I only came to LEGO trains in 2013, and as this was after the Emerald Night had been and gone, I missed getting this amazing train.

The Emerald Night is a 1085 piece set from 2009, and due to it being released at this time, can only be bought at extremely high prices - money that I don't have.

It currently costs around £600 to purchase new on Amazon, £350 used on eBay, and on BrickLink £260 used and complete.

 

But my question is this:  

Should I buy all the pieces individually, and if so how much would that cost, or should I buy the set for the cheapest possible price from BrickLink or another website for LEGO?

 

I think that this train is possibly the best LEGO train set that has ever been made, which is why I want this one in particular.

Edited June 23, 20177 yr by Vilhelm22

This has been discussed before, but it's best to let sleeping dogs lie.

I'd say you ought to purchase the individual pieces from BrickLink, simply because you can find the same pieces in alternate colours.

Unfortunately, I'd say that colors like dark green and tan are exceedingly popular right now, and therefore much, much more expensive.

Otherwise, good luck and happy building!

Vilhelm,

welcome to Eurobricks.

I fully agree on what M_slug said before: It appears as you have the building instructions - make your own Emerald Night! Colors really don't matter that much. There are so many varieties you can build - make the appearance of that beautiful train as it suits you! Get the pieces from Bricklink in the color scheme >you< want - dark blue is cool, simply black would work for me ...

Best
Thorsten

 

I'm not sure I'd try and buy the Emerald Night without changing the colour scheme.

I did buy individual parts for the Emerald Night locomotive about a year ago, I think it cost me something like £110 or £120 + shipping (one order from the USA, I really got stung on import fees to the UK ). I found the black train wheels a little tricky to get hold of, I got the 2x4 curved slopes in plain green as the printed prison was something like £5 each, the pearl dark grey hoses were almost impossible to get hold of too. I was able to buy a replacement sticker sheet from https://ministickers.nl/, they also did one that had the numbers and names for Flying Scotsman.  The coach I didn't even try and get - the tan window frames are insanely expensive.

I think if I were buying it now, I'd change the colour scheme and try and update the design to take advantage of the Lego bricks that have been introduced since the set was released.

Welcome aboard.

Depends on how much effort and money you want to put into it and also what parts you already have on hand.  Multiple BrickLink orders from multiple shops can add up shipping/handling costs quickly.  Complete used might end up being cheaper and easier. You need to grind out and compare numbers for your situation.

 

M_slug357, you say that this has been discussed before.  Where can I find this discussion so that I can get more information myself?

Edited June 26, 20177 yr by Vilhelm22

People can be upset and shoot me for saying this, but I purchased the Lepin version of this train and powered it for half of what it cost to get the Lego version.  I'm not a purist as I only got into Lego trains about 3 months ago however being a railfan and a railroader, it doesn't matter to me if it's pure Lego or not.  I'm quite happy with the emerald night. 

On 26.6.2017 at 6:26 PM, Vilhelm22 said:

M_slug357, you say that this has been discussed before.  Where can I find this discussion so that I can get more information myself?

I found a topic from 2013, even it may be a bit outdated, you can find some Emerald nights in different colors and also a cheaper solution for the cars. However I would use this topic only for inspiration since bumping such an old thread is not always aprecciated. As M_slug357 said:

On 23.6.2017 at 10:36 PM, M_slug357 said:

This has been discussed before, but it's best to let sleeping dogs lie.

(...)

Anyway here's the link:

Building the Emerald Night via Bricklink

At least if you rebuild the EN from scratch you can also improve it since the original has some design flaws. I have three EN's, two in original livery and the third is in 'baureihe' colors (red details and totally black). I never let them run on displays but they do look great of course!

13 hours ago, Ghostengineer said:

People can be upset and shoot me for saying this, but I purchased the Lepin version of this train and powered it for half of what it cost to get the Lego version.  I'm not a purist as I only got into Lego trains about 3 months ago however being a railfan and a railroader, it doesn't matter to me if it's pure Lego or not.  I'm quite happy with the emerald night. 

People won't shoot you for this, but this is a LEGO forum, so we don't discuss clone brands in the theme forums. Please refrain from potentially derailing a topic with clone brand posts. Thanks!

I have made a dark blue version of Emerald Night, and carts with White windows instead of Tan, I can't remember what it cost but significantly cheaper than second hand market.

2017-06-26 23.08.40 by SpinX125, on Flickr

2017-06-26 23.09.10 by SpinX125, on Flickr

 

Edited June 28, 20177 yr by SpinX125

@SpinX125 That blue emerald night looks really impressive, almost like the Tornado steam locomotive built here in the UK (it is the same class of locomotive after all). In that lighting the white windows aren't really obvious, but what do they look like in real life?

7 minutes ago, ColletArrow said:

@SpinX125 That blue emerald night looks really impressive, almost like the Tornado steam locomotive built here in the UK (it is the same class of locomotive after all). In that lighting the white windows aren't really obvious, but what do they look like in real life?

I think the white windows look nice, there are probably many different opinions about that.

There have been many versions of the cart in different colors, but I thought white looks as close to the original as possible.

8 minutes ago, ColletArrow said:

@SpinX125 That blue emerald night looks really impressive,

 

Surely it is the Lapis Lazuli Night!

 

Hello,

Just arrived my BBBricks wheels in red to reproduce an EN in altwrnative colours.

You could also go the crazy route, like I did with my EN:

EN 2.0 Complete (2) by Nick Jackson, on Flickr

On 6/23/2017 at 2:21 PM, Vilhelm22 said:

I only came to LEGO trains in 2013, and as this was after the Emerald Night had been and gone, I missed getting this amazing train.

The Emerald Night is a 1085 piece set from 2009, and due to it being released at this time, can only be bought at extremely high prices - money that I don't have.

It currently costs around £600 to purchase new on Amazon, £350 used on eBay, and on BrickLink £260 used and complete.

 

But my question is this:  

Should I buy all the pieces individually, and if so how much would that cost, or should I buy the set for the cheapest possible price from BrickLink or another website for LEGO?

 

I think that this train is possibly the best LEGO train set that has ever been made, which is why I want this one in particular.

As mike_ribeiro just pointed out, if you can't find the train wheels, Big Ben Bricks makes some great after market wheels that would work quite well on an EN replica.

http://www.bigbenbricks.com/index.html

Wonderful discussion, even more so with regard to the various different versions presented.

Make your own! This is what LEGO is about! I bet the version you'll create will be at least as appealing as the original one.

Best
Thorsten 

I am looking into putting an Orange Night version together with Matching Livery on the coach.

Seems like this is a doable color swap, with reasonably priced pieces.

Hi Vilhelm22,

Good luck on your search! I have found this video to be quite helpful, especially if one wants the golden lines on a cheaply bricklinked EN: 
 

 

I made an emerald night in red, and just used gold striping take for the lines

On 6/23/2017 at 1:36 PM, M_slug357 said:

This has been discussed before, but it's best to let sleeping dogs lie.

I'd say you ought to purchase the individual pieces from BrickLink, simply because you can find the same pieces in alternate colours.

Unfortunately, I'd say that colors like dark green and tan are exceedingly popular right now, and therefore much, much more expensive.

Otherwise, good luck and happy building!

I would beg to differ.  In order to really assess which of the original two options posited are most worthwhile to you, Vilhelm22, (buying the set or just ordering the individual parts) AFOL like us must do what I painstakingly did for another Lego train set: set up a spreadsheet to quantify exactly how much each option costs (I suspect some sets are cheaper when bought complete while some are otherwise, but its all at the mercy of market forces and Bricklink does not tally all of that up for you).  In my experience, I calculated the cost of getting the individual parts for set 10015 on Excel, and wound up realizing after a long, hot, summer afternoon that it cost more to get the individual parts than it did to buy the whole set brand new, regardless of color palette choices.  I wish I could easily say you can do whatever you want (and technically you certainly still can), but if your budget for non-essentials is limited as it is for most of us, then the best option might be the one that burns the smallest hole in your wallet.