10259 Winter Village Station [Review]

With Christmas just around the corner, it is time to turn on some festive music and start decorating! For many LEGO fans, that means building the newest addition to the holiday line: 10259 Winter Village Station. The set includes 902 pieces and five minifigures, and retails for $79.99 USD.

10259 Winter Village Station

The box

Similar in size to previous holiday sets, the Winter Village Station box shows a plethora of play functions as well as a photo of the 10254 Winter Holiday Train pulling into the station. It is immediately obvious the two sets were designed to complement each other, but we will have more thoughts about that later.

10259 Winter Village Station

Click through to read our full review of this set…

Unlike LEGO’s holiday catalog which pictured the station without a roof, the set does, in fact, have with a complete roof on its left side, helping to keep the cold and snow away from the poor ticket taker working inside. The box also offers more accurate coloring than LEGO’s original promotional photos, shown below, which distorted the colors greatly when the set was first announced. This had led some (this author included) to believe standard green masonry profile bricks were on their way.

10259 Winter Village Station

The build

The 902 parts come in a total of eight numbered bags plus the instructions and sticker sheet in their own bag. A set of four straight train tracks is also included (thankfully no more curved track). Breaking LEGO’s recent trend of having a single, perfect-bound instruction book, the Winter Village station instructions are printed in two booklets of different sizes.

10259 Winter Village Station

Apart from the minifigures, a few newspapers and a new shield print, the set relies heavily on stickers for adding detail and holiday charm. The 11 stickers include signage for the station (with a few cleverly titled towns), a “Winter Village” sticker that will be useful in many additional snowy builds, a menu of holiday-themed drinks featuring the cheapest prices ever seen in LEGO city, as well as the traditional holiday mail service French horn logo and several license plates for the bus.

10259 Winter Village Station

So now, you are all excited about the station and ready to start building. What is the first thing you build? Inexplicably it is two solitary lamp posts (sadly, Mr. Tumnus is not included). Even more confusing, when completed, these lamp posts are set aside until the final page of the whole build, eight bags later, where they are attached to the station. In the meantime, they have a tendency to roll away, so it’s best to put them in a container or something. Kudos to LEGO, however, for mimicking the style of lamp that came on the train stop bench included with the 10254 Winter Holiday Train. (LEGO’s holiday sets have traditionally featured a different style of black street lamp build every year). Of of the minor differences in the lamps from those in the Holiday Train is that here the base of the lamp is a 2×2 round jumper in black, a piece that has only been available in that color in the new Star Wars 75184 BB-8.

10259 Winter Village Station

After the somewhat lackluster beginning, the next part of the build contains the track crossing, with brick-built caution arms and curved white base, built exactly the same on both sides. LEGO could have included printed elements for the signs, but instead uses two triangle stickers applied to dark green road sign clips.

10259 Winter Village Station

Vehicles have long been an essential part of nearly all LEGO Winter Village sets. From mail and logging trucks to horse-drawn carriages and sleds, the vehicles have conveyed a sense of the “Norman Rockwell-esque 1920s.” This pleasant bus is no exception. The yellow color stands out in contrast to the overall earth-centric tones of the entire Winter Village line, though the addition of the dark blue roof, engine grille, and white windows makes this bus feel right at home.

10259 Winter Village Station

The front of the bus uses tile work and single stud connections to fit all of the classic detail in such a confined space, with the fenders having a particularly nice solution. The license plate is securely connected to the body of the bus by a SNOT (“studs not on top”) piece — solving the problem of previous Winter Village vehicles having their license plates frequently pop off due to their single clip-on-a-bar attachment.

10259 Winter Village Station

Also of note, the designers have offset the seats inside the bus by a half-stud each, granting a bit more leg room to our riders. The seats are also raked, so riders in the back can see above the heads of their fellow passengers in the front. As always, children will have to stand on their seats due to their general unruliness. And lack of hip joints.

10259 Winter Village Station

The roof features a rack for luggage, though your guess is as good as mine how the people get their presents on and off, as the bus lacks a ladder or steps to the roof. The rear wheel well also includes a new part coloring, with the updated 1x6x2 archway now in yellow, a color not available in that part for more than a decade.

10259 Winter Village Station

The top of the bus includes a new coloring in dark blue for the slanted roof.

10259 Winter Village Station

Moving onto the second, larger book of instructions, the base of the station starts to take shape. In contrast to the typically rock-solid foundations of other Winter Village structures, the building process felt a little strange, starting without a large base and awkwardly connecting long, thin black bricks to form the supporting structure.

10259 Winter Village Station

The design is actually quite unstable and shouldn’t be moved until dark tan plates are attached to create the raised platform of the train station. A square hole surrounding a 4×4 turntable is created to angle the doorway and tiled entry to the station by 45 degrees, a technique similar to the one used back in the first modular building 10182 Café Corner (though it is curious as to why the new angled doorway from 10255 Assembly Square was not used to the same effect instead).

10259 Winter Village Station

White 1×1 quarter circle tiles are used curve off sheets of snow piled on the platform, with a slanted plate clipped into place as a ramp to get on and off the raised area. New light grey microphones are used to represent the tops of angled poles with a chain connecting them so our flat-footed minifigs don’t go flying off the steep, icy incline.

10259 Winter Village Station

The rest of the build is fairly straightforward, including medium nougat columns, sand green walls offset by jumpers, and the customary bench common to most Winter Village sets. However, this is the first time the bench is placed in the gap between studs in order to properly center it in the recessed area. Brown and tan tiles complete the entryway floor, while an extremely simple coffee shop and ticket booth take shape.

10259 Winter Village Station

The reverse sides of sand green masonry bricks are used to give the appearance of wood paneling to the front wall, while the entryway is built up with black columns and archways. Sand green masonry bricks are quite uncommon, and this is the first time 1×1 scroll bricks in medium nougat have appeared in a set.

10259 Winter Village Station

10259 Winter Village Station

10259 Winter Village Station

The roofs are possibly the most simple execution of white snowy roofs in the entire Winter Village line, using only a single plate angled with two Technic pins. Even the roofs of 10245 Santa’s Workshop had a sloped white beam across the top to create the appearance of mounting snow.

10259 Winter Village Station

Here we get into the most technical part of the build — creating the clock tower that adorns the top of the train station. A center column is created with three headlight bricks holding clips horizontally extending outward from the center.

10259 Winter Village Station

From there, offset walls are created using a variety of jumpers and tan 1x2x2 windows, leaving space for each of the horizontal clips.

10259 Winter Village Station

Four columns with tiles on each side are used in the corners to complete the second floor of the tower. Of note, this technique leaves a slight gap between the columns and center window pieces, a space that may irritate detailed-oriented builders.

10259 Winter Village Station

All that is left to do is snap in place the three minifigure shields printed with a new clock-face design. The print resembles the classic style of the 2×2 round clock print from 10255 Assembly Square. Because of the geometry used, the shield sits nearly flush with the completed wall — a detail sure to make any builder smile in satisfaction.

10259 Winter Village Station

The tower is topped with slanted white plates to complete the classic look of a train station, with four identical panels used on each side. Now don’t forget the two lamps you made in the very first step! Those attach to the far corners of the raised platform, adding the final touch to this year’s Winter Village Station.

10259 Winter Village Station

Taking a look from behind, we see this set’s primary failing: the interior of the building. The designers of the set have provided little internal detail, with a lone coffee station, and an abysmal ticket counter. Even the bare side of the top of the tower seems naked. Adding insult to injury, a lone undecorated Christmas tree sits abandoned in the attic.

10259 Winter Village Station

This is clearly a set meant to be displayed and played with from the front. With the addition of the straight track elements, the station, crossing, and bus come together to form a festive scene of travelling minifgures — all looking to get home for the holidays.

10259 Winter Village Station

The minifigs

Speaking of minifigures, 10259 Winter Village Station comes with five: a boy and his grandmother, a train station ticket agent, bus driver and barista. The grandmother’s blue sweater has only been seen before in 60134 Fun in the Park and is a welcome addition to LEGO’s winter wardrobe. Her dark bluish grey hair is similarly rare, having only ever appeared in 70751 Temple of Airjitzu.

10259 Winter Village Station

Our minifigs get two printed “Ticket” tiles previously only available in the 10257 Carousel and 10258 London Bus. The barista also holds the new “espresso filter” stud with bar element (available only in the massive 70620 Ninjago City), and the set comes with several new newspaper 2×2 printed tiles.

Conclusion & recommendation

10259 Winter Village Station fits right in with LEGO’s other holiday buildings, but especially last year’s 10254 Winter Holiday Train. While seemingly only a façade, the addition of the bus and crossing make this feel like a more robust set, though I personally look forward to seeing a fan designs that add a few more walls.

10259 Winter Village Station

10254 Winter Holiday Train looks great pulling into the station. The platform is small for the train (which is already one on LEGO’s shortest) which may make it difficult for the rush of holiday travelers, though it can be extended with just a few more dark tan plates.

10259 Winter Village Station

Before wrapping up this review, I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the track layout in combination with the train. We noticed if the station was placed inside the loop of track, the train would barely have enough clearance getting around the corners of the platform without scraping each other. Setting up the track by separating the station and bus crossing seemed to provide the easiest solution, or you could place the station on the outside of the loops, or put the four straight track segments at the quarter points of the complete circle, giving the train a bit more clearance if you wanted to put it under your Christmas tree.

10259 Winter Village Station

Overall, 10259 Winter Village Station is a charming holiday set that feels like it could have been just a little bit better. Though demand may be less for fans who don’t also have the train, the station alone can serve as an oversized vignette in any winter village. So make yourself a cup of hot cocoa and enjoy building!


10259 Winter Village Station is available now in LEGO stores and on the LEGO Shop Online. It retails for $79.99 USD.

2 comments on “10259 Winter Village Station [Review]

  1. elfworld

    Just got the delivery slip in the mail. This set is waiting for me at the local store. Wheeee! Can’t wait!

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