For - a supply of those rare train window parts.
Against - still a fairly ordinary locomotive.

Clearly outdated, but I do like the idea or a motorised Hogwarts Express. I’d love to see this concept remade in the next version!

Also, The Prisoner of Azkaban is my favourite film of the series (and second favourite book after the Goblet of Fire), so it looks good to me.

@Zordboy:
Eh, the same year this set came out, they released 4758-1, which is essentially the same train without the motor or tender, and a Hogsmeade station that made King's Cross station from 4708-1 look downright ritzy.

@HandPositions:
Me. If I need to have a spell effect attached to a wand on one of our club's displays, I use the 3L bar. I also prefer 3L for lightsaber blades. And the new wands may look better, but they're made of softer plastic and are basically damage-magnets.

So that's where all the random sand green roof slopes come from

It would be very interesting a new motorised version of the Express.

@Zordboy said:
"It was, essentially, the same train as released in the "Philosopher's Stone" line, but they added a tender (thank goodness) as well as a 9V motor."
It's also essentially the same train they would later release again in 2010, with only minor aesthetic updates to make it more studless; only that one had no motor but still a tender. It's wild to me how little the Lego design for the Hogwarts Express was changed over the space of almost ten years.

Personally, I think the 2010 version is still my favourite version of the same build... I may be biased, since it's the only one I have. But it also comes down to minifigure selection as much as anything else, since it had Ginny and Luna; the former of whom is my favourite character, and the latter was only available in the one set at the time. Also, I mean, the 2010 version does feel just a little more neat and polished, even if the build looks to be essentially the same otherwise.

@ALEGOMan:
This may be one of the most expensive to buy, but the _rarest_ HP sets would probably include stuff like the mini Knight Bus (I lucked out and was able to get a free copy at Motor City Comic-Con, as it was never actually sold in the US), or the Durmstrang Ship that comes with extra (exclusive) minifigs.

@BionicleJedi:
When the latest version came out, I looked back at all the previous releases...and was shocked at how terrible they looked in comparison. They all had tiny wheels on the engine, with a giant gap between the bogeys, where the Wizarding World version is the first to feature proper steam drivers. There's still a lot of room for improvement (not the least of which is being designed with eventual motorization in mind), but the current set looks like it was designed by an entirely different company.

You can tell that this set is clearly from Lego's Malaise Era (around '97 to the mid 2000s). But, how many instances of a train set come with a station building, even if this one is kind of primitive? The great Lego trains, like the Metroliner and Emerald Night, are just train sets that leave the surrounding structures up to you, or seemingly are set inside a volcano in the case of the former.

@BionicleJedi said:
"Personally, I think the 2010 version is still my favourite version of the same build... I may be biased, since it's the only one I have. But it also comes down to minifigure selection as much as anything else, since it had Ginny and Luna; the former of whom is my favourite character, and the latter was only available in the one set at the time. Also, I mean, the 2010 version does feel just a little more neat and polished, even if the build looks to be essentially the same otherwise."

I tend to agree. I bought the entire 2010 HP line (I started with the big castle, and just went crazy from there), and it is the nicest version of the train. I bought two of them to get a second carriage (and use the spare pieces to build another train), and made some minor adjustments to the engine, but ultimately, I liked that one a lot.

@CopperTablet:
That I (as a non-trainhead) can think of offhand? The first Hogwarts (King's Cross station), the non-motorized version of this train (this comes with Hogsmeade village, where the budget version came with a tiny platform to represent Hogsmeade station), the Wizarding World version of this train (a much fancier King's Cross station...that has no train tracks), the Disney Train, and the LEGOLAND train that was an Inside Tour and Fan Weekend exclusive. I know there are probably other really generic high-speed and cargo trains that probably came with something that qualifies as a train station, but I'd have to actually dig through images of every train set to say for sure.