BlueBrixx 100284 Locomotive Shed Review

I have to preface this by saying that I absolutely love BlueBrixx. They have designed so many cool sets for train-loving brick builders that I find myself scouring their website frequently to see what's coming next. They've done a fantastic job of delivering what Lego chooses not to -- locomotives, rolling stock, and accessory buildings -- at fairly reasonable prices. 

I am a huge fan of of Lego's 10027 Engine Shed, a legend among train fans. But anyone looking to purchase one probably knows by now it will set you back a fair amount of money. To add insult to injury, you really need two of them for it to look appropriate. 

Enter the BlueBrixx Locomotive Shed. This brick-and-mortar monster sits on more than 2 and a half baseplates and is comprised of approximately 5.3 billion pieces. You read that correctly. All of the walls are predominantly 1x2 bricks. The shingled roof on the side of the building is about 500 pieces alone. This created a rather detailed and quite fancy looking building that looks great nestled in your modular city, but really only if you have the perfect space for it. The part of the side makes it wider than a normal baseplate, and if you follow the instructions exactly, you'll find it needs to snap in perfectly to your tracks at one end, leaving you limited flexibility.

So what's not to love? It's big, it's detailed, and it will match your layout most likely, regardless of what era or locale you model to.

Unfortunately, there is some to not love. Mostly the roof. But let's start with the inside.

It's worth noting that I built this on fixed baseplates in my city, and shifted the building back 4 studs along the tracks. It didn't really change much of anything; you just have to add a few 1x1 plates at the back end of the building where the track would normally be poking through.

Look at all that detail! There's pallets and crates and some kind of lift thing and toolboxes -- it's great, really. The interior looks as good as I would have expected from a functioning engine shop. Below, you can get a grasp for the size. On the back track is the BlueBrixx BR 194 locomotive, one of my first BlueBrixx purchases that helped me fall in love with these folks. In front of that is my double-headed Lego Super Chief. The BR 194 fits in the building ahead of the dark green lift, and the Super Chief fits fully inside the building on the other track, which has no such obstructions.

With both sides connected, you can see the true size of this monster. If this isn't big enough for you, the two sides can be separated and a middle portion can be purchased and constructed separately to make this as wide as one would desire.

Quite simply -- the roof is a colossal turd. The pitched roof portions aren't too bad, but they are built as one continuous thing with not much holding it together. I would have happily paid a dollar more for some extra 2x4 plates to hold the panels of the roof to one another so that when the the entire contraption is placed on top of the building, it actually stays together. If you're only dealing with half a building, it's easy to fix by reaching under, but once both sides are on, it gets a pretty dicey. Things will fall off, I can assure you.

The portion on the side with the shingles is complete and total trash. If someone sneezes literally anywhere in your postal code, this whole part of the roof will likely fall off. All those 1x1 tiles to make up the shingles added an insane amount of weight that is dangerously balanced upon a single 1x2 clip at either end. Look at it the wrong way, and the clips will disengage from the roof and the whole thing just slides off. I assure you that you will not be able to just snap it back on. Not without breaking something off of the wall that the clips are attached to.

I would have loved to have included a picture in this post to show you just how much reinforcement the hinges require, however as of the time I'm writing this, the building had already been fully assembled, and I'm genuinely terrified to remove the roof again. That, and I've already exhausted my 4-letter word usage for the month.

I love these brick built doors a bunch. The use of green and tan on this buildings is truly fantastic! My only gripe with the doors is that they probably should have been one plate shorter. The bottom of the door drags along the top of the rail. I don't plan to make a habit out of opening and closing the doors, but it would have made for a nicer play experience. (On second thought, no one should touch this building ever once it's been built.)

I really want to love this locomotive shed, but in conclusion, I only like it. It's far too good looking to just toss my hands in the air and forget about it, but roof is a bear to deal with. Also, the whole front of the building is held to the each side with a single 1x2 slope piece, which probably accounts for the gap between the two halves of the building, a thing that I'm just now noticing while looking at the above picture. I'm not inclined to fix it though; it's just not worth the hassle of something falling off.