I received my 33657 Lumber Truck from Germany a couple weeks ago and it is quite lovely:
The red plastic covering, which models the flatbed tarps used to protect shipments from the weather, is a really nice touch. The red plastic cover is a snug, but not tight fit so it stays on when you put it on. It won’t fall off accidentally.
The flatbed is very similar to the 33696 Lumber Loading Wagon, though the wheel bases are unpainted and the wheels themselves are the more traditional black used by BRIO on vehicles. And like all the modern-day BRIO trucks, the cab of the semi pivots forward to reveal the engine block.
On curious detail, though is the hole in the wheel base of the semi (for the pivoting of the “fifth wheel” coupling) is bored all the way to the axle:
The flatbed’s pivot joint doesn’t actually go all the way down so it doesn’t drag on the axle as the truck moves, but I thought it was weird that it was (unnecessarily) drilled that deep.
Anyway, overall? This is a pretty nice vehicle. Another top-notch accessory from BRIO. If you’ve been on the fence about this one, trust me: you want it.
BRIO’s catalogs for 2020 have been released. As in previous years, there’s a catalog for the European market and one for the USA. As in the last few years, most (but not all) of the new items coming to the USA were released last year in Europe.
The USA catalog is included in the Ravensburger one.
The European catalog is its own release.
BRIO is expanding the SmartTech line, starting in Europe, with the Smart Tech Sound lineup. The engine and the new tunnel design is shown here on the cover. It looks like children will be able to program lights, actions, and custom sounds via a record-and-play feature. There’s also an app that will allow for additional customization.
Coming to both the US and Europe is the #33557 Streamline Train which has some lovely styling:
And the 2020 Special Edition train:
Europe will see the #33657 Lumber Truck:
And in the fall, what appears to be an update to the Tower Crane:
The #33835 Light Up Construction Crane has very realistic styling with some impressive attention to detail, though of course it depends very heavily on plastic.
The lineup suggests that 2020 is an evolutionary lineup rather than a revolutionary one, but it’s a definite improvement over the lackluster 2019.
I spent a little bit of time analyzing the RFID technology behind Smart Track and Smart Tech this week. Smart Tech is BRIO’s current generation of RFID-enabled engines, released in late 2017 in Europe before making its way to the U.S. the following year. Smart Track was first released in 2005, and to my knowledge was not available in the U.S.
Note: Smart Tech Sound, released in late 2020, is a different product line that is more sophisticated than the first generation of Smart Tech.
The first question people ask is:
Are Smart Track and Smart Tech products compatible?
No.
A quick disclaimer: I am not an expert in RFID or digital signal processing. I know enough to talk at a high level, but that is about it.
The reason they are not compatible is that the two technologies use different RFID tags. The older Smart Track appears to use UHF (ultra-high frequency) tags and operates at around 909.033 MHz. The newer Smart Tech operates in the HF (high frequency) band at around 13.56 MHz.
Both are ARPT (Active Reader Passive Tag) systems. The tag reader is in the engine and it transmits an interrogator signal which also provides the power for the tag stored in the track (Smart Track) or tunnel (Smart Tech). The reader in the engine then receives the transmission from the tag and processes the signal.
Smart Track
The following waterfall and FFT plot shows the signal sent by the Smart Track engine while in operation.
Smart Track uses a UHF tag at roughly 909.03 MHz
From the late 1990’s through the early-to-mid 2000’s, UHF tags were fairly popular because they were, and still are, low-power and cheap. The problem with UHF, however, is that there is no single, global standard for radio waves in this band and thus regulations differ from country to country. In North America, the UHF band for RFID runs from from 902-928 MHz, but in Europe that band is between 865 and 868 MHz. As these two bands do not overlap, that means UHF tags made for one market can’t—or shouldn’t—be used in another.
What’s odd about Smart Track is that this is exactly what it seems to be doing: my engine is transmitting in the North America band, despite the fact that it was purchased from a seller in Germany which uses the European band for RFID. That poses an interesting question: are all Smart Track products operating in this North America band? If so, then they may be running afoul of broadcast restrictions when used in Europe. And if not, then there would potentially be a compatibility issue between Smart Track products that were produced for different markets.
I don’t have good tools for analyzing the RFID transmissions in the UHF band, but my best guess is that the tags used by BRIO are very simple and merely indicate what chip is present. The actions, and the sounds produced by the Smart Track engine, are stored in the engine, itself.
Smart Tech
Smart Tech uses the HF band at 13.56 MHz, which is a global standard for RFID. Using special hardware designed to analyze HF and LF tags, I was able to capture the following RFID transmissions.
The first image shows the “Station” tunnel, which tells the Smart Tech engine to stop and play a short sound recording reminiscent of a train station. As you can see, there is not a significant amount of data being transmitted, which implies that all the sounds and actions are stored in the engine.
RFID transmission for the Smart Tech “station” tag
Compare this to the next image from the “Reverse Engine” tunnel.
RFID transmission for the Smart Tech “reverse” tag
There is not a big difference between the two profiles (ignore the difference in the pulse amplitudes). This appears to be a very simple encoding scheme where each pulse represents a bit of data, transmitting about 36 bits total. In the “Station” tag, the transmission starts with 110101111, while the “Reverse” tag begins with 110111110. The trailing 01010101 is probably used for clock synchronization and an “end of data” marker.
The tag itself has pins A0 through A11, which implies there’s a total of 12 bits that make up the device ID. Simple tags such as these are very common in toys.
What this means
The implication here, for both Smart Tech and Smart Track, is that the complete set of engine behavior and sounds have been predetermined. Since there is no procedure for loading new data into the engine, the full range of products has to be decided upon before the engine programming is completed.
In theory, one could generate the above signals and transmit them to the Smart Tech reader. This procedure could also be used to probe for the full range of behavior supported by the engine.
Going back as far as the 1950’s, BRIO trains have had red wheels. It was not until the mid-1990’s with the advent of the Trains of the World series that BRIO started using other colors on their locomotives, and even then red wheels persisted through the mid-2000’s. One question I get from time to time is, why red wheels?
While only BRIO can answer this for sure, one possibility is that the red wheels come from history. Early steam engines in Germany used a bright red paint on their wheels to make it easier for safety inspectors to detect metal fatigue and cracks. This practice may date back as far as the 1920’s, and it was prevalent because rail systems were nationally and not privately owned. Not all countries in Europe did this, but the red wheels from Germany may simply have stuck out to the BRIO designers. The look on real steam engines certainly is striking.
For those of you in the U.S., Ravensburger has posted the 2019 catalog to Issuu and it contains the BRIO lineup for the coming year. Unsurprisingly, a number of products set for release in Europe won’t make it to this side of the ocean. The U.S. already has the #33887 Lift & Load Warehouse Set and it appears we’ll also see the #33860 2019 Special Edition train. But…there’s not much else on the list. Most of your 2019 product purchases will have to come from overseas.
An interesting new accessory for BRIO is the #33981 Large Mountain and Valley Rail Pack. This is not showing up in any of the English-language catalogs for 2019, but it’s available for sale on Amazon in the UK and Germany.
There’s never really been a practical way to get more than two of these Stacking Track Supports at a time from BRIO. This expansion pack gives you four of them plus four of the boulder supports, but it’s an odd way to do it. It also includes six ramps and eight large curves, which don’t really build anything useful on their own. Based on the box photo, which shows configurations that you can’t actually run a train over because there’s not enough clearance, BRIO isn’t sure what to do with it, either. You’re probably better off just buying two packs of the #33253 Stacking Track Supports for less than half the price (total).
The last couple of new BRIO products I’ve purchased have come with track that has a very rough finish. This has never happened before, and that I’ve seen it in two products is a little concerning. BRIO track is normally sanded very smooth and coated with a light finish, but these pieces obviously did not receive that treatment. It was most noticeable in the #33627 Travel Station Set.
I have heard from one other person that has noticed the same problem, in their case with the #33699 Curved Bridge.
I’ve attached photos. The first two show the rough track at a fairly high magnification. Notice the rough, uneven surface around the track bevel.
The third shows “typical” track. Note how smooth the surface is in comparison.
I reported this to BRIO as a potential safety issue via their web site as I can imagine a toddler getting small splinters from pieces like this. BRIO got back to me within a few days and requested photos, so I sent them the above.
I’ll update this article once I hear from them again.
Update 12/11/18
BRIO has said they will send me a replacement #33627 Travel Station Set, but have not provided an explanation for the poor quality track.
Update 12/12/18
Here’s the latest response from one of BRIO’s customer service managers:
Hi John,
I’ve let our product department know, this was a defective item.
Thank you
Update 1/28/19
I did receive track from BRIO (not a full set, just loose track) in mid-January. This track did have the smooth finish I am used to seeing from BRIO, but given that it was sent to me as a loose collection does leave me without a clear answer to what’s going on. BRIO claims that it was a production defect, but it’s obviously widespread if so. But I am skeptical. This still looks like cost-cutting by the manufacturer, or at best, inadequate quality control.
This is a photo of most of the BRIO Network lineup. My collection of accessories and vehicles is reasonably complete thanks in part to the Network Educational Set, a non-catalog starter set that BRIO probably used to help clear old inventory. This set shipped with the equivalent of:
Two 33294 Track Packs
33286 EMO’s Transporter
33289 Turner’s Tunnel
33290 DEX’s Search Pod
33292 Bernie’s Flashing Diode
33293 Attacker and Viruses
Over the years, I was able to find and add:
33285 EMO’s Mail Hub
33287 Mailbox and EMO
33297 and 33298 Networkers’ Mail Pack 1 and 2
33779 Virus Transporter Unit
33780 Rapid Response Unit (this is a battery engine)
The Network product database has a full listing of all the Network products. Many of these have overlapping contents (particularly figures and vehicles) so to get a complete “set” of accessories you don’t technically need everything—unless a boxed set of everything is what you want, of course.
From the photo, you can see a couple of significant issues with the Network lineup in general. The biggest one is the painted track: it looks nice and fits the theme, but there just isn’t enough of it because each track pack only came with 6xE, 2xN, and one each of A, A1, A2, A3, U, V, L, and M. Even two track packs aren’t enough to incorporate all the accessories into a continuous track loop, and the limited track options limits flexibility. The second issue is that it’s just big. The mail hub in particular is a very large, elevated piece with two cross tracks. Incorporating this and it’s ramp tracks into a layout takes more space, and more space means even more track. I had to supplement a number of “regular” track to make the layout above.
From some of the other accessories shown in the 2007 catalog insert, it’s obvious that Network was meant to be a whole playscape and not just vehicles on tracks. Some of these accessories such as 33777 and 33787 may not have been released, while others were incorporated into starter sets like the 33057 network play table (shown in the 2008 insert).
Network was a definite oddity. It was BRIO’s attempt to build a unique, character-based toy line. The figures had names, each with their own personalities, and the accessories included games, general toys, and even videos, but it never really took off. The technology was limited, and the products were expensive for what were essentially blinking lights and low-bit-rate sounds.
Like The Sky Train lineup, Network eventually found popularity as collector items that it never had as children’s toys.
Collect BRIO long enough and you’ll eventually come across an item that can’t be found in catalogs. These are the last frontier of collecting because you don’t know what you don’t know.
This phenomenon of non-catalog items isn’t unique to BRIO. Typically, they come about because of a specialized market—a starter set produced for a particular retailer, for instance—or a late-year bundle intended to package up excess stock (some toy collectors call these “Frankenstein sets”, as they are a mishmash of repurposed parts). Since they aren’t intended for wide release or a long shelf life, it’s impractical to go back and add them to catalogs even in the digital age: the product must still be photographed and the catalog layout must be updated.
Non-catalog items sometimes include unique parts, and it’s these sets that are the most coveted. For example, look at BRIO starter set #33142.
This set does not, to my knowledge, have a name. It was probably a 1989 or 1990 set based on the suspension bridge, cargo ship, and plastic container pods.
The yellow container pods in this set are nearly identical to the backs of the ambulance in 1988’s Hospital Set, shown on the right, just in yellow and with a metal disc added on top (though you can see the ring for the disc insert in the ambulance part).
The “loads” are simple, beechwood blocks.
There is some parts re-use going on here, but what’s most interesting of course is those yellow pods as they are unique to this set. BRIO didn’t re-use parts to make these pods: they re-used a mold. Making the metal casting for the plastic mold was probably a significant expense, and this let them get more life out of it.
