Those green/grey baseplates were so short lived, especially the world city ones.

That said, I think the current City Road plates system makes some good customizable crossings, seaside docks, or 1+ lane roads.

I had 4532 : Manual Level Crossing to go with 4559 : Cargo Railway in the same year, green 2x16 plates made that station pretty special, color wise at least green was rare still.

There were tiles printed in multiple train theme sets over the years with 10:21 or reverse 12:01 you could use as clock for the train to arrive, there were timetables on stickers in station sets. (and also a flippable clock sticker in set 4532 with the same timers)

Same tile is also used in this set.

The only problem with this set is the height of the pedestrian bridge. Certain rolling stock do not have enough clearance but it can be worked around.

Looks more like World Rural with the City seen in the background and the train crossing in the forest. Even the road on either side looks like gravel with no painted lines.

Box art aside I can see this in an urban setting, especially that catwalk which speaks of a bygone era. Like this theme.

@Brickalili said:
"Woah hey woah, where’s the usual portal to hell? Where does this train line think it’s going, normal places? XD"

LOL! XD

I don't see no trains...

@DavidBrick said:
"WORLD CITY IS THE BEST!

I know there is hatred for it, but this is what a City / Town theme is all about. "

IMO:
2005-2009 CITY > WORLD CITY > CITY 2010-2013 > CITY 2014-2017 > CITY 2018-2021
I still buy MiSB old sets from City (I bought 7899 yesterday), and as for the new ones, I'm not interested at all. From newer sets I buy UCS, Speed Champions and Architecture, but for a long time I haven't felt the need to buy the City set that is currently on the market.

I agree with the previous commenters. I don't understand why LEGO doesn't do more (or some) train theme. It's a City crossover and very popular with so many builders/collectors.

@Rimefang said:
"Fantastic design for a Train theme set. Perfected by combining Train Station 7937 and Level Crossing 7936 both released in 2010, the best year for Lego Trains and City. "

Haha, I've still got those two combined in my own city. This world city set though... Good idea but pretty ropey execution. 2003 was not the best of times for Lego, it has to be said.

@Isabella_and_Lego_Liker said:
" @PDelahanty said:
"I hope we get new trains in 2022. Some train-related sets like this would also be great!"

Well, besides that Creator one...."

Which is part of some "tourism" series because that train is shown on the box of 40520 alongside the tuk tuk, and the New York postcard shows the 2021 yellow taxi.

I dont think it'll be simply the replacement for the retiring Crocodile train.

A bit overbuilt for a train crossing, isn't it? Looks more of an airport control tower.
Not to mention that crossing have been automated since the '80s, then the buildings housed emergency manual controls, but those have been removed as well, now the remaining ones are refuges for homeless people.

@ssgdave:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcqfa_uj2hA

@Brickchap:
It’s not “train haters”. It’s realists who are trying to dislodge the rose-colored welding goggles that are glued to some peoples’ faces. How many shows have you done this year? I’ve done eleven with my LUG (ten of those participating in a train layout), plus a couple more small displays on my own. I think my record year was 15 club shows, and lifetime I’m over 150. What I’ve noticed is that kids do love trains...when they also love heavy construction equipment and dinosaurs. That’s not a great age for LEGO Trains. Duplo trains, maybe, but they’re a bit young to be building the average train set, never mind making a full train layout. If they could manage $20 4+ trains, there’d probably be a whole lineup (not that adult hobbyists would be happy about it), but even push trains tend to start in the $50 range.

By the time kids hit the right age to really dive into a train theme, they’ve usually developed other interests, much of which is focused on licensed IP (and Ninjago). The Star Wars theme basically marked the death of Trains as a viable theme of its own.

Around ten years ago, we had a retiree join our LUG. He had the sort of interests that you’d appreciate, including models of real buildings, and lots of trains. Then in 2014, I built my Flash trail, which basically amounts to a suitcase packed with over 55’ of motion blur for the Flash. To him, it was just a red wall that tended to cover the layout, and seemed a waste of over 13,000pcs. Then he started paying attention to what the kids were saying, and he realized we could have multiple members show up with giant skyscrapers that each filled one vehicle, and I could walk in with a quart bag of minifigs and get more comments than the rest of them combined. Now he’s got a minifig-scale replica of the microscale Hogwarts Castle set, even though he wasn’t really impressed with the books.

Out of our 50+ membership, only around 10% are seriously interested in trains. Of those, most of the focus is on incredibly detailed steam engines that make the Crocodile look rather plain. As sets, they’d also be priced too high for even many adult hobbyists. And for adult hobbyists, stuff like the upcoming high-speed train aren’t very interesting. So even if there was a train theme, you’d still see disagreement over whether it should be bare-bones budget-friendly fare, or UCS-level detail (and price).

Got to an AFOL convention, and even there trains are a niche hobby. Many traditional Town/Train layouts just have whatever’s handy slapped on rails to add some movement to the layout. Most people, when they start to move beyond displaying a town layout consisting of stock sets, start with the buildings. Cars seem to follow next, if only because you need dozens of them, but only one or two trains. Trains were always a niche market. Most of the theme was only available through direct sales because they just didn’t have a wide enough customer base to justify stocking sets like this to every toy aisle. And that was when they were going up against other moderately successful in-house themes that also have a handful of would-be champions claiming they’d all sell like gangbusters if they brought those themes back.

One of the better of the last generation of the grade crossing sets, largely saved by the inclusion of the repair truck, IMO. Despite being the point of a Lego set, I despised the brick-built gates. While I generally don't like one-purpose bricks, I preferred the gates of 4539 (and a few of its predecessors) with the counterweights and how realistic they looked overall. Thanks to the brick selling sites, I nabbed a few of them and built my own modern North American crossing signals, complete with the two-sided wig-wag lights.

Even as a kid, I questioned the inclusion of the towers, which seemed to ironically grow more elaborate as time moved on; I'm assuming it was a parts count thing...other than train enthusiasts, who would buy just a roadplate and a few parts? I begged for a rail crossing set as a kid, but always got vetoed by my mom since "I didn't have any other rail sets" (but had a ton of city sets.

Great set, with two baseplates, and a strange cockpit piece on the roof for no reason! There was also a printed 3 x 4 slope with a 'Train Railyard Switching Print' part 3297pr0001 which is pretty rate as only appeared here and in Grand Central Station. Does anyone know can the truck travel along the rails by lowering the front and back small train wheels?

For all this sets "flaws", I still think/maintain: TLG is really doing nobody any favors by not making a small train sets/components once-in-awhile. I mean: track sets, yeah; but then it jumps to an almost 'all or nothing' situation with 'the rest' of trains; these reeeeeally big, and pricey that most get one (mine's 60052) maybe two, then...and again: no component sets...

I can see that there may not be enough demand for a new train every year.
TLG seems to think in yearly cycles. A new xxx / yyy / zzz every year.
What may work with trains is if they thought in 3-4 year cycles:
- 2022 a new train
- 2023 supporting rolling stock (additional to 2022)
- 2024 new platform pack
- 2025 new station
- repeat from here
That would give us Train fans something new every year, and you can build a set slowly.
A bit like TLG do with the Winter village theme.

Sweet!! Love LEGO trains. And I've always been really fond of the crossing sets. Excellent RSOTD!

@stratiformus:
Stretch out the rotation too long and you’ll run into one of two problems. Either they’ll have to keep stocking sets after their naturally life cycle has ended, or you’ll end up with years when everything you need to run a train is available...except the train engine. Winter Village gets away with a roughly 3-year product lifespan by being largely limited to sales in the fourth quarter of the year. New sets are rolled out in September/October, the previous one or two entries are restocked around the same time, and usually the entire line is impossible to find by mid-November. Sometimes they might have a last-gasp shipment early the following year, but typically if you don’t have the new set by Christmas, you’ll have to wait until the next year’s entry is rolled out nine months later. All told, even a set that makes it three holiday seasons will generally be available less than twelve months total. By limiting sales to the same window of availability, people who really want the set know they have to jump on it when it returns or risk missing out. For this staggered rollout to work, at least the train engine would need to be available for four continuous years. That sort of window leads to many people realizing five years later that they pushed off buying it too long because they’d taken it for granted that it would still be available when they ran out of anything else to buy.