Random set of the day: Caboose
Posted by Huwbot,Today's random set is 10014 Caboose, released in 2001. It's one of 16 Trains sets produced that year. It contains 170 pieces, and its retail price was US$15.
It's owned by 1772 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
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28 comments on this article
I love My Own Train. Wish the sets from it weren't so hard to come by these days.
I just happened upon this when getting out my Christmas trains! I love this set... so cute!
These My Own Train sets were AMAZING. Yes, all-caps. They deserve it. I loved the western-themed carriages. I loved the freight trucks, and this caboose was so cute but also so functional. Every bit of this line was epic win.
^ The logging car seemed to be the least popular, at the time of release, because those are pretty easy to track down, in the secondary market. The others, not so much, no.
Well, this set is just being a metaphor for the end of the X-Mas holidays and get back to the normal-ish work.
The logging car and the passenger car (the other least popular one) are the only two I could ever find. It killed me that I was never able to find hoppers or the caboose.
Recently assembled this from a bulk lot that also had 10020 in it; it's a really cute build that looks great behind the Super Chief (since that lot didn't have any of the passenger cars in it)
My focus was always on Star Wars when it came to LEGO, but I remember staring at the different cars you could buy in the ShopatHome Magazine to make your own train and just imagining the best thing I could make, which was essentially to just get every single one and make an epic train, but I just never did. I don't know if I regret it, there's a good chance they would have been parted out by this point, but still, part of me wishes I had made my own train just to satisfy the dream.
This line was 20 years before it’s time. Imagine if they released something like this nowadays with all the new AFOLs.
Man, that's a nice caboose. I always enjoy looking at a great caboose and would love to get my hands on one.
I bought this along with the green passenger car back when it was available on the LEGO website. First thing I did was change the door out for a yellow one to match the accent stripe. Since I've had it like that for so long, the red door looks "incorrect" to me now. I should review this set soon...
I got the impression that these didn't sell that well. They likely didn't, compared to other themes, just because the entry level was so expensive. You could find $10 sets for nearly any other theme, but for trains you were always looking at the $50-100 range just to get started. I know they sold these at Target, which seemed a bad fit to me. Target at that time was notorious for clearancing stuff that you hadn't even found yet, just because it wasn't selling fast enough. If they thought MOT sets weren't selling well, they would have stopped ordering them and potentially sealed the fate of the theme before it really got started.
lol this set is setting on my desk
I have this, the passenger car and the logging car. I bought the caboose and passenger car on markdown at the LEGO Imagination Center while on vacation in Orlando. I believe I got the logging car in a bulk garage sale buy.
I agree. Imagine what these would look like today designed by either LEGO or the AFOL community? Wow! What a prospect!
These were very popular. The old 9 volt My Own Train sets were even available at Target in the US. I bought a bunch for my son and myself. Most of the older AFOLs were bananas for them bach then on Lugnet.
I have this one! I like it!
This set pretty decent for a 2001 set. Other themes were not so lucky.
@PDelahanty said:
"Man, that's a nice caboose. I always enjoy looking at a great caboose and would love to get my hands on one."
Was this intended to sound dirty or does it just read that way?
I know this gets brought up frequently but I really wish WISH Lego would revisit a dedicated train theme. It would include buildings such as engine shed, signal box, station, level crossing, depot, not to mention different locos and rolling stock.
Considering the amount of effort they put into underwhelming themes, and the constant rehash of X-wings and the like, I just don't accept that there isn't a demand for a train theme.
@CalumHeath
I completely agree. Both trains and historical themes suffer from the same problem. Lego (and various internet trolls and sheep) whinge about how they dont sell and kids arent interested. NOT TRUE.
The problem is Lego's EXECUTION of these themes. With trains, its that for any Lego fan growing up after say, 2002, the only train sets were big, expensive ones with the same looking passenger train for about 10 years.
Whenever one goes to a Lego fan display, the one thing kids love (particularly younger ones which IS lego's target audience) is the trains. Trains in real life or as model trains eg Hornby may not be as popular as they were last century but kids still love a toy train.
Im sure there are plenty of kids who would more likely play with a remote control train over a static police car but they cant get one because either there is no train theme or if there is the only locomotives are in $150+ sets which naturally most parents arent keen on buying.
Personally Ive always thought a System Thomas the Tank Engine theme would work well, its well known across generations, popular with young kids and has various sizes of trains and rolling stock to be available. Like a static Thomas locomotive could be sold for say $30, which is reasonably affordable. Ideally pieces would be included to remove the 'face'. Then, like MOT one could buy carriages, Troublesome Trucks, breakdown cranes etc. for cheap prices and make a train. Or buy more expensive sets say $80 Gordon and carriages along with playsets be it Cranky the Crane, Bulstrode the barge and Salty the train. Such a theme would also include buildings as you suggested. Same idea as those Take A Long and wooden Thomas toys which seem reasonably popular.
I actually own one of these, along with the green passenger & small blue loco & tender. I rarely own a random set of the day, this was a good one to remember.
Huh, I could have sworn Caboose was on the blue team, not red
Getting this set led to purchasing one of my favorite sets back then, the train engine shed 10027. Good memories... May need to set my trains up again.
Seeing these My Own Train component sets makes me think about the old wish list I had on Shop at Home with a very specific My Own Train and a very specific 9V layout. Sadly, since Shop at Home has never, ever shipped to Singapore to this day, My Own Train was completely unavailable, and I never did get a 9V train because none of the retail sets appealed to me.
I don't remember seeing this ever in stock in the toy shops as the Metroliner 4558 was everywhere and this was before on-line shopping. Probably the only stand-alone official Lego Caboose set, although 164 Passenger Coach could be made into a Caboose with the alternative build C, as usually just the end car on the Winter Holiday train, Toy Story 3 Western train chase etc.
"Time is not made out of lines, it is made out of circles--that is why clocks are round" - Caboose, oh wait, wrong fan site...
I other news, I like trains too. The only one I own is 4511 with two additional passenger cars. Crazy how expensive trains (especially 9V ones) have become.
Another nice thing about the My Own Train line is the rolling stock is built using fairly common parts and no stickered pieces. So it's actually fairly easy to get the parts to build this caboose; I bricklinked the parts to build this and the other cars a few years back. The passanger car is the one exception as it's got windows... and for some reason LEGO likes to use rare windows for trains...
I really wish they'd go back to selling individual locomotives/rail cars instead of only ever doing the big $150+ playsets. It would be nice to build a more 'custom' train
@Brickchap:
But it is true. Sure, there's demand. You can read the comments in this thread and see that a few people are asking for a Train theme revival. Is that going to be sustainable enough to compete for shelf space at Walmart? Not a chance. TRU carried trains because they tried to carry everything (when you only sell toys...). Meijer has also stocked trains periodically, but they're a regional chain, which doesn't help everywhere that they're not. Even with stripped-down, bare-bones sets like these, you couldn't get set up with a simple circle track and a non-powered train for less than $50. It took at least $100 if you wanted it to be powered.
Kids may love the idea of owning trains, but their parents have to foot the bill. Pandemic aside, my LUG normally does over 20 shows per year, all of which feature a train layout. We get tons of parents who leave planning to stop off and buy their kid(s) a LEGO set on the way home, but no more than once or twice a year do any of them ask advice about buying train sets. That's a statistically insignificant number of parents. Young kids especially are constantly fascinated by big things like trains, dinosaurs, and construction equipment, but most parents just wait for them to grow out of that phase.
For the types of trains that the AFOL community would want, a single non-powered engine is going to cost more than a cheap starter set, as we can see with the Crocodile Engine. That's great for LEGO Train hobbyists, but it won't work in a retail environment. It could be worse, though. The regular hobby train community has hair that mostly ranges from light grey to white. They are literally a dying breed. My LUG does several of these shows annually, because the event organizers know that we'll bring in families. Families buy stuff from vendors, and vendors will feel it's worth the expense of setting up a booth. But almost every young person who is interested in getting into the model train hobby comes in from the LEGO side these days. But there still aren't many of them. We've had about as many teens join because of Bionicle.
So, you can get mad because someone's telling you the truth, or you can be grateful for what support the LEGO Train hobby does still receive. Bionicle was the most popular theme they'd ever had, and saved the company from bankruptcy, but there's nothing on the horizon to support those fans.