Winterizing LEGO City layouts is a favorite pastime of many LEGO fans during the holidays. You can bundle up minifigs in winter clothing, cover streets and rooftops with white “snow” and “ice” elements, decorate buildings with Christmas lights and wreaths, and even set up a Christmas tree for your minifigs. And of course there is also the whole LEGO Winter Village collection, which is perfect for the holidays. 🙂
To give LEGO fans more options to expand their LEGO Winter Village, or to add something unique to their winterized LEGO City display, LEGO fan Miro Dudas created a beautiful LEGO Winter Village Tram. The tram is inspired by older era tram/trolley/cable-car designs that you can still see in San Francisco, as well as many European cities. These older trams feature rich wood details on the inside and outside, nice decorations, and pretty colors. Some of the trams have closed sides, and others have an open design so people can get on and off easily.
Miro’s LEGO Winter Village Tram depicts many of these original features perfectly. The color-scheme is a rich dark-green with gold accents. To imitate wooden details dark-orange, tan, nougat and brown LEGO elements are used. Also, notice the new curvy scroll pieces used at the front and the back to add that old style flair. The base of the tram is black and the roof is white, and there is also a bit of Christmas decoration for a cheerful holiday effect. The WV lettering at the front and back stands for Winter Village, which is a nice addition. The finished model is approximately 4 x 8 x 5 inches. It fits standard LEGO PF and RC straight and curved train tracks, or it can run without tracks.
The roof of the LEGO Winter Village Tram is easily removable to position minifigures inside. There are eight seats that can accommodate four seated minifigs comfortably, and there is plenty of room to add standing minifigs both inside, and on the steps holding on to the grab-bars. There are also two seats for a conductor at each end of the tram, so he can switch positions depending on the direction of travel.
To make this wonderful LEGO Winter Village Tram available to LEGO fans, Miro teamed up with Jason from Constructibles.net to sell them as custom LEGO kits. The kit contains 397 genuine new LEGO pieces to build the LEGO Winter Village Tram, as well as a conductor minifigure. Printed color instructions are also included. Also, the tram can accommodate one or two standard LEGO light-bricks to illuminate the headlights. You can add lights on your own, or Jason is providing a version of the set that includes a light-brick already. And if you feel that you already have all or most of the parts, and you just need the parts-list and instructions, you can get them at Miro’s BrickLink store. Below are the links the get the full kits, just the instructions, or the parts-list:
- BUY LEGO WINTER VILLAGE TRAM KIT
- BUY LEGO WINTER VILLAGE TRAM KIT W/ LIGTH BRICK
- BUY LEGO WINTER VILLAGE TRAM INSTRUCTIONS ONLY
- LEGO WINTER VILLAGE TRAM PARTS-LIST ON REBRICKABLE
I had the pleasure to build the LEGO Winter Village Tram when Miro first made it available, and it is just as gorgeous in real life as you see on the pictures here. The color-scheme is really beautiful and all the details are very nice. If you consider buying this for yourself, you will not be disappointed. It fits perfectly in any LEGO City setting, and also goes well with the LEGO Modular Buildings and the LEGO Winter Village collection.
The instructions are in similar style than standard LEGO instructions, and are easy to follow. This is especially true because the parts for each section are bagged separately. I would not recommend dumping all the pieces together before building, as on the printed instructions the colors are a bit hard to differentiate at times. On the PDF version of the instructions this is not a problem. I would say that for an adult this is an interesting and pleasurable build. I think children 10 years old and up should be able to build it by themselves as well. Younger children may need a bit of help at certain sections. The final model is quite sturdy and it should be perfectly fine for children to play with. Below is the tasteful packaging and content of the kits.
As you probably know already, LEGO didn’t release a new set in the LEGO Winter Village series this year, but opted into re-releasing the LEGO Winter Village Toy Shop with slight modifications. If you already have the first version of the set, and not sure what to add to your LEGO Winter Village this year, I would say that this custom LEGO Winter Village Tram would be a perfect option that you would be happy with. I’m certainly very pleased with the model and would recommend it highly.
So what do you think? How do you like the LEGO Winter Village Tram? Are you planning to get the kit or the instructions and add it to your holiday LEGO layout? Feel free to share in the comment section below! Also, if you have any questions about the kit or instructions you are welcome to ask! Miro is happy to stop by and answer them. 🙂
And you might also like to check out the following related posts:
This is sensational!
I paid quite a bit of money for the first two WV kits on the secondary market but I could never make myself pay what the Holiday Train was going for. But a tram makes even more sense for a village than a train.
And, in this year without a new addition to the village this will really add that additional spark. Bless the designers for coming up with it and creating it in the proper scale for the existing village!
Thanks so very much for bringing this to my attention!
Does the wheelbase fit Lego tracks?
Can you just add white plates over and around the tracks to get the snowy look and still run the tram along the tracks?
Yes, as I mentioned in the article, the tram can run on both straight and curved tracks. And yes, you can set up your tram like Miro did on the pictures; putting white plates around the tracks. 🙂
Is there a source for large white base plates?
I know I’ve asked Lego for some and they seem totally uninterested in supplying them for the village.
These baseplates come in white: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?v=2&pg=1&catXrefLevel=0&colorPart=1&catType=P&catID=2
Thank you for a wonderful blog post.
Just to note, I used quite a few 16×16 plates as well, as they connect over the protruding plate connections on the sides of the tracks. I also used 4 by X white plates to layer in between the tracks. The houses needed to be raised 1 plate height with whatever colored plates one has handy to bring them to the same level. When using curved tracks, it gets a bit trickier to block out the void, so I used various shaped white wedge plates. I will take more pictures when it’s time to officially build the complete Winter Village this season. I will post a link here later.
Miro, thanks for the clarification. Looking forward to see your whole winter village! 🙂
Thank you, MIro78. Your pix would be wonderful!
You are very welcome. I know you will be pleased with it. I had a pleasure building it myself. 🙂
Yesterday gingerbread houses, today holiday tram, you guys are putting me in the holiday mood! The tram looks very nice. Really like the colors.
Yeah, I guess the holidays are creeping up on us, aren’t they? It is actually a bit weird for me to write these snowy articles as I live in Florida and still go to the beach! But Christmas is always a bit weird here. 🙄
Guys I thought this might be important!
That’s awesome! I highly recommend the Temple of Airjitzu! 😀
Ya bu, I just spent all my spending money on Dimensions…maybe I can write myself an IOU. lol
That’s a cool deal, but the LEGO stores are a bit far, and I don’t plan on getting the temple either, though it is awesome!
Thanks for this post. This tram is absolutely gorgeous and I have ordered one straight away! We still have old style trams very similar to this here in Melbourne Australia, just on a short tourist route around the city centre. I am rather excited about adding this to my winter village. Thank you to Miro for creating it and making this beautiful set accessible.
Alison, thanks for sharing. Miro is a wonderful LEGO designer and all of the models I have seen from him so far are amazing. I’m sure you will be very pleased with the tram. 🙂
Hello Alison,
Tell us please your feedback about the tram (final design, construction etc…) because i’m hesitating to buy it.
Thanks.
Julien, if Alison sees your comment I’m sure she will share her thoughts. Also, you can read my review in the article above. I recently built the tram myself and it is just as sweet in real life as in the pictures. Very sturdy too. If you like what you see, there is no reason to be hesitant. Just my thoughts. 🙂
Hi Julien,
I’ve seen your comment and I will post here my own thoughts after I’ve built it. I’m in Australia though so it may take a few weeks yet to arrive here.
Thank you, Alison. 🙂
Ok thank you Alison. When it will be available i’ll order one for myself… It’s out of stock for the moment.
Ordered !!!! 🙂 very impatient now…
Julien, let us know how you like it! 😀
Got mine! It’s really quite wonderful!
I ordered mine with the light brick. In my imagination, I thought the brick would be under the roof and illuminate the carriage. Possibly by a lever action from that cleverly used “shovel” that would connect a real tram to the municipal electric line.
NOPE! This thing is cleverly designed so that the light shines through a couple transparent elements at the center of the brass headlamp to illuminate the tram’s way. So cute!
PS Have to add the reminder that, as the article says, they supply printed instructions but also have a PDF version you can request.
I’m elderly and my aged eyes struggled with the printed instructions but found the PDF option I could enlarge as needed most clear and helpful!
Yeah, I really like that feature as well.
Received mine !
I didn’t yet open it, i’m waiting for the Christmas Hloidays but i’m very very impatient… I’ll let you know and thanks for this good tip because this MOC is great !
Julien, that’s awesome! I admire your patience. When it comes to LEGO I have none. 😉
Well now the construction is finished and i have to say that the set is cute. It can be easily added to a winter village or in a city by example for the Tourists discovering the town.
It’s not an official model but LEGO should take it as an example.
It’s very pleasant to build and the finish result very similar with the reality.
Packaging is great, the instructions very clear but no spare parts :-((
Anyway if you can buy it do it, this tram will be a great addition to your collection. It has been one of my christmas gifts with many others…
Julien, okay, I will find out for you guys. Would probably make a good article. 🙂
Julien, thanks for the update! Glad to hear that you received the set with no problems and had fun building it.