Welcome to 12v-grey.com, a tribute website to the great LEGO Trains sets of the 1980s! 12V or 12 Volts represents the voltage that was used to run the trains, while the grey tracks (as opposed to the blue tracks from the 1970's) dubbed this period the grey era.

This website aimes to serve as an archive for the wonderful trains, tracks, remote controllers and buildings of the grey era, and hopes to preserve these marvelous sets, instruction booklets, boxes, designs, idea books, and - later on - all of your personal MODs en MOCs.

7855
8 Curved Electric Rails Grey 12V
7857
Crossing, Electric Rails Grey 12V
7777
Trains Ideas Book

articles

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Trains Ideas Book 7777
8 June 2022 by Fouke Boss

A year after the release of the first wave of grey-era Trains sets, LEGO introduced Ideas Book 7777, arguably the only all-trains ideas book ever published by LEGO. The book has gained a cult status over the years, and many of its models and designs keep popping up every now and then on fansites and e-commerce websites.

Logos, languages, and the 1980s LEGO market
6 May 2022 by Fouke Boss

The LEGO packaging, instructions and sticker sheets do not contain much written text. But the scraps of text they do contain allow us to catch a glimpse of the market that LEGO was targeting during the 1980s.

instructions

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32 pages
120218
12 pages
120509
4 pages
117581

boxes (3D)

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16.0 x 12.8 x 2.9 cm
v1 (1980-1988)
25.8 x 12.7 x 6.5 cm
195480
19.0 x 9.3 x 4.7 cm
v2 (1989-1990)
1980
16 pages
18.4 x 19.0 cm
1984
8 pages
21.0 x 19.3 cm
1990
6 pages
20.8 x 19.4 cm

minifigs

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shell014
Shell Worker
1 set
grey era only
jred016
Male in Red Jacket
1 set
grey era only
post001
Post Office Worker
6 sets
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