LEGO said that the Orient Express cannot be motorized. They were wrong. 

Funny how they didn’t say the bucket wheel excavator wasn’t too heavy to motorise, that thing won’t move at all unless the clutch is brand new

So lego misspelled the city names on the stickers, were too lazy to even bother to motorize the train, completely changed the original engine from the original ideas submission, and were still like “yeah let’s charge 300 for it.”

"we tried for months' Fixes the problem in a few hours.

I have NO idea why LEGO decided that it can't be motorised. I've seen realistic LEGO trains with meter-long wagons easily get pulled by a standard LEGO motor. Also the city names are very annoying. LEGO really didn't do the OE the justice it deserves. I love how the Crocodile locomotive looks with the wagons. Absolutely great!

The fact that they couldn't be bothered to check a few city names on Google is INFURIATING. Really??? It's so sloppy. But yes, $300 please...

From the amount of easy to fix errors in this set, it seems like it wasn't a important priority for lego and/or didn't want to make it

Emerald Night came unmotorised but with instructions on how to fit a motor. Still my favourite train and I bought it RRP when it came out.

I believe it should be a rule that every train that LEGO releases should be able to be motorized but also include at the minimum instructions on how to do it. I have spoken / This is the Way !

This is what I love about Racing Brick and the Lego community in general. They'll fix the stuff Lego messes up and give more value to sets like this that should've been there from the beginning

Really any lego set can be motorized if you really try

Coming from HO model trains, a solution to increase the "power" of the locomotive is to add more weight to the locomotive. If the powered up motor has enough power, the control behavior is also better.

Thanks for testing the large motor! I'm glad to see that it has sufficient power in a configuration similar to the one that I plan to use.

Yeah.... i think the only reason they say its not motorizeable because the specs are just outside the motor specs. So its one of those situations they cant say it works because chances that it doesnt, or breaks, are higher. Not by much, but enough for them to put their high quality confirmation on it.

The easiest and least intrusive way to motorize is , just simply swap out 1 or 2 bogies from a train car with 9v motors, for those who have 9v track 😃

Pretty good job. Motorized trains make sense. Under the Christmas tree such a train would be perfect. Come on, lego. You can do it better. I know. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and test performances. I love it. Keep up the good work.

Of all the early attempts from other RU-vidrs to motorize this set, yours is the best in terms of function and aesthetics. Great job!

I think lego (and its designer) left the power up function to make us spend more money. Also, Why do i feel like some people may modify this train to look like the polar express. (As the colors are almost the same).

I was thinking it would take a few weeks after release to have the set motorized, I was way off! I think part of leaving it out was the cost, a lot of people are complaining about the $200+ sets and want cheaper options.

One other consideration is that the front four on the engine are the rubber band version of the train wheels; if they're not being used to drive the train's motion then they're adding friction. Might be worth swapping them out for metal axle versions if you want to reduce friction a bit.

Nicely done, I'm very glad to see a video where you show what's possible to fit in the engine, no one else has opened the boiler part up.

Watched several reviews of the Orient Express, this is the most useful one. 👍

Brilliant video!! It's amazing how far Legos have evolved and the people who make them do things they weren't meant to do. And the fact you found a low power/low heat solution that actually makes it run decently makes Legos all the more timeless. I run a lot of the smaller trains like the N gauge sets and the tiny Z gauge Marklin sets. But the Lego Polar Express would make a beautiful "under the Christmas tree" running set.

This set makes me believe that Lego might again be entering into era where the marketing department and bean counters decide about all the things. As a result, quality is pushed down to increase margins.

Thank you for showing your testing. I had done those same steps in my head so thanks for saving me time! Totally should have been motorized!

Awesome review with excellent production value and some very good critique. New subscriber! 🤩

Two reasons I think they didn't want to provide official power: - derailing tender in reverse - motor overheats due to increased weight Could even be that it is fine on its own, but they have a standard of any powered set must also be able to carry x number of extra cars from other sets..

This shows that "LE-O" needs people like you with passion and not for money. A combination of business and pleasure.

Great info on the Orient Express; I will definitely pick it up on sale. Congratulations on 200k subs brother!!!! Love your videos 🤙🤙🤙🤙

Now we know The Lego Group straight up lies to us. This should have only been $250 motorized.

I wish Lego sold more motor and electronic parts. They are really missing out on Official Lego LED kits, lighting brings another level to Lego.

Thanks for doing this!

love your content!

Thank you very much for this video. So much important information.

I love your reviews. First, i LOVE the cars in the set. The engine -- not so much. I realize that Orient Express wanted to concentrate on the cars, and that is the main section but the dumb-downed the engine so much - how sad. I think the said they cant make the engine power and it would have gone overbudget. Lego sets a price for each set to achieve and with the power functions its over that price. I’m glad you got it work - maybe some might want this more now.

Congrats for 200k

Other than the design of the locomotive, I think we have the best case scenario for this set. Lego train enthusiasts use trucks/bogies with roller bearings on 3rd party wide radius curved tracks. Even a single train motor could pull ten cars if they all have roller bearing wheels. I think your theory about cutting cost is correct. Lego designers released the set knowing those that have an interest would get the train motorized and running smoothly. Those that don't have an interest in motorization don't have to support the cost of the additional parts.

Thanks for the solutions. I think that makes up my mind and I will buy since it can be motorised. Although, I'll wait to see if the stickers/misprints/typos etc. are addressed in a later batch and buy it near the end of life.

In my youth, on my Interrail Journeys, I occasionally saw the Blue Pullman wagons luxury train, on some of the major stations (mostly Paris) with ore. If this locomotive had been black, I would have bought it in a heartbeat.

Hey that L-Motor solution looks a little familiar! 😁 Glad to see that it works ahead of my own plans to motorize the set. If an ‘unofficial’ solution can be put forth for the fans to adapt, I’m sure more people might be swayed into picking up this set for themselves.

Neat and informative thank you!

Congrats on 200k

I would assume part of the issue with motorization of Lego trains is just how tight the curves are. As we saw in this testing the city Loco was doing fine on the straights, but the curves saw issues.

Brickstory motorized the tender with the normal Lego hub and train motor. It doesn't look great that way, but it works fine. 😀

I heard about this problem and was interested to find out if they had used the tender to hide a motor as well. Turns out that the tender us hollow and it would be perfectly easy to get a motor in there

Hey racingbrick! You could try using a very light oil on the connecting rod pins on the engines wheels as well as the slot where the rod reciprocates at the engine. I bet the train would be much much smoother as I firmly believe the whole issue is the friction of those connecting rods and not the weight and taking them off all together might be the be solution. Sucks that its a brand new piece too!

Funny thing is the old school powered rails would do this easy, Its so sad lego went with battery powered trains instead of power through rails like model trains.

I thinkt if you replace the Trainwheel elements with the old metal axle version it will ride more smooth as well. Maybe put some 2x6x2 weight bricks into the locomotive.

LEGO has become the embodiment of skill issue.

I remember the old days when you could buy the motor kit separate and the build instructions would let you build the thing with or without a motor. This was back in the days of the high-speed motor of course, but even the weird early mindstorms geared motors were still pretty good (and dear god they had torque for days)

Great video!

Perfect, it's on my wishlist

They may have said it was "too heavy to be motorized" because of motor load and wear. If the motor struggles, then it might cut down the lifespan of the motor unacceptably much. And if that is the case, then they would have to design a new more powerful motor just for this set. Or gear it down and have the train run slow, which is not much fun either.

I like the color of this Orient Express. It's a deep, rich blue color that stands out very well. I'm glad to see that others in the Lego community have figured out ways to power the train including yourself!

could you please do a how to video on which is the best set to buy to get all the needed parts and how to implement the motor the best way?

I haven't looked into Power Functions stuff in like 15 years now, but my goodness, this stuff is actually overpowered. I would've smashed so many builds back in the day lol.

My personal theory about why LEGO said this set can't be motorized is that they want their engines to be overpowered. Specifically they want the engines to have a reserve of extra power for if kids end up attaching more cars, create custom cars, or just put more into the cars than what comes in the set. (or maybe so that the motors can still handle the load when the current starts to drop off) I think the cars may have been too heavy to allow the Express to have enough reserve power, and they couldn't find a way to lower the weight of the cars without removing a lot of the detail.

I might get this, but it'll be a static display parked somewhere in my small city. I don't have space for a running train layout at all, let alone a train this long and wide. I do think it's odd that they didn't include any option for motorization, and I'd be tempted to add that, but the reality is I'd never run it anyway. Lego trains (and model trains in general) are the sort of thing I build and run once and then never touch again.

I liked it just for the thumbnail pic.....stayed for the great vid....two thumbs way up!!!!!❤🎉❤🎉❤🎉😮😮😮

One way to weight down the small tender is by using small 2x1 plates, and stack them together. Which should give the max amount of possible added weight and still be easily to assemble/dissasemble

That I thought too for the Unimog... There I build in a air tank between the axles... The space there is just enough ^^

this video got recommended to me. I just wanted to say the lego city freight train (im from th euk) is £159.99 and the UNMOTORISED orient express is £300 thank you for this video idk how many other people you may have stopped from being scammed and very informative. i susbcribed

Be carefull using Buwizz, not because it's bad, on the opposite, is far superior to any Official Lego Battery box element/software, but recently, Sariel was "Removed" from TLG, they didn't tell him why, but I just assume that was because he uses and support awesome 3rd party elements like Buwizz and Circuit Cubes... Regarding the Topic, I build my own trains with 6 Kilos, almost 4 meters long and can run smoothly with two 10 years old used powerfunctions elements. The Lego designer saying that little thing is to heavy, make me laugh a lot! I have a video with a 2000 parts Locomotive with 2 PF train motors and a Chinese lowcost battery, pulling a 10 meters long container train :) Keep the with your channel, you are doing a great job!

I REALLY want this around my Christmas tree, but I think I'm going to wait for double points or a discount somewhere else as well as hopefully fixed city names.

yay you hit 201k before end of year

Lego: This train set cannot be motorized RacingBrick: I am RacingBrick and I am a motor genius. “Dramatic camera shot of lego train steaming into a city”

Thanks for sharing that. Looks pretty simple really. Definitely a must buy when the other retailers have it. What I want to know, is can you use that engine as a base to build up to the original design. Damn that was a cool locomotive! The tender needs to have one of the wheels able to slide to stop the derailing. I added a 3rd set of wheels to the tender on my Hogwart's express and had to make the extra set of wheels slide a bit.

I haven’t seen this till this vid, I need this train

Thank you. I wish you have a few more details on how you geared the engine. I pull 4 to 5 cars with my Emerald Night with no issues. I was going to make the tender larger and add 2 motors under it. That was what I did with my Disney Train.

I think extending the tender with 2 battery packs might be the simpeler but more expensive option that will make it work. The advantage is it will look closer to the original submission also

Whenever humans are told “You can’t”, the response is usually “Watch me!”

I got this set for Christmas and I love it

I have a similar setup on my MOC steam locomotive, old PF XL with BuWizz, works great.

Loved the thumbnail. Won't be getting the set primarily because of the price, as well as the less than impressive engine section opposed to the original however it's cool to see a motorized option does indeed exist with minimal customization.

Now I want to see the set powered with the older 9v system

my guess is it had to do with long term stress to the motors and obviously the pricepoint for an already expensive set be driven even higher

It’s a fantastic model. I’d get it and motorise it if I had the space for a train layout (using third party wide radius curve track of course).

Hopefully LEGO will release an official service pack with rubber bands for the wheels to fix this issue.

Those LEGO trains are still good & relaxin' tbqh :D

I had a lego (OCTAN) tow truck with a motorised winch/crane on the back. That had a tiny 9V motor about the size of a 'OXO' cube, that would easily fit in that train!

how is the performance through switches? Do any of the configurations you tested more better or worse when the train goes through a switch?

Try testing it with lots of curves on the tracks. S bends and the switches are were i find all my train issues when building my trains.

first minute felt like the "previously on..." part ad the beginning of tv shows xd

been lo0oking for this

So I just powered the Orient Express tender, which is way easier I think, with the hub 88009 and train motor 88011 then swapped out the front wheels on the locomotive with the ones from the older Harry Potter train 75955 (cuz there much smoother) and it seems to run fine with that setup so far

A way to motorize the OE was just bound to emerge soon, just wasn't expecting to see it prior to the set's release date. I observe many complain about the 'simplicity' of the loco, however I prefer it looking like LEGO not a model train. I'm thinking it being shorter than the Emerald the OE loco may offer much better running characteristics on legit LEGO tracks. Also, it'll be interesting if (read:when) TLC has revised the sticker sheet; maybe we'll see these first edition sets with its misspellings have a higher collector value in the 2nd hand market...?

This is the first train I want to own. Hopefully I will be able to get it next year which will give Lego fans time to develop more ways to power the train effectively!

I was waiting for a video like this maahahha

what i can offer is find a suiteble soft O-ring in your local parts store and also add wheel bearing in to the coaches

that is pretty cool

Prior to the release of the model, I have made steel lego parts for a friend of mine, to add more weight to the tender and preventing it from derailing. He also added them to the locomotive, to have better traction. Another friend of mine has made special couplings to run electricity through them to power additional motors and lights in the wagons. They are building the model right now and the first tests will be made tomorrow. (would have been today, but the colors of my steel parts didn’t match exactly with the real lego parts. I messed that up quite a bit…) I am sure, it will work, since there is a lot of power contained in the modifications…

Mine constantly derails on switch track, it seems to be the tender and the small wheels at the loco. Made sure that the switch track provides a smooth change to over, yet it still happens. Configuration I have is a a motor in the loco connected to a powered up box in the tender. Have tried other configurations but not strong enough to go up a one plate per track slope.

I subbed for one reason, I love LEGO and I love Trains, do I need to say more?

Missed opportunity in the thumbnail. SB: Hold my gear

You got a new subscriber

The lack of being able to motorized was what was stopping me I have wanted a lego train for years

Hopefully the discontinuation of some of those PU components means lego will bring back a "Power Functions 2.0" system. We can only dream. Something to note also is that real trains do *not* work by pulling all their mass at once- they have couplings which allow each consecutive car to be pulled away in sequence so that the train can build up momentum before the last car even moves an inch. It would probably have benefitted lego to design some custom couplings to allow for this function.

OK SINCE YOU ASKED SO NICELY I SUBED

Yes, all you need is the battery block, that weird one with 2 outlets, two powered train axels, 8 wheels (4 for each of the axels, and 4 beams (2 for one axel to hold the wheel to the axel)

lego needs to hire this guy

Fun thing with the trains... it's not really about power, but getting that power to work. Depending on how many drive wheels contact the rails and how much weight is pressing down on them, compared to the force reuired to pull the train, the wheels will slip and turn freely. Since the drive wheel size was directly connected to top speeds with steam locomotives, the cylinders created slightly uneven torque depending on where in the stroke they were, a noticable lag in reaction of the engine to throttle commands AND a purely mechanical throttle had limited fine adjustment capabilities, it was pretty difficult to ride the razor edge of enough torque to pull the train and too much torque to not slip. Add rigid axles and lack of individual electronic monitoring of each wheel, and the steamers had their work cut out for them. Old 12V Lego trains often included large, 3tall 2x6 or 2x8 bricks with heavy metal weights inside, to include in the engines. It increased the train weight, but in the good way: more pressing down on the drive wheels. So maybe just try and increase the weight of the engine, by stuffing some fishing weights or so over the wheels? I'd assume LEGO would hook some meters up to the motors and analyze the power consumption and strain. they likely have limits they don't want to exceed, so as not to wear out the motor too quickly. I kinda feel like having a proportionally increased 8W emerald knight as engine would have done wonders for this train set. But there is always the issue of LEGO curves just being too darn narrow for any sanely proportioned train :/