Why I Oughta...

The folks at TrainWorld just shipped a few of my 2017 Christmas Catalog pre-orders including this one:  the 2017 Santa and Snowman Tag Boxcar.  The box is not a normal O Gauge train box from Lionel, but a two piece top/bottom orange box.  The front of it only reveals the blue boxcar.  But once you open it up? You see this: That's the boxcar with the platform on top, Santa, Frosty and the 'bridge' that you put up for the boxcar to pass under. Here's the side of the box with all the product details.  I haven't set up our track yet, nor can I find this year's model being run on YouTube, but I *did* find this older version that gives you a sense for how it works.  Kinda cute, right?

Yesterday, I posted a photo of an operating log dump car that I picked up for a Christmas present this year and mentioned that I scored a few operating accessories for the boys.  Above, you see one of those accessories in the Old St. Nick Operating Billboard.  This is the first time I've bought an operating billboard from Lionel but I know the basics:  there are two scenes that alternate in between by the rotating of the slats on the billboard.  The official product listing on Lionel.com show the two scenes and you can see them on the back of the box below.  For each of the boys that I've bought one of these for, I've been buying them boxcars/operating cars and/or track pieces/bridges/switches every year since they were born, so I figure they have enough rolling stock.  To keep their attention, they need operating accessories, right? And, like me, they only haul out their layout for the holidays and keep a holiday train so the St. Nick piece seems appropriate, righ

Late in August, I went in and did my annual pre-Christmas shopping of the pre-orders for Lionel O Gauge trains at TrainWorld.  They have a section set up for Lionel that includes in-stock items and a bunch of pre-orders from the 2017 catalog .  The pre-orders usually show up late in the fall - sometime around Halloween - so I typically try to get my order in by September to ensure that they get the pieces on hand in time for the holidays. Last year, my pre-orders came in on varying dates and included a bunch of Disney-related cars like the Winnie the Pooh boxcar , a Dumbo 75th anniversary boxcar , a Pluto walking brakeman car , and a Buddy the Elf car that arrived in February .   In 2015, I pre-ordered this "Where the Wild Things Are" boxcar for one of the boys. Each year, I buy the boys in the family a new Lionel item and this year is no different.  However, there are a few new folks added to the Lionel list (one because of birth and one just because) and since I'

Earlier this week, I posted some photos of the new Elf the Movie Lionel O-Gauge Boxcar that we pre-ordered for this past Christmas, but just arrived in February.  Welp, here's the other one:  A National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation "Merry Clarkmas" boxcar. Both of these Lionel cars are made in the USA and have that special American flag box.  I was going to give this to one of my nephews who really loves this movie last year, but I swapped in something else because this didn't arrive.  I'll pack this one up too, and take it off to our storage unit for a few months.  There's light at the end of the tunnel, though.  Just four more months until we'll be in our place.  At least that's what I'm hoping for right now. The boxcar features the Griswold's house and station wagon with the huge tree strapped to the top, Cousin Eddie's RV, the tree out in the wild and a bit more. Including Clark, the squirrel and the flying Santa and Re

Recently a box arrived from TrainWorld that included a few little surprises.  Why were they surprises?  Because I had pre-ordered a few things from the 2016 Lionel Catalog that had late fall delivery before Christmas last year.  Unfortunately, Lionel didn't make their deadlines, so these despite these boxcars having Christmas themes (I'll post the other one on a different day), came in February. (in other news, the 2017 catalog is up at Trainworld and they're accepting pre-orders .  There are a bunch of stuff that I'm keen to buy...but I wonder if I should wait for the new house??) This first one is from Elf the Movie.  It features Buddy the Elf and a few phrases like "Son of a nutcracker".  I don't love boxcars, but I do love a good Christmas train and love Elf, so this one was hard to pass up. Here's the side panel of the box showing the boxcar description.  These will go over to my Dad's house until we get moved into our place.  Once t

Last week, I showed off the newest addition to the Mantleburg Line in the Target Launching Balloon car , but it wasn't the only new car we bought at the Christmas Train Show out in Wheaton a few weeks ago.  We also added this car above - that has some action just like the balloon car.  It is called the #3510 Satellite Launching Car and is part of the "Pre-War Celebration Series" of reproductions from some early 1940's cars. That silver/metal-looking satellite launches up in the air when you position the car on on operating segment of track.   You can see it here (I've tee'd up this video to start at the right time) in action . It does a very quick trip to the ceiling then down.  Adds some fun operating concepts to the train that takes it from running around in a oval to something that is a bit more interesting for the kids and makes them last a lot longer down in Papa's basement with their Christmas Trains.

Over the weekend, we took my Dad and the Gooz to the annual Christmas Train Show out at the DuPage County Fairgrounds to pick up a few things for everyone's Christmas Train layouts.  With so many boxcars already around, I'm only really interested in getting 'action cars' or 'operating cars' and that's why this "Lionel 6-19824 US Army Operating Target Launcher" car came home with us. See that blue thing on the top of the car?  That is a fan/heater that blows air up through the top of the car and makes a balloon kind of 'hover' above the car.   Here's a quick video that shows the car in action .  It's called a 'target' car because there's a companion 'shooting' car that you can use to aim at the balloon.   Here's a short video that shows that action going on .  Alas, this time, we only got the balloon car, but there's always next year when we can pick up the shooting car, right?

Three kids and now three Disney-themed Lionel O-Gauge train cars for the year.  First was the 75th Anniversary Dumbo boxcar for the King of the Ball Tossers then there was 50th Anniversary Winnie the Pooh Boxcar for the Bird and now above you see a Winter Wishes Pluto 'walking brakeman' boxcar with Santa Minnie and Mickey on the side.  ( Here's a quick video that shows what a typical walking brakeman car does .) This car is in the beautiful non-orange Disney Railroad Lionel packaging, just like the other two.   We set up the kid's Christmas train last weekend at Papa's house and based on the cars that they picked to run on the Mantleburg line, these all will be in heavy rotation next year.

Late in September, I posted a few photos of a special Lionel/Disney Dumbo boxcar that I picked up for one of the kids this year and just this week I received another Disney pre-ordered boxcar.  This time it is the 50th Anniversary of Winnie the Pooh in O-Gauge boxcar form. And just like with the Dumbo car, this Pooh Bear car comes in a pretty nice "Disney Railroad" box.  Took pics of the front, a close-up of the photo of the car on the back of the box and the product listing on the side label that you can see below. As I mentioned in the Dumbo car post, I wasn't quite sure who that one was destined for (amongst my kids and nephews), but this one?  The Pooh Bear one?  That's for the one and only Pooh Bear lover in our family:  The Bird.  She sleeps with a Pooh Bear every night!  He's her favorite.   Well...Ariel might be her true favorite, but Pooh Bear has been there through it all! Have to say that I'm a sucker for Disney/Lionel crossovers.  There&#

In the Venn Diagram that includes Lionel O-Gauge train stuff and Disney stuff, the overlap has been small but consistent over the years.  You can go to any train show (and...yes those things exist!) and find some vintage Mickey the Mouse cabooses and box cars from over the years. And if we were to map people who would have an interest in that intersection, I'd gladly raise my hand.  As we've talked about before, I grew up with a Christmas Train.  My Dad would break out his vintage post-war Lionel train some time after Thanksgiving and we'd set it up.  Sometimes, around the tree, but at some point, my Mom relegated it to the basement.  That tradition - of breaking out the Lionel train set - has been one that I've tried to bring to my own kids.  And, my Dad fed the beast by giving the oldest girl - The Babe - her own set when she was 1. So, beside last year - when we were transient during the holidays - we've set up our Holiday Train.  And we're not aimin

Menards has been doing a really great job of churning out some interesting O Gauge rolling stock over the past few years.  This car above is from the Canadian National and if you look closely has a little mark to the right of the door that says 'Built by Menards 2015'.  My oldest sister has been working in the railroad industry for a long while.  First for the Chicago and Northwestern.  Then the Union Pacific.  And now the Canadian National.   She keeps a few O Gauge cars in her office.  Have to think that this one would fit in well. And that might be the best use of these Menards cars, in my opinion.  Looks.  The couplers kinda suck.  They roll really nice and once you have them set up and connected, there's very few problems.  But, they're NOT high-quality couplers and NOT Lionel couplers.  They sell these cars pretty cheap.  Like $20 for each one and less if you buy 6 of them or something like that.  Can you imagine having a layout that would allow for your train

A few weekends back, I packed up The Bird and The Gooz and my dad in the van and we went out to the Wheaton Fairgrounds for the Great Midwest Train Show .  This is the second time we've gone to the show (last year, I went with my dad) and it was a lot of fun.   I picked up a few things for me, my kids and my nephew, but by far, the best purchase was this really cute vintage metal tunnel.  It was being sold by a guy who had HO scale stuff and had this over on the edge of his table.  He was asking $10 for it and I got it for $5.  Pretty great deal, if you ask me!  I think he was happy to get rid of it.  I was happy to get it! It has some really great scenes on both sides of it.  And it is like a foot-long. Our layout has never been 'realistic', so I think adding something like this adds a bit of whimsy and - frankly - vintage charm that I really like. I think, tragically, we're not going to be putting up the kids' train this year because we're in Equa

The fine folks up in Wisconsin at Menards are out with another new set of O Gauge train cars that caught my eye this week.  They're calling them 'Flatcars with Panel Trucks' and the trucks are vintage-looking wagons.  They're pretty cute. They're promo'ing three of them:  Union Pacific, Soo Line and Santa Fe.  No Chicago and North Western, though. The Lionel set that my dad had from his childhood is a Santa Fe post-war set and I have to think that these Santa Fe cars would look preeettay preeettay preeettay great with his other Santa Fe stuff.

Looks like a little typo slipped past the editor of the Menards O Gauge Train 'stuff' advertisement that they're running in Classic Toy Trains.  And...yes...let's get this out of the way:  I am a subscriber to said magazine.  Painful and nerdy; yes it is. But, if you look on the Menards' site, you see that they call out/spell O Gauge the right way with the 'u' in there.  Was it a space issue?  Could they not fit in the 'u' in the green box?  Or just sloppy editing?  I'm guessing the later. As an aside...I used to keep a blog that highlighted things like this (typos) in the political world.  Boy...those were the days.

Menards is really stepping up their game when it comes to O Gauge rail cars and buildings this year.  In addition to producing a bunch of 'weathered' boxcars, they've come out with a few pretty interesting additions to their rolling stock collection. The first of which is this Military Long Flatcar with a "Deuce and a Half" .  From the Menards' product listing comes this detail: Honor our armed services from the past and present with this brand new O gauge military flatcar featuring a longer, simulated wood platform that measures 10.5" long. It is decorated in military green and easily couples with most O scale train cars. The Deuce and a Half transport truck and fuel transporter are intricately detailed and constructed of resin. This is a limited edition military train car that is recommended for O-36 and larger curves. They've priced it at $39.99 which is a fair price for a car with this amount of detail.   I've bought a few cars from Men