My dad had a ton of these old train sets, including this one! The green windows are everywhere and I mean EVERYWHERE

Passenger Coach to Passenger Wagon, is RSotD slowly building its own train?

When your wagon is turning passengers green make sure to keep the windows open.

Classic design, assume this was to extend 4534, so unsure why green and not blue?

From one train carriage to another. I like the look of this one too. The 'skylights' on the top make it look classy, as do the uniform windows.

@ambr said:
"Classic design, assume this was to extend 4534 , so unsure why green and not blue?"

I haven't checked, but as this is My Own Train I'm sure there were a matching locomorive, tender etc. all in green to go with this one.

@Wallace_Brick_Designs said:
"Bring back my own train!"

YES! It was bad timing before, with Lego not doing so hot in the early 2000's. Nowadays, I'm sure it would sell better - especially if actually marketed well!

@Binnekamp said:
"From one train carriage to another. I like the look of this one too. The 'skylights' on the top make it look classy, as do the uniform windows.

@ambr said:
"Classic design, assume this was to extend 4534 , so unsure why green and not blue?"

I haven't checked, but as this is My Own Train I'm sure there were a matching locomorive, tender etc. all in green to go with this one."

I also think it was because green was a relatively rare colour at that time, making the train a bit special. Sure, baseplates and 1piece trees were green, but normal green bricks were not so common until the late 90s. I remember my brother wanting this because it was green and a train.

@ambr said:
"Classic design, assume this was to extend 4534, so unsure why green and not blue?"

4534 came a year later, so perhaps the blue wagon was to be an ‘exclusive’.

A very nice coach! Would be so cool to see something like this with a new set with an older steam locomotive.

@Binnekamp said:
"From one train carriage to another. I like the look of this one too. The 'skylights' on the top make it look classy, as do the uniform windows.

@ambr said:
"Classic design, assume this was to extend 4534 , so unsure why green and not blue?"

I haven't checked, but as this is My Own Train I'm sure there were a matching locomorive, tender etc. all in green to go with this one."

Small engine, large engine, and tender sets all defaulted to blue. You could buy color packs to change the livery to green, black, dark-grey, or brown, but you had to buy the blue sets and swap the colors.

@PurpleDave said:
"Small engine, large engine, and tender sets all defaulted to blue. You could buy color packs to change the livery to green, black, dark-grey, or brown, but you had to buy the blue sets and swap the colors."

No, you could choose the colour right from the get-go.

The default engine and tender pieces were all black and grey.

The instructions were printed as if it was always blue, but you could buy green and grey and black straight from Lego. If you bought a heap of these trains when they were first available (which I did), you didn't wind up with a whole bunch of excess blue pieces.

@Zordboy said:
" @PurpleDave said:
"Small engine, large engine, and tender sets all defaulted to blue. You could buy color packs to change the livery to green, black, dark-grey, or brown, but you had to buy the blue sets and swap the colors."

No, you could choose the colour right from the get-go.

The default engine and tender pieces were all black and grey.

The instructions were printed as if it was always blue, but you could buy green and grey and black straight from Lego. If you bought a heap of these trains when they were first available (which I did), you didn't wind up with a whole bunch of excess blue pieces."

My fault for trusting the set photo, I guess. I am familiar with MOT to the extent that I know it’s possibly the only time Target sold train sets, and that I knew about the color packs. So if you bought 3470, 3471, or 3472, did they contain all the parts necessary to build those three models in _a_ color, or did you always have to tack on a livery pack to fill in the gaps? I guess it would make sense to do the instructions with the livery in a contrasting color so you knew that any use of X color meant you pulled parts out of the other bag, rather than having to figure out which uses of black and/or dark-grey meant the color depicted vs some color that’s not even in the set.

Oh, maybe 4534/4535 from the following year are what I’m thinking of. 4534 was sold at Target (as I recalled), but I don’t think the livery color packs were, so those sets probably had to include one set of livery bricks (in this case black) so you could build a complete train engine and tender. Target and TRU were both in the city where I lived at that time, but the nearest LEGO Store would likely have required an overnight trip, and LEGO.com was still primarily geared to snail mail or phone ordering, plus debit cards were fairly rare at the time (and I didn’t get a credit card for several more years), so the online store was more about window shopping as far as I was concerned.

@PurpleDave said:
"So if you bought 3470, 3471, or 3472, did they contain all the parts necessary to build those three models in _a_ color, or did you always have to tack on a livery pack to fill in the gaps?"

Well, not those three sets specifically because they're just bulk brick sets.

The livery/colour packs were important. You needed a livery pack to complete the engine.

The small tank engine/small tender engine pack was a bunch of black and dark grey bricks.

The large tank engine/large tender engine pack was another bunch of black and dark grey bricks.

The tender was a set by itself (but was included if you chose to build a tender engine).

And then there were the packs of coloured bricks to make the engine (and tender) whatever colour you wanted, be it blue, black, green, dark grey or brown.

None of these packs were enough to build a complete engine by itself. When you bought a, "large tender engine, blue", you'd be given the packs required to make that particular combination (eg, the large engine pack, the tender pack, and the blue pieces livery set).

It was rather clever on Lego's behalf, honestly. They could offer a wide range of custom trains, but only had to do a fifth of the work, production-wise.

Like I said upthread, it makes them easy to build years later (and a lot cheaper, since the MOT sets are so expensive on the second-hand market. The pieces to build them, OTOH, are inexpensive and mostly easy to find on Bricklink). The last couple of years, I've used other colours like yellow or red, and recent colours like dark red and dark blue.

But the instructions were always printed as if you were building a blue engine. Again, it was a cost-saving measure on Lego's behalf. Five separate trains, but they only had to print one set of instructions with each one.

@Zordboy said:
" @PurpleDave said:
"So if you bought 3470, 3471, or 3472, did they contain all the parts necessary to build those three models in _a_ color, or did you always have to tack on a livery pack to fill in the gaps?"

Well, not those three sets specifically because they're just bulk brick sets.

The livery/colour packs were important. You needed a livery pack to complete the engine.

The small tank engine/small tender engine pack was a bunch of black and dark grey bricks.

The large tank engine/large tender engine pack was another bunch of black and dark grey bricks.

The tender was a set by itself (but was included if you chose to build a tender engine).

And then there were the packs of coloured bricks to make the engine (and tender) whatever colour you wanted, be it blue, black, green, dark grey or brown.

None of these packs were enough to build a complete engine by itself. When you bought a, "large tender engine, blue", you'd be given the packs required to make that particular combination (eg, the large engine pack, the tender pack, and the blue pieces livery set).

It was rather clever on Lego's behalf, honestly. They could offer a wide range of custom trains, but only had to do a fifth of the work, production-wise.

Like I said upthread, it makes them easy to build years later (and a lot cheaper, since the MOT sets are so expensive on the second-hand market. The pieces to build them, OTOH, are inexpensive and mostly easy to find on Bricklink). The last couple of years, I've used other colours like yellow or red, and recent colours like dark red and dark blue.

But the instructions were always printed as if you were building a blue engine. Again, it was a cost-saving measure on Lego's behalf. Five separate trains, but they only had to print one set of instructions with each one."

But the full train sets from Target and TRU must have built everything shown in the box art, because people were going to just walk up and grab one box to take up to the register. You can’t have them scorching the ears off some poor customer service rep because they didn’t realize you also needed a livery pack that happens to be sold out by the time little Johnny opens his Christmas present.

Anyways, it worked because they offered multiple model packs and multiple livery packs. If you make one model pack and five livery packs, you only get five builds for six sets. But this would apparently get you 20 models with just eight sets, based on what you’ve said.

@PurpleDave said: "But the full train sets from Target and TRU must have built everything shown in the box art, because people were going to just walk up and grab one box to take up to the register."

Well yeah, because I don't think the individual smaller packs were sold separately.

You ordered a large blue tender engine, and Lego sends you a box with the three packs (required to make that particular combination) inside.

They were never available in department stores in Australia, we could only get them via Lego's website. I got my first credit card purely to be able to buy the re-released Metroliner, but by the time my parents let me have one, Lego had stopped selling the Metroliner, but I was able to buy a few of these MOT sets instead.

And muddying the issue further is that, seeing they had a good thing, Lego released a few different bigger sets (the ones you linked to upthread), that AFAIK, were available in toy shops. Most of those sets just had the large black tender engine and a carriage or two.

I don't recall being able to buy the livery packs separately, but I know there's a few of them still available for sale on Bricklink, so either you could, or people just parted out the boxes twenty years ago, selling the packs separately. That part I'm not sure about, but I don't think you could.

You *could* mix and match if you bought enough different sets, but IIRC, that wasn't something you could do. Lego only offered the templates from its site, and it was up to the buyer to purchase a small grey tank engine or a large black tender engine or whatever.

I'll add my two cents on this. Based on my notes and recollection, Lego sold these as one of four different basic kits that could be customized with color of your choosing. If I recall correctly, all the parts were then packed into a flip top My Own Train box. Color packs could also be purchased separately. I assume the tender could be purchased on its own without one of the engines, but I don't know for sure. If so, I don't have the different kit details for that.

Large Engine (3741) and your choice of color. With Blue (3743) was KT103, Green (3744) was KT104, Black (3545) was KT105, Brown (3746) was KT106 & Grey (3747) was KT107.

Large Engine (3741) with Tender (3742) and your choice of color. With Blue (3743) was KT203, Green (3744) was KT204, Black (3545) was KT205, Brown (3746) was KT206 & Grey (3747) was KT207.

Small Engine (3741) and your choice of color. With Blue (3743) was KT303, Green (3744) was KT304, Black (3545) was KT305, Brown (3746) was KT306 & Grey (3747) was KT307.

Small Engine (3740) with Tender (3742) and your choice of color. With Blue (3743) was KT403, Green (3744) was KT404, Black (3545) was KT405, Brown (3746) was KT406 & Grey (3747) was KT407.

@merf71 said:
"I'll add my two cents on this. Based on my notes and recollection, Lego sold these as one of four different basic kits that could be customized with color of your choosing. If I recall correctly, all the parts were then packed into a flip top My Own Train box. Color packs could also be purchased separately. I assume the tender could be purchased on its own without one of the engines, but I don't know for sure. If so, I don't have the different kit details for that.

Large Engine (3741) and your choice of color. With Blue (3743) was KT103, Green (3744) was KT104, Black (3545) was KT105, Brown (3746) was KT106 & Grey (3747) was KT107.

Large Engine (3741) with Tender (3742) and your choice of color. With Blue (3743) was KT203, Green (3744) was KT204, Black (3545) was KT205, Brown (3746) was KT206 & Grey (3747) was KT207.

Small Engine (3741) and your choice of color. With Blue (3743) was KT303, Green (3744) was KT304, Black (3545) was KT305, Brown (3746) was KT306 & Grey (3747) was KT307.

Small Engine (3740) with Tender (3742) and your choice of color. With Blue (3743) was KT403, Green (3744) was KT404, Black (3545) was KT405, Brown (3746) was KT406 & Grey (3747) was KT407."

You are the most correct in the comments but you don't need notes for this information. Just go to BL and look up train sets and go to page six. All of this info is available there. I'd add you could also order the 9V train motor for the engines and it would come in the box also. Red train engines were never available from Lego so I built my own. Train set 4534 was only available with a blue coach so many of them were parted out and sold on Ebay to extend the train in all blue. Train set 4535 was only available in the configuration on the box. They were also parted out on Ebay quite frequently. I have many spares of each.

I got 2 of these as a kid (still have it now) alonside the the old green engine and tender. Was a fun comparison to the highspeed passenger train and the cargo train for World City.

@oldtodd33 said:
"You are the most correct in the comments but you don't need notes for this information. Just go to BL and look up train sets and go to page six. All of this info is available there."

You are correct. That said, I'll never stop keeping my own notes. I forget that BL sometimes has more details than this site. I thought the kit info had been lost to the ages. Obviously, I didn't check BL before posting, which is odd because much of the My Own Train stuff that I own was purchased there.

After revisiting MOT on BL, I found kit KTR04-1, of which I don't think I had previously been aware. I bought Lego Express (4534), specifically for the blue passenger car, and all the individual rolling stock sets as well as a few green passenger cars. Basically, enough to make full freight and passenger trains, but I don't remember KTR04-01. I feel like I would have bought that instead of the individual sets had I been aware of it.

But it was a long time ago. I had just emerged from my dark ages in 2005 and that's when I started purchasing the MOT sets, which had already been available for four years by that time. It's possible that Lego was no longer selling KTR04-1 by then.