Five ways the new LEGO Hogwarts Express could only have worked in 2023

Yet another LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Express is on the way this summer – but as revealed by designer George Gilliatt, there are a few reasons this set could only have worked in 2023…

Rolling into the platform in June comes 76423 Hogwarts Express & Hogsmeade Station, the biggest and most expensive play-scale version of the Wizarding World train to date. With 1,074 pieces and eight minifigures in the box, it’s the first Hogwarts Express to include two passenger cars, and also comes with the first-ever minifigure of Lee Jordan.

This is also a Hogwarts Express that follows hot on the heels of the recently-retired 75955 Hogwarts Express, which hung around on shelves for four years. And in that time, enough new pieces have joined the element library that Gilliatt – who led the design of the new set – was able to revisit the totemic train in a way only really possible in 2023.

From brand new printed pieces to new implementations of recent elements, here are five ways 76423 Hogwarts Express & Hogsmeade Station takes advantage of the current LEGO parts library.

5 – A curvy cab

See the way the cab of the train’s engine curves at the bottom, underneath the 5972 sticker? That’s made possible thanks to the recent quarter-circle plate, which originally debuted in 2021’s 71395 Super Mario 64 Question Mark Block in yellow. It’s since appeared in red in five sets, including last year’s 76405 Hogwarts Express Collectors’ Edition, and returns here to shape the smaller train’s cab.

4 – A sloped running board

There’s no getting away from the fact that LEGO elements are inherently blocky, but the part library is also packed with plenty of arches and slopes to make things a little less straight-edged. So it goes for the front edge of 76423 Hogwarts Express & Hogsmeade Station’s running board, which deploys what’s apparently a brand new arch brick – seemingly turned on its side – to achieve the curve down to its buffers.

3 – A three-dimensional headboard

While previous play-scale Hogwarts Express sets have recreated the front of the engine with a larger printed dish, 76423 Hogwarts Express & Hogsmeade Station instead surrounds a smaller 2x2 dish with flat quarter-circle tiles. That same piece has allowed Gilliatt to incorporate a three-dimensional headboard, which the designer says was not only for better accuracy, but also to allow the train to run as a regular, non-magical locomotive by removing the headboard.

2 – Tucked wheel flanges

We’re getting pretty technical now: according to Gilliatt, the train’s tucked wheel flanges (the part of the wheel that allows it to sit flush on the rails) have been made possible by a ‘City roof element’, presumably referring to the sloped red pieces that sit either side of the Hogwarts Castle logo. It’s tricky to tell from the official images exactly which element that is, but it’s far more successful in recreating the train’s subtle shaping than the previous Hogwarts Express.

1 – Two new printed pieces

As well as repurposing recent elements in innovative ways, 76423 Hogwarts Express & Hogsmeade Station introduces completely new printed pieces for the LEGO Harry Potter theme – both of which we’re sure to see pop up in Wizarding World sets further down the line. The first is a chocolate frog printed on a 1x1 round tile (shame there’s no such thing as a 1x1 pentagonal tile), while the second is a printed Galleon. We can’t imagine where else that might be used…

76423 Hogwarts Express & Hogsmeade Station launches June 1, alongside a wider wave of Wizarding World sets, for £114.99 / $129.99 / €129.99.

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