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.

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Transformer / Speed Controller 12V

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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.

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.