Dark days for the yellow gang. Still, classic smileys and mustaches!

Wait... this pre-dated 6600-2 by three full years? They looked like they were from the same wave. I guess the minifigs are the telltale difference.

Nevertheless, this would've looked fun to me as a kid. Obviously they're way too small in scale now, comparable to the late 80s Town vehicles.

Ah, Town Junior.

I want to give them credit for the tran-yellow pieces, as well as all the printed pieces ... but I just can't.

@LegoSonicBoy said:
"Wait... this pre-dated 6600-2 by three full years? They looked like they were from the same wave. I guess the minifigs are the telltale difference.

Nevertheless, this would've looked fun to me as a kid. Obviously they're way too small in scale now, comparable to the late 80s Town vehicles."

This set wasn't part of a wave per se, but three other Town Junior sets released later seem to match it: 6439-1, 6447-1, and part of 6329-1. As with most of the original Town Junior sets, the minifigures matched their non-juniorized predecessors.

The construction sets received a makeover in 2000 (the final year of Town Junior), swapping the blue uniforms for orange and ditching the red-and-white-striped yellow 1x4 bricks; this wave consisted of 6600-2, 6474-1, and 6470-1 plus minifig pack 3351-1.

@phi13 said:
"This set wasn't part of a wave per se, but three other Town Junior sets released later seem to match it: 6439-1, 6447-1, and part of 6329-1. As with most of the original Town Junior sets, the minifigures matched their non-juniorized predecessors.

The construction sets received a makeover in 2000 (the final year of Town Junior), swapping the blue uniforms for orange and ditching the red-and-white-striped yellow 1x4 bricks; this wave consisted of 6600-2, 6474-1, and 6470-1 plus minifig pack 3351-1."
Interesting! I do remember 6329-1 from my 1998 catalog. What I do own is the road sign pack 6427-1, which appears to be right between those, having been released in 1999.

The 2000 wave is one of my white whales, particularly the aforementioned 6600-2. Also, Town Jr./City Center was known in Eurasia as just City, so that's the "City" theme I'm most fond of, oddly enough.

Imagine the designers of the late 90's being told the parameters for these sets:
"You have to build a Construction set, it has to be entertaining, but due to costs, you cannot have any 1x1 bricks with studs for headlights, you will have no grill part either, and no break lights, everything for the chassis will be one solid part: GO, be creative with the set!
Heck, even the picture designer was apparently giving up (or drinking on the job) considering one head was turned even though the lip of his helmet was looking straight.. Apparently the LEGO figure was not the only thing that was likely 'lit' during their job.

The one good thing you can take away from these sets: Printed parts.

This set has three instruction "booklets". One for each vehicle.

Epic.

Thank god these sets came out during my dark age. Very low parts variation for usable value.

I know Town Jr. always elicits (largely deserved) hate, but I still have fond memories of it... and it gave us LEGO Creator, one of the first sandbox building video games I ever played!

It also gave us, as has been mentioned here, 6600-2 - a fantastic set, and one of the few landmark (pun not specifically intended) attempts at a LEGO bridge!

@Brickchap said:
"I wish Lego would bring back a construction theme for city (and I mean an actual construction theme not demolition or mining although both of those are very good). Its strange they havent done construction since 2008 since kids love construction stuff and it works well with Lego to 'build' things.

Maybe a new theme would need to have a construction helicopter building a lighthouse otherwise it doesnt run... "

Yes! Absolutely! We finally need a good construction line, the last good one was over a decade ago! I remember, when everyone was drooling over the XXL Mobile Crane from 2005 or the huge building crane from 2006. The wave definitely sold well, because the stores were resupplied with some of it's sets as far in as 2008.
The wave following it was solid, but not as good as the one that came before. The sets after that were just poor in comparison.
The thing with construction is, for the biggest play value, you have to make the sets pretty big, because you'd want to be able to make actual Lego buildings with it. The problem is, that Lego right now tends to put way more details in some places, than actually necessary, making the price for large sets rise extremely fast. That's why instead of an adequate price of 70$-100$, we would only get one for 150$ and I would consider that price point to be quite restrictive.

I can't believe the last construction wave was 2008, that's insane. In my head, that's still a city staple alongside police and fire, but apparently not. I suppose we still get individual sets, which helps prop up that illusion, even if there's not been the full price range that denotes a proper subtheme.

Oh yeah, this set. Obviously you don't want to put it anywhere prominent, but as crowd filler for a building site dio, this would be alright. 3 vehicles, 3 workers, just distribute them so there's always a more impressive vehicle nearby to draw eyevalls away from these rudimentary things.

Ugh, I call this set the first disappointment. LEGO really made me start to consider doing other things at this point in their history.

@madforLEGO said:
"considering one head was turned even though the lip of his helmet was looking straight..."
To be fair, this was the late-90s, when wearing a hat sideways like that was considered the height of being cool. I figured they were just trying to appeal to kids of that generation by making their minifigures join in that trend xD

-
I recognise these guys mostly from the comics in Lego Adventures magazine, again; replace the digger guy's head with one of the typical sunglasses heads, and the three of them frequently showed up in the Lego City comics.

I'm suddenly noticing that the middle vehicle looks strangely similar to the recycle truck set I had as a kid, 6564. As in, replace the back storage area with those big 2x4 window frame kinda pieces, colour it blue, and you've basically got that other set. I... guess that, more than anything, is driving home to me just how simplistic these models were :o

Also, was it just me, or did anyone else find that eventually these rubber tyres got kinda sticky and not very pleasant? Not for years and years, granted; but I noticed it a while ago when I was taking several sets from this ear apart to sell, that these small tyres were no longer very pleasant to the touch. Don't think it happened with any other Lego tyres; so I'm wondering if that was just me, or if it was common with those specific pieces.

I just looked over this entry on Friday. I remember buying it for my collection thinking that I wished it was less bulky and it was a disappointing reflection of the sets I had for a construction crew 12 years before.

@PjtorXmos said:
" @Brickchap said:
"I wish Lego would bring back a construction theme for city (and I mean an actual construction theme not demolition or mining although both of those are very good). Its strange they havent done construction since 2008 since kids love construction stuff and it works well with Lego to 'build' things.

Maybe a new theme would need to have a construction helicopter building a lighthouse otherwise it doesnt run... "

Yes! Absolutely! We finally need a good construction line, the last good one was over a decade ago! I remember, when everyone was drooling over the XXL Mobile Crane from 2005 or the huge building crane from 2006. The wave definitely sold well, because the stores were resupplied with some of it's sets as far in as 2008.
The wave following it was solid, but not as good as the one that came before. The sets after that were just poor in comparison.
The thing with construction is, for the biggest play value, you have to make the sets pretty big, because you'd want to be able to make actual Lego buildings with it. The problem is, that Lego right now tends to put way more details in some places, than actually necessary, making the price for large sets rise extremely fast. That's why instead of an adequate price of 70$-100$, we would only get one for 150$ and I would consider that price point to be quite restrictive. "

Technically the last one was 2015 with the demolition line. While it was demolition, they had a bulldozer and the site with had a bunch of construction vehicles. Not counting the miner theme, 5 years is amazing to not have a construction theme of some sorts (considering LEGO itself is a construction toy). Get on it LEGO, next year split it between Construction and Farm.

Quite possibly the most disappointing Lego set I ever received as a gift. Very little parts value other than the printed barricade bricks. The Lego equivalent of another network picking up your favorite TV series, then destroying it with awkward plot twists and a revised cast. 1997 definitely marked the start of the dark ages of Lego.

@Brickchap said:
"I wish Lego would bring back a construction theme for city (and I mean an actual construction theme not demolition or mining although both of those are very good). Its strange they havent done construction since 2008 since kids love construction stuff and it works well with Lego to 'build' things.

Maybe a new theme would need to have a construction helicopter building a lighthouse otherwise it doesnt run... "

I would buy updated versions of 7630 and 7631 in a heartbeat!

@Balthazar_Brannigan said:
"I know Town Jr. always elicits (largely deserved) hate, but I still have fond memories of it... and it gave us LEGO Creator, one of the first sandbox building video games I ever played!

It also gave us, as has been mentioned here, 6600-2 - a fantastic set, and one of the few landmark (pun not specifically intended) attempts at a LEGO bridge!"

Ah, yes. The front-end loader in this set is featured prominently on the cover art for Lego Creator.

@madforLEGO said:
" @PjtorXmos said:
" @Brickchap said:
"I wish Lego would bring back a construction theme for city (and I mean an actual construction theme not demolition or mining although both of those are very good). Its strange they havent done construction since 2008 since kids love construction stuff and it works well with Lego to 'build' things.

Maybe a new theme would need to have a construction helicopter building a lighthouse otherwise it doesnt run... "

Yes! Absolutely! We finally need a good construction line, the last good one was over a decade ago! I remember, when everyone was drooling over the XXL Mobile Crane from 2005 or the huge building crane from 2006. The wave definitely sold well, because the stores were resupplied with some of it's sets as far in as 2008.
The wave following it was solid, but not as good as the one that came before. The sets after that were just poor in comparison.
The thing with construction is, for the biggest play value, you have to make the sets pretty big, because you'd want to be able to make actual Lego buildings with it. The problem is, that Lego right now tends to put way more details in some places, than actually necessary, making the price for large sets rise extremely fast. That's why instead of an adequate price of 70$-100$, we would only get one for 150$ and I would consider that price point to be quite restrictive. "

Technically the last one was 2015 with the demolition line. While it was demolition, they had a bulldozer and the site with had a bunch of construction vehicles. Not counting the miner theme, 5 years is amazing to not have a construction theme of some sorts (considering LEGO itself is a construction toy). Get on it LEGO, next year split it between Construction and Farm."

Since City is somewhat cyclical, I wouldn't be surprised to see construction in 2021.