Metro Park & Service Tower
Set information:
Community rating:
5.0
(22 votes)
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Review's author:
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Place:
Poland
Joined:
2015, jan 21
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6d 9h |
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62456 |
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Published: |
2015, sep 13 15:07 |
Related pages:
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BrickSet |
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Toys Period |
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Toys Period - instruction |
Introduction
This set is one of the most interesting structures in 80s. Buildings available here can be seen on many presentations in the catalogs and to be honest, I am not surprised. They perfectly fits into any town scenery. Two buildings are present here, parking lot and gas station. The structures are mostly in white colors with a yellow-red base. White color is standard for structures in Town series. Yellow-red base with red roof gives the color of the entire structure, making it less monothematic. Although the red roof and yellow colors are thanks to the Shell color scheme, nevertheless it is all nicely composed. The set includes three cars, one red motorcycle and a mechanic's truck with the logo of Shell.
6 figures are included in the set, three drivers of passenger cars, one motorcycle rider and two employees of the gas station.
Buildings
Parking - can accommodate up to 5 smaller cars, but they do not have to be the smallest ones. Sports car from set of 6530 - fits pretty well too. In order to park at the upper floor of the parking lot, use the elevator. Special brick have been used here with a standard small gear inside, through
which we can rotate a circular brick protruding from the mechanism and
raise or lower the elevator. This mechanism is pretty durable, despite appearances. It would seem that it will fall apart, because what kind of elevator is based on one small junction? Yeah, but the brick is strong and it is a stable construction. Well, would you expect any less from Lego? Bricks are always high quality! You can raise an elevator with a car on board with no problem at all.
Car wash - it is under the parking floor and consists of three brushes. White
hoses have been used here as a spring to push brushes to the car and thanks to them they are returning to their
original position after the car goes through. Yet another brush in a horizontal position is suspended on top. The same brushes had also been used in 6649 street sweeper set. Behind the car wash there are two handles in the wall for a manual brush and broom, when automatic wash would be not enough.
Gas station - contains everything you need. The
station bears the logo of Shell, as it was before the protests of
environmentalists and general crazyness that slowly consumes the world. In those days nobody had a problem with a real petrol company's logo on a Lego bricks. It was until the early 90s, when Lego company probably had enough of protests and created a fictional corporation named Octan. The building includes a small shop that has virtually nothing inside except cash register and the workstation for the cashier.
There are two petrol dispatchers with conventional hoses in the form of string ended with a holder. On
the right side there is a station for a mechanic who has two tools
available - wrench and hammer. Car lift is also present, as it is standard equipment for any mechanic. In addition there are two spare tires with grey rims, red fire extinguisher and brush for manual cleaning of the car.
Two employees are present to handle the gas station. Woman with a Shell logo on the blouse is a cashier. Second employee is a mechanic in a blue work suit and blue cap.
Vehicles
Strange it would be if a set with gas station and parking lot would not contain a single car, is it not? Therefore, in this set three small passenger cars are available and one truck for mechanic. Cars were created according to the standard template of small cars for Town series, which was undoubtedly an asset. There were no problem to put all cars from all the sets together. For example, a sports car from 6501 set was made using the same template. Nevertheless, every car in every set is different and I did not meet two of the same. In this case we see three cars, black, red and blue. Black and red has a white roof and sunroof, while blue is in the convertible version. Each car has a driver, so we have an additional three minifigures.
In addition to cars, there is also a standard motorcycle, although in a unique red color with a driver in a blue helmet. Most motorcycles in a Town series are white, as most of them were included in police sets. Red, black or blue bikes were included much less frequently.
The last vehicle is a mechanic's truck holding the Shell logo on the doors. It has the usual open trunk, which can be used eg. to carry the wheels to travel to a customer in need of tires replacement. Typically, petrol stations sets includes a tow car or tow truck, but not in this case. On the other hand, a little earlier because in 1986, 6378 gas station set was released, which contained tow car. Probably the designers found that there is no point adding yet another tow truck and it would be better to make a set with ordinary truck. Well what could I say, they were right!
Printings
It is worth mentioning about printings in this case, because there are quite a lot of them. 80s were were the days when Lego were releasing most of the bricks in printed version, instead of stickers. Most of the bricks in this set are simply printed as truck's door or 2x2 flat tiles with car wash, parking lot or a mechanic's icon. Printings seems to be the best version of drawings on the bricks. There is no problem like with a sticker falling apart or warped placement of it. Although, the glue in the stickers is very good and with proper placement and care can endure a lot of time, there is a bigger problem with buying used bricks with properly placed and not destroyed stickers. The only thing that can happen with printing on the brick is wiping, but it happens less frequently than problems with stickers. However, not all drawings available here are printed, some are also stickers of the old type, that is transparent slices. These seem to be more durable than paper stickers. The worst thing that can happen is when the sticker must be placed on a couple of bricks. Shell logo at the side of the gas station roof is placed on two bricks 1x4 and 1x8. Because of that you must be very careful when dismantling the set to not destroy the stickers. In addition, such stickers are problematic when you would like to make an alternative construction. The main Shell logo located on top of the roof is also a sticker applied to three 1x3 bricks. The remaining bricks with the drawings are fortunatelly the ordinary printings.
As already mentioned, the building was often used in presentations, here is the one more scene from 1988 catalog with a metro park in the foreground.
Alternative constructions
One of the biggest sets of the 80s, where most bricks were small and universal, could not simply be released without several alternative proposals! At the back of the package several proposals can be found. Mechanic's workshop with a car wash, building with an elevator, or even a mobile crane assisting the construction of a parking lot. With the set of 640 bricks, where a large majority are universal, there are a lot of possibilities!
Catalog entry
6 figures are included in the set, three drivers of passenger cars, one motorcycle rider and two employees of the gas station.
Scenery: Retor Town
Buildings
Car park
Car wash
Gas station
Shop inside
Two employees are present to handle the gas station. Woman with a Shell logo on the blouse is a cashier. Second employee is a mechanic in a blue work suit and blue cap.
Vehicles
Vehicles
Mechanic
The last vehicle is a mechanic's truck holding the Shell logo on the doors. It has the usual open trunk, which can be used eg. to carry the wheels to travel to a customer in need of tires replacement. Typically, petrol stations sets includes a tow car or tow truck, but not in this case. On the other hand, a little earlier because in 1986, 6378 gas station set was released, which contained tow car. Probably the designers found that there is no point adding yet another tow truck and it would be better to make a set with ordinary truck. Well what could I say, they were right!
Printings
It is worth mentioning about printings in this case, because there are quite a lot of them. 80s were were the days when Lego were releasing most of the bricks in printed version, instead of stickers. Most of the bricks in this set are simply printed as truck's door or 2x2 flat tiles with car wash, parking lot or a mechanic's icon. Printings seems to be the best version of drawings on the bricks. There is no problem like with a sticker falling apart or warped placement of it. Although, the glue in the stickers is very good and with proper placement and care can endure a lot of time, there is a bigger problem with buying used bricks with properly placed and not destroyed stickers. The only thing that can happen with printing on the brick is wiping, but it happens less frequently than problems with stickers. However, not all drawings available here are printed, some are also stickers of the old type, that is transparent slices. These seem to be more durable than paper stickers. The worst thing that can happen is when the sticker must be placed on a couple of bricks. Shell logo at the side of the gas station roof is placed on two bricks 1x4 and 1x8. Because of that you must be very careful when dismantling the set to not destroy the stickers. In addition, such stickers are problematic when you would like to make an alternative construction. The main Shell logo located on top of the roof is also a sticker applied to three 1x3 bricks. The remaining bricks with the drawings are fortunatelly the ordinary printings.
As already mentioned, the building was often used in presentations, here is the one more scene from 1988 catalog with a metro park in the foreground.
Alternative constructions
Alternative - workshop
Alternative sets:
|
6394-2 |
Sceneries with this set included:
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