Lego Creator Horizon Express 10233

Since I was a kid, I’ve always held a fascination and affinity for trains.  There are a few things I can think of that sparked this interest in me.  It would’ve come from my brother, who collected model trains, had a Top Trumps train set which we played a lot when we were little and who went on to make a career out of driving them.  It might’ve also been my mother who put me onto reading Agatha Christie books of which two classics, Murder on the Orient Express and The Mystery of the Blue Train, are both set on particularly exotic and interesting locomotives.  Or maybe it was something to do with my memory of traveling in Japan as a kid and having fond memories of riding on the famous bullet train Shinkansen.

Where am I going with this?  I just saw the latest Lego Creator set announced for 2013, titled the ‘Horizon Express’, which is modeled on the classic French TGV design and it instantly caught my eye.  I don’t think I’m going to actually buy this thing.  I have nowhere to fit it in my apartment.  But man alive, does it look awesome.  And since I stumbled onto a website and read about it, I’ve lost the next hour trawling Google and looking up trains, particularly the ones from that crusty old Top Trump range from when I was kid.

Now I feel like watching The Station Agent, which stars a pre-Game of Thrones Peter Dinklage as a reclusive dwarf in rural New Jersey who spends his time trainspotting.  It’s my favourite film of 2003.

It’s late on Sunday night and this is my train of thought.