BlueBrixx Locomotive Hall review (not sponsored)

[@mplouis]

2:43 That is what i love about BlueBrixx. If you see a BlueBrixx Box, you can be sure that this thing is a 100% full with Bricks and 0% air. It almost explodes. 😊

[@BrennanHuff_001]

It’s a shame Lego doesn’t even come close to these type of builds. Although I get why they don’t get into it. Luckily 3rd party companies have really stepped up their game. This is a great set, although I’m not 100% sure if I love the color scheme or not.

[@yoohdigger1307]

Hi, I purchased a lot of the Bluebrixx stuff and they are steadily increasing quality, so I am happy with the most of their builds. I have the industrial and also the old big shed for steam locomotives, looking great. I build a "old fashioned" industrial setup with coal bunker and water filling tower (both bluebrixx builds) and enjoyed it. Of course you won't get the quality of lego bricks, but looking at the prices it is ok for me.. keep on brickin' 🙂

[@GearsAndBricks]

Sand green? Yes. Dark green? Yes. Good video. I enjoyed watching it. I had expected to set it as audio in the background, but was captivated throughout. Thanks for sharing your honest thoughts. Also, sprues can be and are often used in MOCs, so keep them handy. For these two, I see potential for greebling as well as a method of clipping lights and piping details to it for roof detail in an industrial building (like the shed here). It was nice of Bluebrixx to include so many spare parts that you never knew you didn't need. :)

[@242Evangelion]

I have bought some Bluebrixx sets. Great for adults that want more real train sets with separate wagons and ad ons. Their "pick a brick" selection is also very good for adults that want to have pieces for landscaping, big builds in background and so on. Also nice to have more option in pieces and colors. Specially the big selection of baseplates in different sizes. Downside is that the quality is not the same as with LEGO, the price difference do show. And with some builds I feel that the designer has made in a LEGO Digital Designer or Studio program. Decorative parts on their steam locomotives do fall of easy and some building steps come in weird order. All and all, like to see more videos on BlueBrixx products here. As a Swede, my English is way better then my German. Great video!

[@BatteryPoweredBricks]

Thanks! Yeah I noticed a distinct lack of BlueBrixx videos in English so I want to put some out there. It's also important to me to review the sets individually since the quality can vary so much. In my next review I'll be making some changes to a set that seems to suffer from the "designed digitally" problem. I've also heard their train wheels have much higher friction and tend to derail so I'll be taking a look at that too. In my mind It can absolutely be worth it to buy a third party set and modify it rather than writing off third party bricks as a whole.

[@box1444]

I have their 100284 Locomotive Shed, massive build. BlueBrixx does have some tightness issues and poor reinforcing of the bricks in their builds. They do have good customer service, they sent me missing parts pretty quickly. It also looks like they have learned some lessons from 100284 and now have the track pieces as the base instead of mounting them on 16x16 plates which were a pain because they weren't exact and it also left the track coming out of the shed at an extra one plate in height. Their rolling stock does offer some nice selections but if you don't have the space or the turning radius more than the standard 40R it gets interesting for those cars that are in excess of 50+ studs to make the corners.

[@BatteryPoweredBricks]

Yeah even with official Lego parts, train tracks don't really like being attached directly to baseplates. I am glad to see third party suppliers are getting better over time. Lego needs competition or they will have no incentive to improve / keep costs competitive

[@BrittneyAMcCubbin]

Seeing that partial window frame made me think. I just recently got around to building the home alone house and the front door wasn’t fully molded. So it does happen with Lego.

[@BatteryPoweredBricks]

It seems to be more of an issue in recent years. I've been getting Lego sets for over 30 years and only in the passed few years have I seen quality control issues. Lego is moving towards being just another company these days, lowering the quality while raising the prices 🤷‍♂️

[@_LLevi_]

i have a lego piece from an old life on mars set that isnt fully molded like that. its called a short shot, pretty cool imo

[@fpga-all-day]

Great video! I appreciate you pointing out the quality, as that's important when making a decision to buy something like this over LEGO

[@coasterblocks3420]

That’s a nice looking industrial train shed. I purchased the BlueBrixx Gantry Signal Box set, which had one malformed part (1x2 down bracket) but they obviously caught that as there was the correct number of usable parts. I also bought grey tiles for ballasting, 1x1 flame orange clips for building CDX Blocks custom roller coasters and a swag of white right train doors since LEGO only made white train doors (thick support) in left only and a vanishingly small number of right white doors with thin supports for some reason 🤷🏽‍♂️.

[@BatteryPoweredBricks]

Yeah Lego is really weird about left and right doors. A few of the folks in my discord build primarily with Lego but will go to BlueBrixx or other third parties to get things like windows in bulk. Some of the train / plane windows and some of the inserts cost a fortune since Lego hasn't made them in a while. Third party can be a great way to supplement a Lego collection

[@jasonmacarico2011]

i saw their website and its nice i seem to enjoy the idea they have for their different vehicles

[@neilrusling-je6zo]

im doing the window order with them now, what choice is there if you dont want to pay 50 for 12 windows. Im in touch with them hoping they will do the train glass for the 3x2 like they have for the 4x3 which look so good.

[@driver9154]

Is that BNSF GP38 from the one guy on Ebay and Etsy that sells custom train stuff? I see that its the same design as the Maersk loco. Was looking at his stuff the other day, neat idea and pricing isn't awful but I'm amazed he took that as a business venture. Thought most Lego railroaders would build everything themselves.

[@BatteryPoweredBricks]

The design for the sides was inspired by their builds, but it was my own mod of the Maersk locomotive. I'm not quite sure how similar they are in the end. I have videos on all of the Maersk mod locomotives I've built so far. I typically don't design many Lego builds from the ground up. I've always been amazed by the creativity of others but never really been very good at building MOCs myself

[@driver9154]

@@BatteryPoweredBricks I'll have to go back and watch those then, I appreciate you telling me. I can agree not building from the ground up - I've tried that on multiple locomotives now and failed miserably at it, usually I either repurpose original Lego designs or sometimes have flat out copied mocs. Goes for almost anything from simple cars all the way to buildings. Sucks cause there's especially alot of locomotives I'd love to build but every time I try I'm severely disappointed in how they turn out.

[@BatteryPoweredBricks]

It's definitely a skill that can be improved over time. I also feel like sharing work-in-progress pics in our discord has been helpful getting some feedback on what works well and what doesn't. Maybe one day I'll work my way up to building MOCs from the ground up, but even if I never do I still enjoy the hobby and sharing ideas with others

[@mr.t.7597]

Hej there... I am from Germany. Unfortunately, the quality of their bricks cannot keep up to Lego or other Brands like Cobi from Poland or Gobricks, CaDa or Panlos from China.

[@BatteryPoweredBricks]

I don't think it's as simple as that. I've seen wildly different quality from several third party companies. I imagine many of them get their bricks from the same manufacturers and the quality has gotten better over time. If a set is older it's more likely to have sub par quality parts in comparison to more recent sets. I've been very disappointed by some third party sets and impressed by others. I don't think it always boils down to one company being better than the others, except that I've made efforts to not buy from companies that steal designs. I was very happy with this set but that doesn't mean I'd be happy with everything BlueBrixx sells

[@mr.t.7597]

Yes I understand what you mean. The Problem is, that most of the Bluebrixx Sets come with (second class) bricks from Qunlong or Xingbao. There were only a few Sets that came with the better Parts from Gobricks. They sometimes also rebrand Sets from other chinese Companies. So you never know what you get from Bluebrixx. They won't give any information to their customers. So I guess we will never get a consistent quality.😭

[@themazeecho9336]

The set is 150 euros, not pounds. 😉 And you need to change the dark bluish gray part of the hinge, not the light bluish gray one.

[@BatteryPoweredBricks]

Typical American not knowing the difference between pounds and euros😅

[@themazeecho9336]

@@BatteryPoweredBricks Well, £1 = $1,27, while 1€ = $1,09, so your wallet will know the difference. 🙂

[@lilyzzworld]

I'm a LEGO purist for anything brick related (track parts fine, wheels fine, anything else is a no-go) so I wish LEGO would just produce another engine shed, ideally in their creator expert line.

[@BatteryPoweredBricks]

I'd like to be a purist but Lego really hasn't given much to the train community in many years, Just the bare minimum. The price increase sure doesn't help either 😬. I will continue to keep my fingers crossed for Lego to get their act together 🤞

[@lilyzzworld]

@@BatteryPoweredBricks So real to be honest. Best compromise I usually lean to is buying instructions on rebrickable. Who knows, maybe within a month I'd have suspiciously logo-less bricks for my trains and buildings 😅

[@BatteryPoweredBricks]

Rebrickable is fantastic! Although some builds can get very pricey. There are a few folks in my discord that build primarily with Lego but will use third party like BlueBrixx for things like train windows that are crazy expensive in bulk with official Lego. There are a few third parties I've completely written off due to their business practices but honestly I have plenty of gripes about Lego and their business practices as well these days. Lego needs to have real competition, otherwise they have zero incentive to improve.

[@Mm2_for_life2]

❤

[@mattwalden4020]

How is price and shipping/. Asking from Aus

[@BatteryPoweredBricks]

Shipping to the US was a flat 35 Euros. You can put a set in a cart and see what they charge for shipping to Australia

[@coasterblocks3420]

Yes, the shipping to Australia is steep but a flat fee which encouraged me to order extra things to make it more worthwhile. I didn’t go too crazy as this was my first order from BlueBrixx.

[@mattwalden4020]

Thank you 😊. I’m trying to decide between a UCS Venator or some BlueBrixx locomotives and other rolling stock

[@BatteryPoweredBricks]

@@mattwalden4020 The rolling stock can be hit or miss from what I've heard. The train wheels aren't the best, higher friction and more likely to derail than official Lego. There may have been some other issues. I ordered the 5 pack of tank wagons and will be testing them in the future. Still the pricing can make it worth it to buy them and modify them if there are issues

[@mattwalden4020]

@@BatteryPoweredBricks you’ll have to let me know when you do your review! I have seen the review for the TGV and Euro Star train sets and they looked good.

[@Sharunock]

*gluebrixx