Oh my, my mum is a big Harry Potter fan and she really wanted me to get some of these sets in 2010-11. However, I shows very little interest in the source material until 2012 when I read the books for the first time. So I never got any of these, despite changing my mind.

I think this was one of her most wanted. I can see why.

Wow, I feel old...

So with some quick searching, it appears that huwbot is off the pace compared to last year when it comes to picking sets in their first year of eligibility. In 2019 we got 30 RSOTD's from the year 2009 or 8.22 Percent. So far this year we've had 19 RSOTDS from 2020 or 5.59 percent of the 340 Randoms sets we've had this year so barring a massive influx of 2010 sets in the coming weeks 2020 isn't beating 2019. However, today's random set puts 2020 past 2018 (The first year of RSOTD) which had 18 sets from 2008 or 5.25 percent of the 343 RSOTD that year. What year will beat 2019? Who knows.

That car has a face!

There's, umm, black parts in it... And no white or neon green. The yellow striping and red kinda give off an original Blacktron vibe...

It's weird how this seemed like such a huge improvement over the earlier versions...and then you look at it now and wonder why they give it steam drivers earlier. And the car needs proper fenders.

@BrickRandom:
Even switching them to 3L bars would have been an improvement.

@StarNinja said:
"So with some quick searching, it appears that huwbot is off the pace compared to last year when it comes to picking sets in their first year of eligibility. In 2019 we got 30 RSOTD's from the year 2009 or 8.22 Percent. So far this year we've had 19 RSOTDS from 2020 or 5.59 percent of the 340 Randoms sets we've had this year so barring a massive influx of 2010 sets in the coming weeks 2020 isn't beating 2019. However, today's random set puts 2020 past 2018 (The first year of RSOTD) which had 18 sets from 2008 or 5.25 percent of the 343 RSOTD that year. What year will beat 2019? Who knows.
"

I sense 2022 with Friends, knowing Huwbot, since he prefers Clikits for some reason in the early days, and that's is a mainly girls' theme.

I remember getting this set and Hagrid's Hut for Diwali in 2010 and being over the moon! These Harry Potter sets are what really sparked my LEGO obsession and this was one of my favorites. I loved the flying car and carried it around everywhere, but sadly I lost it sometime when I was living in India. Lots of good memories with this set, though :)

This was my first new LEGO purchase. Hard to believe that was 10 years ago. Wow.

Ford Anglia: excellent . Churchward Castle- class loco: awful.

On the other hand, If I'd have got it at the time I'd have a spare carriage base, and two bogies and I could have done something with that superstructure and the current "Hogwarts Express" chassis... Let's have a look on ebay.

(Dear Friends from Abroad- Please don't get your U.K. cultural references from "the Crown" and "Harry Potter"; The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Other Little Bits Here and There isn't all about castles, boarding schools and steam engines, honest. It just thinks it is. )

When this came out, I thought the Luna figure looked excellent. It still doesn't look bad, but the newer CMF one kicks butt.

Keep wondering why a superhero fig from DC or Marvel seems to have found their way to a Harry Potter set, before realising it’s just Luna with her Spectre-Specs looking like a domino mask...

This is the last version of the Hogwarts train which uses the octagon boiler. Interesting evolution from the larger 45 degree slope 4x6 roof pieces in 4758 (and earlier) to the newer smaller slope pieces made it a more detailed and interesting build for the carriages. As this version uses the usual train wagon plate to build the steam train onto it is longer and more realistic than the latest version 75955, which just needed to be another 4 studs longer. However, as all one plate, you are unable to use the larger steam wheels as in 75955 making it look a bit odd.

Oh, I have this one! It's a pretty significant one for me; for the longest time, I had no interest in Harry Potter at all... our teacher read us Philosopher's Stone in class in year 3, and I couldn't stand it! When Order of the Phoenix was released three years later, I was almost the ONLY person in my class who didn't pull out a copy of it every reading period xD

But then, after I started at uni... an online friend made mention of the Starkid "A Very Potter Musical", which she was referencing in a creative project at the time, and I guess my curiosity got the best of me. Starting with the musicals on YouTube, I slowly worked my way up to the movies (I found the box-set of the first seven going REALLY cheap at the time of DHpt2's release), the Lego video games, and then the books themselves. A very backwards order, for sure... but by the time I finished that, I was completely hooked.

(Though Philosopher's Stone still remains my least favourite of the stories, even now!)

Anyway, it was late 2011 by the time I finished making my way through the books; I'd been poking around the Brickset pages for the Lego theme ever since I'd started growing the interest, and decided to ask for one of them for Christmas that year... the first time I'd asked for anything Lego for a few years by that point, since I was still mostly in the middle of my 'dark age' at the time.

Picked this one for a couple of key reasons: first being that Ginny was becoming my favourite character so, even though I'd got her 2002 minifigure from eBay earlier in the year, her updated version was of particular interest to me (and getting Luna was a very nice bonus, too!); and second being that I realised I'd never had a Lego train... and for someone who had loved steam engines as a little kid, that seemed a bizarre discrepancy to me. It was kind of satisfying, then, to get to build my first-ever Lego train - and one that tied in with my current interests at the time, no less!

I go back and forth on whether the newest version looks better than this one... since this version remained more-or-less unchanged since the 2001 set, it's unsurprising that the design is showing its age... but on the other hand, there are still some parts of it I like better when compared to the recent updated model? In any case, though, it was a cool set, and I liked it a lot ^^

@StarNinja said:
"So with some quick searching, it appears that huwbot is off the pace compared to last year when it comes to picking sets in their first year of eligibility. In 2019 we got 30 RSOTD's from the year 2009 or 8.22 Percent. So far this year we've had 19 RSOTDS from 2020 or 5.59 percent of the 340 Randoms sets we've had this year so barring a massive influx of 2010 sets in the coming weeks 2020 isn't beating 2019. However, today's random set puts 2020 past 2018 (The first year of RSOTD) which had 18 sets from 2008 or 5.25 percent of the 343 RSOTD that year. What year will beat 2019? Who knows.
"

Um...huh?

One of the greatest depictions of the train the company put out. Love the Luna fig

@BionicleJedi:
I think I started with the movies, but was only watching them when I could catch them for free on broadcast or cable TV. Next was the LEGO games. I buy select sets here and there, but most of what I've bought has been for parts to build MOCs. To date, I think the four versions of the Knight Bus and one copy each of the HPACs are the only sets I've bought to just build. Of course, I bought 20 copies of the second minifig-scale Knight Bus (18 for parts) and ten extra copies of the first HPAC (all for parts), which more than offsets my real set purchases. Still haven't read any of the books.

My best friend is the biggest Potterhead I know, and he tells people to skip the fourth book and just watch the movie, because the Quidditch scene at the start just drags on forever. However, I know that the first six movies had to trim a _lot_ of stuff to keep the runtime manageable, so reading any of the books will give you a more complete view of the school year, and perhaps do a better job of explaining some of the more unusual details from the films.

Hi classic train windows, we miss you!