Hogwarts Express: The School of Witchcraft & Wizardry Awaits!
Written: Jul 31 '02 (Updated May 26 '03)
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Pros: Harry, Hermione, Ron, awesome unique elements, impressive final product.
Cons: Only one passenger car, does not run on Lego tracks.
The Bottom Line: One of the hardest sets to find this past holiday season, and for very good reason! It has a few small, minor flaws but overall a very impressive set.
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| Freak369's Full Review: LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Express 4708 |
I, for one, was totally in awe of the Hogwarts Express the first time I saw it in the film Harry Potter And The Sorcerers Stone. When the Lego designers released the Hogwarts Express it was one of the hardest sets to come by this past holiday season. I don’t know how many trips I made to toy stores or the countless internet sites I visited trying to track them down – then one fateful day I found them sitting on the shelf at Wal-Mart. Neatly stacked boxes just waiting to be purchased :]
If you are a fan of Lego or Harry Potter, this is a great set to invest in. But there are a few things that you need to know before you plunk down $50.00. First off, this won’t run on Lego train tracks. This was seen as a major drawback to the set since it really limited what could be done with the train and passenger compartment. It would have been nice to have it work with a track and have it wrap around the castle – but I guess you can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you are going to build the Hogwarts ‘compound’ that is depicted on the back of most of the sets, the Hogwarts Express will fit in nicely with the scene but needs to be placed far enough away from the castle and surrounding buildings so it follows the story and film set up.
The second major issue is the passenger car and engine car. There is no conductor in the front car so you have to either use pieces from another set to make one or just chalk it up to magic that the train moves around. This was something that I still can’t get over. They provided you with the key characters from the story but failed to have a conductor or a sweet cart attendant. These are the little details that can either make or break a set and when I have to construct my own after market pieces to preserve the integrity of a set, well, I get a little ticked.
Hogwarts Express
The front car in this set is visually stunning. From the stenciled 5972 on the front of the engine car to the spoked wheels on the bottom – this is one classy piece of work. The clear pods on the front of the train are very nice substitutes for lights but I would have preferred to have seen different pieces used for this rather than standard clear pieces. I took a gold metallic marker and went around the outer edge of the pod for a little more dramatic effect. I was a little worried that this would ruin the impact of the front of the train, but it doesn’t distract from the visual appeal in the least.
When you complete the engine car you really need to step back from it and take a long hard look at it and all the wonderful detail that has been added to it. Looking at from the side you’ll see the way the wheels are positioned to give it the maximum potential for power as well as the two steam stacks that rest on top of the car. The two blue sonar discs that rest on the bottom from of the engine car seem a little out of place to me but I left these alone since they didn’t take anything away from the overall first visual impression.
The Passenger Car
Due to the fact that we combined two of the Hogwarts Express sets, our passenger car is set up a little differently than according to the provided instructions. Although most of these changes were minor and purely cosmetic, our passenger car is what Lego purists call ‘infected’ – meaning it deviates from the intended set of assembly instructions.
The top portion of the passenger car lifts off so you can position the figures within the cabin or move them around. There really isn’t a whole lot of space inside regardless of what it looks like from the outside. The yellow numbered Ï” and Д tiles on the side of the car are a very nice little detail that helps to break up the black and red theme of both sections of the train. On ours we rearranged the numbers so the first passenger car would have two Ï”s and the second car would have two Дs, it just looked a little better that way.
The mystical magical unloading luggage feature is highly overrated. It’s best to leave this alone and just manually unload the luggage rather than get frustrated with it. See the section below for more detail on this.
Kings Cross Platform 9 3/4
This is the one portion of the set that I really didn’t care for but the boys fell in love with. To me it needed a little more size to it as well as larger sectional pieces to keep with the theme of the film and the text imagery from the book. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with the way it is set up, but it didn’t appeal to me as much as I expected after seeing it on the Lego website and in the Lego catalog previews.
There are certainly a number of unique pieces included with this portion of the set and my favorite has to be the red hand-dolly that will easily handle three suitcases at a time, even though you are only provided with two within the set. This piece has been available in other train sets from Lego but at a very high price. If you want to pick up a few more, try an online brick reseller or broker or pick up one of the three Lego figure sets that this is included with Lego Community Workers set # 9293 and City Figures set # 6314, the other set, Construction Crew has been discontinued]. If you are going to go to the effort to construct an accurate platform setting, you might as well go all out and do it to the best of your ability.
The gateway from the muggle world to the 9 3/4 platform is impressive but nothing new to the Harry Potter series. This type of rotating piece was featured in the The Final Challenge [4702] and Gryffindor House [4722] and made a great impact on these sets. The muggle side of the platform is rather boring and could use a little sprucing up. Just because they don’t endorse the magical lifestyle doesn’t mean they deserve bare bones decor. You can add whatever you like to either side but I found that adding pieces from within the Harry Potter Lego series worked best and kept things on the same scale and size.
The Characters
Harry Potter: Instead of his usual Hogwarts / Gryffindor uniform, Harry is shown in muggle clothing. This was a nice touch since both he and Ron boarded the train in normal attire, not a cape or uniform. This is a small minor detail that goes unnoticed by most people, especially those that have never explored the rest of the series. Harry comes with a magic wand and his steamer trunk [plain, no stenciling] that I added his initials to with a gold metallic marker. Since you are dealing with a very small piece it is hard to get any amount of detail on the top or front portion of the trunk.
Ron Weasley: Nothing too spectacular about good old Ron. Just like Harry, he has regular clothing on rather than the Hogwarts caps and Gryffindor uniform. Overall this character is very nice and captures Ron’s image perfectly. His clothing is rather plain and if you don’t care for it you can always swap it out for a torso element that you like. Ron’s plastic hair and facial expression add to this rather cute looking Lego figure.
Hermione Granger: Hermione has a few key features that set her apart from Ron and Harry, the first being her legs are brown rather than gray. Her figure has long dark hair and red ruby lips, much like Radia from the Alpha Team series. Hermione is one of my favorite female characters from all the Lego series because of the very cute facial expression and plastic hair. Early editions of the set featured her in ‘street clothing’ rather than the Hogwarts uniform but later editions have her in the uniform. Both of the sets that I have feature her in the Hogwarts / Gryffindor uniform. She also receives one of the cool black capes and a magic wand.
All three characters are provided with magic wands [brown, gray and light brown] and capes [black, cloth adorned with stars] however how you arrange the wands with each figure is up to you. This is where following the instructions to the letter isn’t an absolute necessity.
The Assorted Animals
For some reason there’s a yellow spider on the loose. I’m not sure why he is included with the set, but he’s there nonetheless. You really have to go through all the pieces and pull out the animals and so a checklist to make sure you have them all. I didn’t have a problem with the piece count but some people said that they were missing Harry’s owl but mine was tucked neatly into one of the many plastic bags inside the box. Rats, owls and mice are all running rampant through the set so be sure you take care of them because they do get lost easily.
The Little Things …
Sometimes it’s the small little details that really make a great set exceptional. Without going into elaborate and lavish detail that would bore most NLP’s [Non Lego People] to death I’ll go over a few of the elements that helped to make this the most sought after Lego set this past Christmas season. First off the clock at the station. I won’t say that there are completely unique, but they are rare. Reading 2:57:40 [analog not digital] at all times, this is a small little piece that helps to improve the overall feel of the rail station. To the best of my knowledge this type of clock tile has only been included in six other sets.
The two suitcases included with this set [one brown, one black] are nice but not really enough to pull off the scene convincingly. I suggest picking up a few other suitcases from brick brokers or using trunks from other sets to give the scene a bit more realism. I personally thought that only getting two suitcases and one trunk was rather stingy on the part of the Lego designers – that’s why I love the brick resellers and brokers.
The multitude of unique pieces, arches, connectors and items at the rail station make this set a great investment. Since we opened two sets and combined them our Hogwarts Express looks a little bigger than the standard set, but impressive nonetheless. The animals included with this set are nice, but could have used a few more to make it a bit more complete. With a $49.99 suggested retail price, you get your money’s worth but there is still room for improvement.
Other mentionable pieces include the hand-dolly at the rail station, lamp posts, three different colors magic wands, garbage can, tiled yellow numbers, detail on the front of the Hogwarts Express and last but not least the spoked wheels on the train. It’s all the little pieces within a set that determine the overall level of aesthetic pleasure you receive from it when the construction is completed. I was happy with the way it was built from the box according to the instructions, but tickled pink when we broke open the second set and added a second passenger car to the train.
The Magical Unloading Luggage Thingy
OK, don’t get too excited about this feature since most of the time it doesn’t work correctly. In theory it is supposed to pop the luggage trunk out of the compartment, in reality it might pop out, pop out partially or fly out of the section. I’ve never been able to make any adjustments to it by adding or eliminating pieces that corrected this minor glitch so I suggest that you just leave it as is and pull the trunk out when needed.
Instructions
This is probably the hardest part of the review to write. Personally I found the instructions to be rather poor – the illustrations were top notch but some of the scenes were poorly presented. All it takes is a few misplaced pieces in the beginning of the construction process and you could be looking at having to start all over – from scratch – to correct the error.
My first suggestion is to sit down and go over the first section of pages to see how the train and station are built and to figure out which one you want to work on first. Take your time and separate the pieces since some of them look alike and it is a little hard to tell the difference between the illustration and the actual piece.
For being a larger set the instructions are rather limited and basic – but that is just my interpretation of them, you might look at them and have no trouble what so ever building the train or platform. The real key here is to take your rime and double check the different sections before you go on to another phase of construction. Be sure to check out the box and back pages of the instruction booklet for alternative designs. If you really want to do some creative things with this set be sure to visit the Harry Potter section of the Lego website for some fantastic ideas. www.lego.com/harrypotter
Our Modifications
I picked up two of these sets, one for the boys and one for me. I try to pick up two of each set in case there is a question about pieces or it suddenly becomes taken off the market or redesigned. And lets face it, can you really have too many Lego’s? After looking at the completed train – one car and one engine – I thought it would be a great idea to open the second set and made an additional passenger car for the train since it looked a little odd with just one. The boys agreed [big shock] to go through and build the second set and use the left over pieces to make a flat bed to haul luggage and other assorted Lego / Harry Potter items.
Since we had two additional suitcases and an extra trunk from the second set, the flat bed attachment was a great idea. We had some other spare trunks from other sets that were added to the flat bed portion of the train and it looked so cool when it was completed. You can also use stock fence pieces around the edges so you don’t have to press each item into the Lego pods. This also gives it a better appearance since it gives it a realistic look.
It took a little maneuvering and planning but eventually we managed to get the two passenger cars connected. We had to dig though some of the older sets and stock pieces to find couplers that would work and not come apart with the slightest amount of pressure or weight but it was well worth the effort when we finished building it.
The Bottom Line
Overall this is a must have set if you want to build the Hogwarts compound. Since it doesn’t run on regular Lego train track you might have to use your creative skills to think up alternative track lay out but even without a track, this is still a fun set to play with. For the price I would have liked to have had a bigger Kings Cross and 9 3/4 Platform but I guess you can’t have everything. If you have stock pieces or extra sets you can always redesign the station to your liking. Overall we had a great time with this set and if you like Lego’s and Harry Potter, chances are this set will be a welcome addition to your collection.
The Stats
Set Name: Hogwarts Express
Family Set: Harry Potter And The Sorcerers Stone
Lego Set: 4708
Number of Pieces: 410
Age Recommendation: 8 - 12
Ease Of Assembly: Moderate
Time Of Assembly: 30 – 45 minutes
Cost: 47.99 [Target]
As always, thanks for the read!
^V^ Freak ^V^
© 2003 Freak369
Other Harry Potter Lego set reviews ...
Hogwarts Castle
Hagrids Hut
Quality Quidditch Supplies
Quidditch Practice
Dobby’s Release
The Dueling Club
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): $47.99
Type of Toy: Blocks
Age Range of Child: Whole Family
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