Nifeliz Big Boy Steam Locomotive Building Set, Trains Series

I have been a train lover since I was a little kid, and a locomotive engineer for almost 29 years. I love the Big Boy and I really wanted to build a good quality model, but LEGO doesn’t produce one. There are several different companies that produce the Big Boy, and I had initially written off this one by Nifeliz because of reviews. But fortunately there are a couple of good video reviews on YouTube and they changed my mind and I’m glad they did. First of all, as the title states, this is not LEGO. Since LEGO is the hands down best brick model builder in the world, they set the benchmark for all brick model manufacturers bar none. But that doesn’t mean that other companies don’t have good quality bricks. The bricks in this kit look very similar to LEGO and could pass for LEGO except for imperfections in manufacturing that give them away. The biggest difference is in how they fit together or their “clutch” strength. The clutch on these bricks is very strong, actually too strong and requires more effort than I prefer. My 66 year old hands got more fatigued with these bricks than LEGO, but too tight is way better than too loose. There are very few loose bricks in this build. The instruction book is extremely similar to LEGO. Nice big color pages with good images. There is a wealth of information on the actual Big Boy, which is very interesting. This instruction book is quite similar to the book in LEGO UCS (Ultimate Collector Series). The bricks to be assembled are in their actual color while assembled bricks are dark gray. You have to pay attention to what you’re doing with this but you have to do that with LEGO also. There was only one missing piece which is very small and unlikely to be noticed by pretty much anyone. We have a Bricks and Mini Figs store here that has large miscellaneous parts bins where I can probably find one if I want to take the time to go look. The silver plating on many of bricks is a very nice touch and really makes the model pop. Best of all is the price for this build which is extremely affordable and reasonable for what you get. If LEGO did a model of this locomotive it would cost 3 or 4 times more than this so the price per piece of this model is outstanding! I totally enjoyed building this wonderful model of a piece of American history, and I’m proud to display it in my home. One nice touch that Nifeliz added was the words Big Boy that appears to be hand written on the nose of the boiler. When the American Locomotive Company in Schenectady New York began building the Big Boy in 1941, a worker wrote the words Big Boy in chalk on the nose of one of the locomotives. I very much recommend this model to anyone interested. Be well and be blessed! There is one important thing I initially failed to mention with regard to the parts bags that I really like that I think is very helpful. The parts bags are numbered according to steps like LEGO. But in addition to the step number the step bags are also numbered according to their order of assembly within the step itself and this is indicated in the instruction book. When I started a new step I would go through the bags in that step and arrange them in their numerical order to simplify the process of working through the step. This is helpful because it reduces the number of parts involved making it easier to find a specific part in the process.

I bought this for my son’s birthday. He loved it and it’s a really good looking model. The quality isn’t quite as good as Lego, a couple pieces weren’t fully molded but it is really good. The quality you’re getting for the price makes it a great value. I would buy this brand again.

Fantastic set!!! Had a lot of fun building it with the kids, only one piece was damaged and all the pieces were accounted for! Definitely recommending this to everyone I know who likes Legos!

I've been a lifelong fan of LEGO models, but real LEGOs are so expensive that it is difficult to justify the purchases sometimes. I have tried several of the "knock-off" brands and usually there are serious deficiencies in both block quality and fit, as well as overall quality control in missing pieces and designs that just don't go together well. This is my first Nifeliz model, and I must say I am impressed! I've also always been a fan of the UP 4000 series locomotives, so when I saw this model, I had to get it. The fact that it's not as dirt cheap as other knock-off brands and the overall positive reviews gave me a little more confidence in the purchase, and I am glad I made it. Overall, it took me maybe 12 hours or so to build over the course of an evening and the following morning. It is BIG! The overall dimensions are about 31 1/5 inches long, 5 1/5 inches tall (including the track base), and about 4 inches wide. Block quality is excellent, just about as good as real LEGOs, though LEGOs are slightly more aesthetically pleasing (things like the LEGO logo on top of the studs, where these just have nothing or mold marks). The pieces are packaged in a very clear way, with each bag of parts corresponding to a specific series of steps. No having to dig through different bags looking for the right one. Each bag contains all the parts for the steps printed on the bag. I also very much like the inclusion cardboard "storage trays" that made the build far easier to manage. A few extra pieces, and no missing pieces (though I thought I was missing one tiny piece, but I found it in the next bag). I am a bit disappointed in some design choices. For example, the coupler rods (the parts that connect to the drive wheels and the steam cylinders) only connect to two of the drivers (drive wheels) on each section. The front two drivers on each section are just free spinning. Additionally, the steam cylinders on the rear driver truck basically don't exist, and the pushrod just floats in the open. I don't know why they didn't use a few cam and link parts to simulate the cylinders like they did on the front (see pictures 2 & 3). Overall, I am very happy with this build. It went together quite easily, with the exceptions noted below, and the final model is quite a site. Read on for details on the few problems I ran into. PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO THE INSTRUCTIONS WHEN DEALING WITH PLATES BOTH WITH AND WITHOUT HOLES! The instructions are not very clear in differentiating these parts, and it's easy to put down a bunch of plates only to find you need to break them all up and start over. The instructions are fairly good, though the choice of colors (making previous steps all the same grey color in the current step) sometimes makes it a little difficult to see what your supposed to do). Lastly, there were a couple of loose fitting parts, one of which makes the build extremely delicate to handle (which is to be expected, but it's much worse because of the loose parts). First, there are a pair of decorative bars meant to simulate the handrails around the front of the boiler. The piece in question is a pair of parts that slip onto the ends of a plastic hose/tube that simulates the rail along the side of the boiler. These two parts simply slip over this tube, and the fit is extremely loose, especially on the right side (there is no grip on the right, it simply falls off if not braced). I added a pair of extra black beam "connector pins" to the build that tightened these pieces a little, but they are still too loose (see pic 4). Also, those plastic tubes were cut slightly too short, exacerbating the loose fit problem. These tubes should have been left slightly longer and let the builder cut them to exact length during the build. The second loose fitting part is the one that makes it so difficult to handle. The Leading Truck (the four small wheels at the front of the locomotive) is built around a rather interesting set of axle (spline shaft) connections. Among these are four gray pieces butted against each other over a short spline shaft (the gray pieces underneath the blue bar in the pic). Unfortunately, these pieces are the only things connecting the front two wheels of the truck to the back ones, and they are both very loose fitting. As a result, if you pull on the nose of the locomotive any, these pieces separate and the forward part of the Leading Truck comes away. It is also extremely difficult to put these back together because all of these parts are free-moving axle pieces meant to allow the Leading Truck a good deal of movement. There are other strange design choices, such as bevel gears being installed on almost all Drivers, but they don't do anything. It's almost like the designer intended to have a gear-drive system inside to link the Drivers together but then dropped the idea. The plastic ribbed hoses on the side were also not thought out well, as the forward one is supposed to be bent, but the piece at the front of the hose only attaches to the train at one point, so it can swivel and the force of the bent hose just pushes it away. I ended up just cutting the hose shorter and connecting it to a different point on at the back. It's not right, but it's better than before.

As a long time fan of Lego, especially large builds, I was worried this one would not meet my high expectations. While there were a few small issues this set is 100% not to be missed if you like steam locomotives or trains. Such a fun build, amazing set, it's huge, good level of challenge and I'm surprised at the originality of the set too. First the pain points: it's not Lego. You knew that. And while this never actually deters from the set, the overall level of polish is close but there there. Larger plates, sequentially assembled, fit a little off and tend to bow over the length. This was especially prevalent in the first chapter of this build: the huge track base. But once built it's fine and there was no issue. The instructions are really well done though not quite as intuitive as Lego. Some of the slightly more complex sib assemblies are not shown complete after the sub assembly before movin to the next step. The long one-off pieces (hydraulic hoses and pipes that span the length of the boiler and wheelbase) are not quite the right length. While good they are not too short, I will get around to cutting them eventually as two are slightly too long. The design in terms of construction order is good, there were some steps that would have been better with an editor or two testing the build before final release though as the instructions could have been clearer. One glaring example is when putting the main drive wheel linkages on the drive wheels, it's not overly obvious that the orientation of the wheels matters a great deal. But if the wheels are in the wrong position with respect to left vs right side of the engine, it matters and the drive linkages fall out when. The wheels turn. This was fun for me though as I was able to find the very minor detail in the instructions that I missed and backtrack and correct it. Still, official Lego instructions call out these issues to make sure the user is aware the tiny details matter. Also ... The stickers were a pain I separate from the backing. Nothing a razer blade and patience couldn't fix in the end.... But I never had problems with the backing not releasing on Lego sets. These tiny the bugs aside, the set was as fun to build as any Lego set I've done. I just finished building the 1989 Batman Batmobile and Batwing as well as the Tumbler and this was just as fun and just as impressive as the end and $200 cheaper than each of those sets. The bags are amazing with the actual step range each bag covers (such as 1-15, 16-24, etc). This kept the large pile of spare pieces to a minimum which was easier to contain over several nights of building a little at a time. Also on this note was the inclusion of the cardboard trays for sorting pieces. What a great idea! This made building easy and straightforward. All in all, this set was a great buy. I will definitely look for this manufacturers other sets and hope the experience is consistent.

I bought this set with low expectations given the reviews. But I was very pleasantly surprised. The set is well designed and the instructions were far easier to follow than I expected. I think I had maybe one or two very minor detail pieces missing, but I used some older bricks from a different set to fill the gap. The instructions are not always easy to follow, and I had to pull things apart and rebuild more than once, but the bricks held together well and I never had an issue with the set being fragile or not holding together. It's meant to be a static set, so not made for playing with or trying to put on a a larger track. But it makes a great discussion piece and overall looks very nice. Would definitely recommend for an older kid, teenager, or lego adult that is looking for a bit of a challenge.

Great model. Great attention to detail. Fun build

Wow! This thing is massive! Very fun and informative build as the set come with a build book that also has the history behind the locomotive as well. Was a very long build but over all very easy to fallow instructions. Looks like what it should. The attention to small details is amazing. By far one of my favorite builds.

Fun to build

جربت المنتج التركيب متعب يحتاج تركيز شديد بالإظافة إلى ان بعض القطع وصلت تالفة وبعض القطع قياساتها غير مناسبة وتحتاج لغراء حتى تثبت؛ هذي ابرز العيوب كشخص محب للتركيب وجربت منتجات عديدة يعتبر هذا المنتج مقارنة بغيرة من المنتجات من ناحية السعر جيد اما من ناحية الجودة فليست ممتازة "بل جيدة" للآن الليقو تتربع بدون منافس

Mon fils a choisi ce train pour l'offrir à un ami. C'est une très grosse boîte avec beaucoup de pièces, donc c'est un sacré défi de construction, mais le résultat est vraiment magnifique. Les détails sont superbes et les pièces de bonne qualité. Un cadeau qui a fait son effet.

Mooi gedetailleerd retromodel van de bigboy locomotief.

以前より欲しかったブロックです。しっかりした包装と予定より速い着に感謝します。