Lego Compatible Funwhole F9006 Steampunk Ore Train Building Block Set Review

Happy 2023 brick fans, hope you all had a great holiday season! Today, I'm sharing my review of the new Funwhole Steampunk Ore Train, which Funwhole kindly provided to me for this review.

Here are the details of today's set review:

• Brand: Funwhole
• Set number: F9006
• Theme: Steampunk/Train
• Number of Pieces: 1056 pieces
• Stickers: Yes
• Minifigures: No
• Extra parts: Yes
• Deformed or missing parts: No
• Brick clutch and finish: Excellent
• Age Rating: 8+
• Size: 18.35 inches long and 5.48 inches high
• Lighting: Yes!
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Where to get the set

The Funwhole steampunk train building set can be found on their website here.

👉👉 Use my special discount code ITSNOTLEGO to save an extra 10% off your purchases from their website.

It can also available on Funwhole's dedicated Amazon store here.

Here's the direct link to the Steampunk Train set.

Unboxing

Let's take a look at the boxed set.

The large Funwhole train set comes in their recognizable black box.  The artwork/photo on the box is stunning.  Inside it is jammed pack with goodies.  First off is the comprehensive instruction booklet, a separately packaged sticker sheet, several numbered parts bags and a mysterious black bag.

Opening up the black bag, we find the special lighting kit that comes included with the set.  There are 6 pouches of specially sealed lighting kit components.  

I think that Funwhole makes lighting kits a standard feature of their building block sets which they allude to in their slogan, creating "Whole Fun, Day and Night".  This is a nice feature that Lego sets don't come with.  

If you wanted to light up a Lego set, you would have to buy a third party light kit at extra cost.  Here, the lighting kit is already included in the very affordable price of the set.

The first 4 pouches numbered 1 thru 4 contain the LED lights, wires, connectors and specialized plates to mount the lighting to the train.  If you are unfamiliar with lighting kits, it is highly recommended that you review the section about lighting in the manual before you begin.

In the final two pouches of the lighting kit, we find a battery pack that uses 3 triple A batteries (not provided) and a tool kit providing a brick separator and a set of metal tweezers.  

In terms of powering the lighting, you have the option to use the supplied battery pack or plug the provided USB plug into a USB power source.  The tweezers are really useful in handling the fine wires in the light kit and I'm glad that Funwhole thought of this.

Funwhole uses the same lighting system as Briksmax.  For a detailed primer of how the lighting kits work, please check out my blog post here.

Moving on to the parts for the train set ...

The parts bags are numbered as 1, 2 or 3, each bag corresponding to a section in the accompanying manual.  We find that there are 5 bags for section 1, 5 bags for section 2, and 6 bags for section 3.

Building the Train - Section 1

Ok, let's get building!  I found the brick parts to be very high quality and nearly indistinguishable from Lego bricks.  No scratches or scuff marks on the Funwhole bricks unlike some of the other lesser known brick brands.  

The parts fit very well with just the right amount of clutch.  The manual is easy to follow and the steps clearly laid out.

Now, to add the lighting!  Remember to always test the lighting just in case there is an  unlikely component failure, it's rare but it does happen.  If any problems, contact Funwhole and they will send you replacement parts for defective or missing pieces.

Time to add the lighting!  In the above pic I have threaded the wire for the lighting under the axles and have tested them using the provided battery pack.  Even though you might not use it, it's a good idea to test that the battery pack works as well.  

FYI, you might notice that the battery pack is different than the one that comes with the set.  That's because I couldn't find any triple A batteries in the house, but I did have a double A battery pack from my other Funwhole sets, so I used that one instead with no issues.

The train axles are installed through technic bricks and do not use turnable trucks like other train sets I've built.  

Oh, you should know that this train is not internally powered so it doesn't come with a motor to drive the wheels.  Nor does the set come with any train tracks, even though it is Lego track compatible.  I already have train tracks from my other sets, but you may be disappointed if this is your first Lego style train set.

Building the Train - Section 2

Moving on to section 2 now.  Time to finishing building the engine.

Here's one gripe of mine.  I had a hard time trying to attach the roof to the cabin.  I ended up putting some of my own tile pieces around the top of the cabin to make it easier to remove and attach the roof.  I think Funwhole could have done a better job on the design here.

Speaking about the cabin, save for the interior light, there are no features inside of it.

Here are all the lighting details on the steam engine.  Don't forget that the under carriage is also lit up.

There are a few spare parts leftover after completing section 2 of the Steampunk train.  While this building set doesn't come with any minifigures, you do get an orange cat which you can place on your train.

Building the Train - Section 3

The last part of the Steampunk train is this fantasy hybrid passenger car and colourful ore on top.  The interior is empty.

Although the passenger car is small, there are three access doors.

The bottom and top of the car has lighting, as well as the interior and rear coach lights.

I found it was easier to attach the lighting wires from the passenger car to the expansion board on the steam engine first before joining it using the technic pin.

The different coloured transparent bricks gives it a nice lighting effect!

The finished model!

So although the Funwhole Steampunk train came with stickers, I didn't put them on my model.  I think it looks ok with or without them.

Day time.

Night time.

Summary

I think that the Funwhole Steampunk Ore train set represents great value if you are a fan of steam trains or just building great Lego style sets such as this one.  The piece count to price ratio is very good and the added light kit really does make it a nice display model.  And it looks great in my not Lego city.

There were no missing or defective parts and everything fit really well.  The lighting installation was not an issue for me, but I think that some of the younger builders might need a bit of help from an adult.

If you are wondering if this train is scaled to display with minifigures, here's a picture of the train with some of my own minifigures.  Let me know what you think.  

I feel that the Funwhole steampunk train is larger than other my other Lego compatible trains, but it does run OK on my train tracks.  I'm not sure if you can integrate power functions and motors into this set to make it run on it's own, as I don't have any experience in that particular arena.

I'm not a fan of stickers for the most part, but probably Funwhole wanted to keep the price point down and using printed parts would increase the cost of the train.  That's probably also why they chose not to include any train tracks with the set, although I think that three or four pieces of track wouldn't really make much difference.

Finally, I have one question, is this a Steampunk train or just a regular steam train with a couple of gears on it?   It's definitely a fantasy steam engine with the colourful ore on top of the passenger cabin, but I don't feel you can really call this a Steampunk train.   Having said that, I'm going to give the Funwhole Steampunk Ore Train a solid 4.50 out of 5.  

Here's my reviews of some other Funwhole building block sets:

Funwhole Retro Wood Cabin FH9001

Funwhole Lakeside Lodge FH9004

Don't forget to save an extra 10% on all your Funwhole purchases using my code ITSNOTLEGO.

Thanks for looking and see you next time, bye!

Set Review: Mork 031063 Ecological Park (Lego Compatible)

 

Good day brick fans!  We are back, and this time we are looking at another Mork/XMork branded set.  This one is called the Ecological Park, and it is my second Mork building set.  The other Mork set I built was the Tooncity Flower Shop and if you missed it, you can find my review of it 👉  here.

This post is brought to you by Afobrick.com who have provided this cool little building for me to review.  Thanks, Afobrick!

👉 Please check out the latest seasonal promo from Afobrick.  They are a new store on the building block scene and if you could support them, that would be great!

Here are the details of today's set review:

Brand: Mork/Xmork

Set number: 031063

Theme: Block Module

Number of Pieces: 1506 pieces

Stickers: No

Minifigures: No

Extra parts: Yes

Deformed or missing parts: No

Brick clutch and finish: Excellent

Age Rating: 6+

Size: 21cm W x 20.5 cm H

Lighting: Yes!

Unboxing

Here's the colourful box which describes all the details on the front.  The box has seen better days, but that's ok because I don't collect cardboard. 

Although branded as Mork, the box logos say Xmork.  I'm so confused.  On the back of the box is a picture of the Ecological Park lit up.  Yes, it comes with a very nice LED light brick.

Unboxings are always fun!  Let's see what we got.

The building block set includes a glossy 74 page instruction booklet, a red brick separator, a light brick, a sprue of pink flowers, and 28 numbered parts bags broken down as follows:

Section 1: 10 bags

Section 2: 9 bags

Section 3: 9 bags

Each of the numbers correspond to the respective section in the manual.  

The Build

Section 1

The 10 bags for section 1 build one side of the Ecological Park.  There are quite a few masonry bricks in this set as well as a lot of windows.  The window glass was just a tad milky but that's to be expected from the Chinese brands.  No scratches or deformities encountered with the bricks so far, that's a good sign.

The building is quite tall and houses some tropical plants and also serves as an animal sanctuary.  There are a good number of printed parts as you will see.  The interior has a rack of plants that are being grown in the corner.  Above them are 4 bird houses with perches.  There are three tropical birds roosting there.  In the lower corner near the entrance is a tank where several frogs live.  I like how there appears to be a waterline in the tank.  We will take a closer look later.

Section 2

Section 2 builds the glass enclosure which is like a solarium.  It also makes the roof line even taller with the slanted roof.  There are some hanging vines that come down inside.  On the solarium side, we find a tropical palm tree and a pond with more frogs and some more plants.  I should mention that there is a narrow gray path that winds around the base, but I don't think it's minifig scale.  

The two sections are hinged at one end and the Ecological Park building can be displayed either opened or closed.  The hinge piece is a tad loose and doesn't really hold up very well.

Section 3

Section 3 adds the slanted roof and lots of foliage.

Like I mean a lot of foliage!  I'm guess a good third of this set is attributed to plant leaves and stems. Oh and the roof tiles too.  I chose not to use any of the pink parts on the sprue.

Entrance to the building is at the side.  You can pretty much put the trees and foliage where ever you want.

Here's the back of the building complete with plants and vines.  The chain is supposed to hang a printed sign that says plants, but I thought that was pretty redundant so I didn't use it.

There are four more birds perched outside.  Can you find them all?  

So the set doesn't come with any minifigures, but I added a few so you could see how big the set relative to the figure.  Based on the scale of the minifig, this building would probably be about 25 to 30 feet tall in real life or approx 8 or 9 meters tall.

Here's a closer look inside the interior.

There are three roof panels, two of which are tiled and one is comprised of windows. They can all come off by lifting.

Brick clutch was good and they needed to be, because there were a lot of 1x2 plates used.  They could have been replaced by longer 1x4 or 1x6 plates to give more structural rigidity.  I found the area with the black tile under the roof line to be the trickiest to put together.  Try not to press too hard here or it will fall off.  This is more a design issue, than a brick clutch problem.  I will probably modify it later to remedy the problematic area.

Here's a closer look at the pond and plants area.

Oh man, every day someone has to go and clean up all of the bird doo-doo!  Be careful they don't poop on your head!  (Bird poop and minifigure, accessories not included).

Hey, but what is included in the set are the following animals:

7 tropical birds pooping

3 cats pouncing

2 dogs sitting

and 5 froggies croaking

(custom stand not included)

But wait, there's more!  The Mork Ecological Park also comes with a light brick and attached LED light string.

The instruction manual pretty much tells you to put the led lights however you want but they do provide a picture of the recommended location.  

Summary

So if you are a fan of plants and animals, you will probably like this set.  It's got a lot of nice details and best of all printed parts and no stickers.  The bonus light brick really makes this building shine! (excuse the pun).  I thought that the build quality was ok except for the area under the roof and the hinge that connects the two parts of the building together.  For a display set, you need to turn on the light or open it up so you can see the interior.  Oh and add a few minifigures for more fun.

For those of you up to the challenge, this would make a nice full sized modular building. I'd expand the footprint and provide more space on the inside so minifigures could take a tour.  I'd also provide a second floor viewing platform with ladder or stairs so that the birds could be better viewed by the minifigures.

I'd give this set a 4 out of 5.  Decent little set overall.

👉 Here's the link to the Ecological Park set on Afobrick's website.  Don't forget to use my code itsnotlego to get an extra 5% off your entire purchase.

Thanks for looking!  And don't forget to check out 👉 Afobrick's latest promo!