there's still room for 'em. Indeed, there would seem to be room even to squeeze in the three passenger minifigures from 4554 Metro Station.

However, lacking the Metroliner and the Metro Station and without the right parts free to build the coach, I can't double-check this for myself.

[zephyr1934]

Greetings new friend,

while indeed there are all sorts of interesting bits in old threads like this, please do not bump an old topic just to add a small comment or ask a quick question. Few of the readers will remember the original discussion and it just becomes confusing for the regular readers.

If you have questions for the original poster you can try sending them a private message. You can also start a new thread if you have a related topic that is not a direct continuation. Of course if you do have a substantial follow up to an old thread it is sometimes appropriate to do a bump like this, e.g., "I finally built this and found...."

[ZeldaTheSwordsman]

Apologies, I thought my reply fell within the bounds of what you can bump old reviews with. My bad.

[jaesroe]

First of all, great review!! and the final pictures of metroliners with club car and 4564 on the set of 4554 and 4555 is the exactly what I want to do... thanks for showing me my dream 9v train scene.. :)