Mister Rogers' Neighborhood Trolley

With these words, Fred Rogers let the magical red Trolley take us away to see King Friday, Queen Sarah, and the rest of our Make-Believe friends! Now, you can relive happy memories and make new ones with this minifigure-scale recreation of the famous red trolley!

After the amazingly warm reception of the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood design last year, I was inspired to create a more detailed version of the Trolley. The micro-scale Trolley from the original set couldn’t feature any of the intricate details of the Trolley’s design, and couldn’t fit any minifigures. This scale build rectifies that by expanding the trolley’s size to 8 studs wide by 24 studs long. The distinctive red chassis and yellow signage are painstakingly recreated, featuring four black bench seats inside. These seats hold two minifigures each, leaving enough room for eight minifigures in total. Perhaps most excitingly, the scale of the trolley is perfect for the standard Lego railroad tracks, meaning you can run it on the Lego train tracks you already have!

In the design I created in Studio, four main minifigures from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood make an appearance: Fred Rogers, François Clemmons, "Mayor Maggie" Stewart, and Mister McFeely. The authentic hand-lettered sign on top of the trolley is meticulously reproduced from the original trolley model. This printed set of tiles makes the famous "Neighborhood Trolley" sign a reality as an integral part of the model. The decorative accents of the trolley’s handlebars, the yellow running light, and the sloped red roof are all here, and jumpers on each end of the trolley’s floor allow minifigures to stand in multiple poses.

Some might know that I built a physical prototype of the original Mister Rogers set before completing the design in the Studio software. To honor that legacy, as well as to retain the irreplaceable joy of building something with one’s own hands, I aspired to build this trolley model out of physical bricks. For that reason, I designed the Studio prototype to only use parts available in the appropriate physical colors, then acquired the proper pieces to build it in real life. Thanks to the release of Lego set 76935 in August 2024, the “Tile, Round 1 x 2 Half” was finally available in Bright Light Orange, and I was able to complete the set!

This Trolley build would make an excellent Lego set for any Mister Rogers fan, as it contains both the iconic red trolley itself as well as the main cast of characters from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Although the original “Fred” set was not ultimately chosen for retail production after its entry into the 10K ranks in 2023, this set gives us all another chance to honor the legacy of Mister Rogers in Lego form. So neighbors, click that “Support” button and let’s ride this trolley all the way to 10K again!