LEGO Ideas and CUUSOO

The Orient Express Train

The luxury train LEGO train fans begged for, and mostly nailed.

4.1/5

Set 21344 · 2023

Pieces2,544

Minifigs8

Year2023

Set number21344

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The verdict

If you've been waiting for a proper follow-up to the beloved Emerald Night, this is it, and the carriages alone make it worth a serious look.

It's not cheap and the loco is the least exciting part, but the interiors are some of the best LEGO has ever put in a train. Grab it if you love display trains or the golden-age-of-travel romance. Skip it if you just want something to zoom around a track for the kids.

Best for: adult train fans who want a display piece with jaw-dropping interiors

The full review

What it is

Let me tell you why LEGO® train people lost their minds when this one dropped. For years the community begged for a worthy successor to 2009's Emerald Night, and The Orient Express Train is the set that finally answers the call. It's a 2,544-piece Ideas set based on the fan design by 27-year-old Parisian Thomas Lajon, and it captures that golden-age-of-travel glamour beautifully. You get a steam locomotive, a coal tender, a dining car, and a sleeping car, and the whole thing rolls on the same standard track that comes in every LEGO train set. The real magic is inside the carriages. Open them up and you'll find laid tables in the dining car, fold-out beds in the sleeping compartments, tiny lamps, luggage, and detailing that genuinely rewards a close look.

The catch

Now the honest part. This set is not cheap. At $299.99 (£259.99, €299.99) it's pricier than the piece count alone would suggest, and most reviewers put that down to the Orient Express licensing. If you measure value in pieces-per-dollar, this one won't top your spreadsheet. The locomotive is also the weak link. It's perfectly nice, but LEGO has done similar steam engines before, so it feels a touch familiar sitting next to those show-stopping carriages. A handful of builders also mentioned small fit and quality-control niggles, the kind of thing that stings a little more when you've spent three hundred quid. And heads up, it left shelves at the end of 2025, so it's now a retired set and prices on the aftermarket will only climb.

Who it's for

So who should grab it? If you love display trains, if you've got a soft spot for the romance of the Orient Express, or if you just want one of the most detailed LEGO train interiors ever made sitting on a shelf, this is an easy yes. It sits comfortably in that adult-collector Ideas lane, and it looks superb whether it's static or wired up to run. Who should skip it? If you mainly want a sturdy runner for kids to shove around a loop, or you're value-hunting on price-per-piece, your money stretches further elsewhere. But for the right fan, this is one of the standout LEGO trains of recent years, and now that it's retired, waiting probably won't make it any cheaper.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

Building this is a proper long-haul session, north of four hours, and it's paced really well across the four modules. You start with the locomotive and tender, which is the most conventional stretch, plenty of familiar steam-engine techniques and some satisfying wheel-and-rod work. Then things get interesting once you hit the two carriages. Each one is essentially a little diorama with a removable roof, so you're building furniture, table settings, and berths as sub-assemblies before dropping them in. There's clever sideways building for the exterior panelling, neat transitions between the cars, and a lot of small-scale detailing that keeps your hands busy and your brain engaged. It rarely feels repetitive, which is impressive for a two-carriage set.

For parts nerds there's a lot to like. Almost all the exterior decoration is printed rather than stickered, which at this price is exactly what you'd hope for: the Orient Express logo, the 21344 number brick, the Sleeping Car and Dining Car labels, and a lovely printed tile listing the cities on the route. The minifigure lineup is 8 figures all unique to the set, including a conductor, a chef, and passengers, plus a cheeky cameo of designer Thomas Lajon himself with dual-moulded legs, a flat cap, and a tiny film camera. The gold and blue livery gives you a genuinely useful pile of parts in classy colours. Just go in knowing the value story here is about detail and licensing, not raw part count per dollar.

Fun facts

01The set is based on a fan submission by 27-year-old Parisian designer Thomas Lajon, who even appears as one of the eight minifigures complete with a little film camera.
02It's widely seen as the long-awaited successor to 2009's 10194 Emerald Night, the train the LEGO community had been asking for a follow-up to for well over a decade.
03Despite the Agatha Christie 'Murder on the Orient Express' association, the set isn't tied to any book or film, it celebrates the real luxury train itself.
04It rolls on standard LEGO track from any train set and can be fitted with Powered Up motors, so it works as both a display piece and a runner.