LEGO Ideas 21344 The Orient Express Train review

One of the most iconic trains of all time pulls into the LEGO Ideas station in 21344 The Orient Express Train, but can the finished model justify the sweeping changes made to Thomas Lajon’s original design?

You’d be hard-pressed to find a LEGO Ideas set in the past couple of years that’s made it to shelves without at least a handful of changes by the Billund design team along the way. And that’s usually for the best: fan designers typically aren’t cognisant of the restrictions official sets face, and finetuning their submissions to make them ready for mass production (and mass assembly) generally has positive results.

Occasionally, though, the LEGO Ideas team decides to completely overhaul a successfully-crowdsourced submission, and in doing so delivers a model that has effectively only used the concept of the original project as a starting point for its own design. The line between pitch and product becomes blurred, to the point that the fan designer might as well have just written their idea on a blank piece of paper.

You could say as much is true for 21344 The Orient Express Train at first glance, given the resemblance between submission and set is that they’re basically both trains. The final product has completely overhauled the scale, colour scheme and design of French filmmaker Thomas Lajon’s vision – with his blessing, according to the design team – and initial reaction to the reveal has been understandably mixed from the community.

With the loco, dining car and sleeping car all in hand, the question now is: are those changes justified? Is 21344 The Orient Express Train a worthy tribute to luxury 20th-century travel? Or have we gone beyond the end of the line for what the community can – and should – accept from a theme based first and foremost on ideas from fans?

--- LEGO Ideas 21344 The Orient Express Train set details ---

Theme: LEGO Ideas Set name: 21344 The Orient Express Train Release date: December 1, 2023

Price: £259.99 / $259.99 / €254.99 Pieces: 2,540 Minifigures: 8

LEGO: Order now

--- Where to buy LEGO Ideas 21344 The Orient Express Train ---

LEGO Ideas 21344 The Orient Express Train departs from Billund and arrives at LEGO.com and in LEGO Stores on December 1, 2023. It’s likely to remain a timed exclusive for at least three months before popping up at one or more third-party retailers.

--- LEGO Ideas 21344 The Orient Express Train build ---

The crux of that existential question up top is rooted in the truth (or not) of a simple proposition: that the LEGO Group knows its audience better than we know ourselves. LEGO Ideas Design Manager Jordan Scott has already acknowledged that the company is still learning and responding to feedback, and that the changes made to 21344 The Orient Express Train are effectively a direct consequence of the reception to 2022’s LEGO Harry Potter 76405 Hogwarts Express Collectors’ Edition.

That set cannot fit on regular LEGO rails, and comes in at a wallet-busting £429.99 / $499.99 / €499.99. Thomas Lajon’s original Orient Express pitched another larger-than-life locomotive with a single carriage, displayed on purpose-built track, emulating the approach of its Wizarding World predecessor. Instead of releasing a very similar vehicle with fresh colours, the LEGO Group has instead shunted towards a train that’s still bigger than usual – coming in at eight studs wide – but is fully compatible with standard LEGO railways (if not easily motorised right out of the box).

Scaling back Thomas’s ambition has allowed 21344 The Orient Express Train to diverge from the Hogwarts Express in the addition of a second carriage, and so the final package presented here is one that’s sufficiently different from last year’s bold red locomotive. For the LEGO Group, that’s reason enough to justify selling both (and the bean counters probably hope it’s enough for you to justify buying both, too). But was it the right decision? That basically depends on what you want from your LEGO trains, and that’s the real truth at the heart of this entire dilemma: the LEGO Group was never going to please everyone.

For every LEGO fan grumbling about the Hogwarts Express’s size, there was another content to grab it and add it to their Wizarding World collection. Note: not their train collection. While you’ll find plenty of Facebook groups and fan communities devoted to LEGO locomotive layouts, these trainspotters are still a relative niche in the grand scheme of things, and the growing number of adult fans looking for sets to pop on their shelves are likely less interested in making a new train run on tracks.

But those loco lovers are still out there, so while the LEGO Group wasn’t going to satisfy everyone, it’s done its best to please as many people as possible by meeting them all somewhere in the middle. 21344 The Orient Express Train does fit on standard LEGO tracks, and maybe you can motorise it if you have the knowhow. That’s where the compromises to appeal to the diehards stop, but they represent the most significant changes to the original design (beyond the colour scheme, which we’ll come to).

It means that within those limitations – and just making sure this behemoth could turn corners took months of mechanical testing – the designers were free to lean into aesthetics for 21344 The Orient Express Train. The results are sublime. Thomas originally conceived a dark green, gold and white colour scheme for his locomotive and carriage, which the LEGO Group (partly at the behest of the Orient Express company itself) has swapped out for dark blue, gold and light grey.

It's hard to quibble there, because dark blue and dark green are both very attractive hues, and the particular balance of colour here is pretty much perfect. The 4x3 windows recoloured in dark gold sit in beautiful contrast to the dark blue panelling, achieved through the use of a new bracket element that keeps the walls of the carriages flush to a single stud. The gold striping around the engine does recall the Hogwarts Express (curiously enough), and is thankfully printed, while the light grey – which at one point during the design process was white – offers a pair of reasonably muted roofs.

Plenty of thought has gone into the look of 21344 The Orient Express Train, and that attention to detail doesn’t let up inside each of its two cars. They both boast fully-fleshed out interiors that improve upon Thomas’s rows of seats, building into a dining car – complete with a well-stocked bar and ornate decorative mirror – and a sleeping car with two different suites. The most luxurious of these squeezes in a double bed, desk, sofa and en-suite bathroom, while the smaller of the two incorporates bunk beds, a table and a bathroom cabinet.

Squeezing in is really the right way to put it, because the sleeping car’s interior in particular feels woefully undersized for minifigures. The double bed is especially egregious in that regard, veering closer to microscale than minifigure scale, but it’s forgivable – there’s really not a lot of room to work with here, and cramming in as much as possible makes for a more varied build.

In fact, these interiors constitute the most enjoyable elements of the first two-thirds of 21344 The Orient Express Train, which otherwise consists of putting together two very similar carriages. Such is the pitfall of extending any train beyond a single car, but the LEGO Group has at least embraced the prospect in 2023 between this set and LEGO Harry Potter’s 76423 Hogwarts Express & Hogsmeade Station.

You won’t mind the repetition much anyway, because the cars are genuinely fun to assemble. (Just make sure to do so in a well-lit area to distinguish all those black, dark blue and brown elements in the instructions.) Basic brick-stacking is combined with clever parts usage and smart building techniques to great effect. Nothing here is going to blow you away necessarily, but it’s the smaller touches within the grander set that impress: building up either end of the cars with studs pointing in all directions, or the brackets you’ll add early on and make use of much later on. That kind of foresight makes for fun pay-offs at regular intervals.

The build flows from back to front, starting with the carriages (once the relatively flimsy base is finished), and finishing with the tender and engine. It’s tricky to single out any particular build that’s better than the rest: they each bring something to the table, and the locomotive and tender each have their own ‘aha!’ moments that compensate for the absence of interiors to build.

All that said, it’s still hard to look past the reduced size of the locomotive. This is where the biggest critics of the changes to the original project have gathered, decrying the LEGO Group’s Type 230 Ten Wheel engine as a cruel replacement for the mighty Pacific train Thomas originally envisaged. We can’t really disagree.

If anything, it looks closer to the style and shape of the Hogwarts Express, again drawing a curious line between the two sets that the LEGO Group has tried so hard to separate. It’s not a bad effort by any means; it looks and builds fine, and it’s fairly consistent with the design language of the carriages. It’s also worth noting that the Orient Express was pulled by different locos as it passed through borders, so the really iconic part of this train was always the carriages anyway. But the engine could definitely have benefited from a little more love from the budget, which (spoiler alert) feels a bit stingy already.

It shouldn’t be enough to put anyone off 21344 The Orient Express Train completely, though, because this is still – aesthetically speaking – possibly the most beautiful train the LEGO Group has ever released. (The age of 10194 Emerald Night had to end sometime.) And it’s through that lens that we can best judge the changes the LEGO Group, in tandem with the real Orient Express, has made to Thomas’s submission. Are they justified? Is this really what we want?

Well, speaking for this reviewer alone… yes. Speaking for an entire community is impossible, but 21344 The Orient Express Train was never going to deliver for that entire community anyway. We might not have Thomas’s original vision, but we do have an exquisite LEGO train, maybe the best ever, so it’s difficult to complain about what else might have been.

--- LEGO Ideas 21344 The Orient Express Train characters ---

You’ll find no Hercule Poirot, Edward Ratchett or Princess Dragomiroff here, but you will find loose stand-ins. 21344 The Orient Express Train isn’t hooked to Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express or any of its many adaptations, and so the LEGO Group has instead included an eclectic collection of archetypes traditionally associated with this form of luxury travel.

A railway worker, waiter, porter and conductor are joined by four of the most interesting generic minifigures to arrive in a LEGO set this year. The Duchess and older gentleman feel prototypical of the Orient Express’s passengers, each built with genuinely useful and fun parts, while Pippin Reed’s redux will be music to the ears of Adventurers fans (and completes the trio of redesigned main characters from the ‘90s theme).

It’s the minifigure representation of fan designer Thomas Lajon who impresses most, though, from his dual-moulded legs and brown flat cap to the ingeniously-designed film camera he’s carrying around. Gone is the moulded minifigure accessory of the early ‘00s, replaced by eight pieces of sheer movie magic. Plus, that ‘stache is verging on Poirot-esque…

--- LEGO Ideas 21344 The Orient Express Train price ---

If you can cope with the smaller locomotive and just want a beautiful LEGO train built and designed for adults, 21344 The Orient Express Train should surely be shooting to the top of your wish list right now. There’s just one minor sticking point: the price.

There are a surprising number of LEGO sets available for £259.99 / $299.99 / €299.99 (or thereabouts), and by and large they all offer better value than 21344 The Orient Express Train. That’s not only from a price-per-piece perspective, but also from the intangible, indefinable feeling of value you’re left with when all’s said and done. 21335 Motorised Lighthouse (for its power functions), 76391 Hogwarts Icons Collectors’ Edition (for its varied build and massive bird) and even 10326 Natural History Museum, launching at the same time as the Orient Express, offer more bang for your buck.

But if you’ve already got all those, or really, really love trains… this is still not bad value. Its price-per-piece ratio belies a surprising amount of plastic in the box, for one. And it’s still a cheaper way to ride the rails than 76405 Hogwarts Express Collectors’ Edition…

--- LEGO Ideas 21344 The Orient Express Train pictures ---

--- LEGO Ideas 21344 The Orient Express Train pros and cons ---

There’s one outstanding issue left to address with 21344 The Orient Express Train, and it’s this: what were people actually voting for in Thomas Lajon’s original project? Did 10,000 LEGO fans specifically want to build the Orient Express? Or did at least some chunk of that number just want a complex, detailed LEGO train for adults?

It’s impossible to say definitively, although a quick glance at the comments on the original Ideas submission suggests a pretty significant number of fans did indeed want the LEGO Group to revise the scale of Thomas’s design to make it compatible with LEGO rails. That’s exactly what has happened here, and while the change in style and model of the locomotive may be grating, it shouldn’t be enough to put you off picking up 21344 The Orient Express Train.

Measuring a full 116cm long and with possibly the best LEGO carriages ever committed to ABS, this is still a train worth buying a ticket for. All aboard from December 1…

This set was provided for review by the LEGO Group.

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--- Alternatives to LEGO Ideas 21344 The Orient Express Train ---

If you’re not bothered about adding your LEGO trains to a wider setup and just want something beefy for display, a solid alternative to 21344 The Orient Express Train is last year’s 76405 Hogwarts Express Collectors’ Edition. It’s even bigger (and pricier) than this one, and includes a huge slab of Platform 9 ¾ to boot.

But if you’re looking for a LEGO train that can not only run on regular tracks, but can also be motorised, your only hope at the moment is looking to more modern locomotives. 60337 Express Passenger Train isn’t a bad shout, but may leave you yearning for the grand old days of steam. At least it’s a good deal cheaper than 21344 The Orient Express Train…

--- LEGO Ideas 21344 The Orient Express Train FAQs ---