Look at the submissions to the ongoing LEGO Ideas Third 2021 Review Stage and you’ll see it’s mostly buildings. We should like to hope for more vehicle product ideas in this batch, and thankfully Lassehfl answers the call. He even looks to a prominent line in theming for LEGO sets: trains. LEGO themes like City have given collectors some cool locomotives to build. Lassehfl’s product idea looks to be a prime addition to the bunch, now that it has 10,000 supporters. The build in question is an iconic part of American locomotive history as well.
We’re talking about the distinctive articulated early-mid-20th Century 4-8-8-4 steam loco operated by Union Pacific Railroad, the legendary “Big Boy.” Built in the 1940s, they remained in service until 1962. Eight Union Pacific Big Boys remain today, with one (UP 4014) reactivated and in use today as an excursion train.
Ideas member Lassehfl went the extra mile in designing this product idea. His brick-built Big Boy is to scale with standard LEGO rail gauges and is fully mobile. That part’s no mean feat when having a LEGO locomotive with 38 wheels doing potentially tight turns. At 2,100 LEGO pieces, Lassehfl has done a builder miracle.
All in all, this Union Pacific Big Boy product idea is comprised of the engine, tender, and one engineer minifig. While there are parts for static display (with info plaque), Lassehfl intends this Big Boy to be playable. The fact that the model’s fully mobile gives this submission an edge over the other 10-K vehicle models. It’s about time the LEGO Ideas Third 2021 Review Stage got serious vehicle rep.