Toy Train Help?

[Foofoogal]

Lionel 31960 Polar Express Christmas Train Set
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Our granddaughter just informed me she wants the train in the Polar Express movie for Christmas.
The problem is it is pricey and she mainly wants a train that blows smoke. Is there such a train. I don't think this one does blow smoke. Surely someone knows toy trains.

 

[dhermann1]

How old is she? The Lionel Polar Express set is pricey indeed. I was just looking at a couple of train forums discussing the same question. I'll do a little more research and let you know what I find.
I gave my niece an HO scale set when she was about 4 and she loved it. There are a lot of possibilities out there, and you have plenty of time.

 

[Foofoogal]

thank you. she is almost 12 and very unique. lol

 

[Geesie]

I am an American Flyer partisan, and would heartily recommend that superb vintage brand over Lionel.

 

[Viola]

Many MANY trainsets have hollow smoke-stacks in the engine and you pop a teeny capsule in them that smokes. You can put the same capsule in the chimneys of some Christmas village houses.

They don't have to be terribly expensive (though the trains ARE more expensive than the wee little houses, my original love, tee hee, I'm such a dork) and they have a number of Christmas-themed ones. Ask the guy at the hobby shop about the capsules, I never actually bought them so I don't know the brand. And he should be able to make sure that the train set you get works with them.

 

[Absinthe_1900]

Most of the current O gauge trains use liquid in drop form, some like the MTH brand trains, put out enough smoke to set off a smoke detector.

Pick up a copy of Classic Toy Train Magazine, you can find all of the big train sellers and their websites.

http://www.trains.com/ctt/

Myself, I prefer Pre-War Lionel, and some of the recent Pre-War reproductions.

 

[dhermann1]

American Flyer

American Flyer trains are exquisite, but not for a 12 year old girl just starting out for fun.
Just as an aside, I had friends many years ago who had (and still have, actually) an American Flyer set, with steam loco, passenger cars, a working mailbag pick up, and a microphone you could talk into (or bark into, for that matter) and make the train stop and start. The wife had won it in a raffle (along with a turkey) at a supermarket in San Francisco around Thanksgiving of 1946. What a gorgeous Christmas train that was!
Anyhow, for a kid that age HO would be ideal. A good quality steam locomotive might set you back over $150, but there are also decent ones for about $50. That along with 3 passenger cars, some track and a power pack could total up to maybe $120 or $130. I looked online and there are lots of nice little complete freight car sets for under $100, but I couldn't find any passenger sets. I'll pm you a list of links with some interesting possibilities. If a freight train is OK with her, then you're good to go.
Oh, and BTW, NEVER call them toy trains!!! They're MODEL trains!
Toy trains you wind up. Electric trains are SERIOUS business to enthusiasts.

 

[up196]

"Thank God for the model trains, you know? If they didn't have the model trains they wouldn't have gotten the idea for the big trains."

Amber Cole, A Mighty Wind

 

[Foofoogal]

wow, thank you all. I love big trains as well as model trains.
We went a bit nuts when our son was young and had a set up with people, apple trees etc. but I cannot remember what brand it was. Somewhere I have a very large train boxed up as in big cars. I think it is german maybe.
Every Christmas this couple would open their home for Christmas tours also. The man had one whole room with trains running. The wife had upstairs with dolls and toys. It was a dream and I still cannot believe they just opened their home to strangers but I will be grateful forever. It was a delight to young and old. They served cocoa and cookies and Santa.
I didn't expect my granddaughter to ask for a train but Christmas and model trains go hand in hand to me and I am excited.

 

[Zemke Fan]

Okay, hope this helps...

I just did an exhaustive search on the last 90 days of eBay auctions using Terapeak. Complete sets have been selling (and are still available) for as low as $220.00 + $16 s/h. The cheapest auctions for open boxes were $175-$185. So either keep an eye out or else use the BIN option.

I know it's a lot of money, but, hey... it's a Lionel train she can give HER granddaughter!!

 

[Geesie]

American Flyer trains are exquisite, but not for a 12 year old girl just starting out for fun.
Just as an aside, I had friends many years ago who had (and still have, actually) an American Flyer set, with steam loco, passenger cars, a working mailbag pick up, and a microphone you could talk into (or bark into, for that matter) and make the train stop and start. The wife had won it in a raffle (along with a turkey) at a supermarket in San Francisco around Thanksgiving of 1946. What a gorgeous Christmas train that was!
Anyhow, for a kid that age HO would be ideal. A good quality steam locomotive might set you back over $150, but there are also decent ones for about $50. That along with 3 passenger cars, some track and a power pack could total up to maybe $120 or $130. I looked online and there are lots of nice little complete freight car sets for under $100, but I couldn't find any passenger sets. I'll pm you a list of links with some interesting possibilities. If a freight train is OK with her, then you're good to go.
Oh, and BTW, NEVER call them toy trains!!! They're MODEL trains!
Toy trains you wind up. Electric trains are SERIOUS business to enthusiasts.

Most enthusiasts I know consider S and O gauge to be 'toy trains'. While American Flyer and the good Lionel trains did have great detail and scenery, they never really had the full modeling characteristics and following that HO and N get.

 

[dhermann1]

N scale

I love N scale! I have a lot of N scale stuff that I used to set up each year at Christmas. Now that I've moved, I'm going to need to build a whole new layout, which I'm afraid won't happen (again) this year. But I used to have a pretty neat, tho small, N scale Christmas layout beneath the tree.

 

[Diamondback]

On "toys": Not quite, Dan--the El Cheapo stuff by Bachmann and Walthers/Life-Like (not to be confused with their higher-end Spectrum or Proto lines, respectively, although neither really compete with Broadway Limited) you see at MallWart and ToysRUs fit there too for their "quality".

+1 on Classic Toy Trains as a start-point, but you should also find a local specialist RR hobby-shop and ask the pros there for thoughts. (This is a good time to pick up CTT--even buying something small says "Thank You", my local shop tends to live more on guys like me who buy small stuff every time we stop in and occasionally a bigger purchase than the guys who rack up a four-figure order once and are never seen again.)

 

[Cobden]

I suppose the other option is to find models of the locomotive the ones in the film were based on (according to that fount of knowledge, wikipedie, a Pere Marquette 1225, which Bachmann make a model of), which may be a cheaper option (no money for the licensing after all), though one may need to do a little fiddling to make it identical - such as changing the company name on the tender.

 

[Foofoogal]

http://www.collectibles-articles.com/Article/The-Lionel-Polar-Express---The-Holiday-Train/31535

decided I am going to buy this for her birthday instead as I want to get her other stuff besides and it is expensive for Christmas. Hope they don't go up after this article of course.

 

[dhermann1]

Ohhhh . . . . That's a really nice one! I want one too!
There will probably be post Christmas sales on it.

 

[chanteuseCarey]

Foofoogal-- I hope I'm not too late in finding this thread to help! We are Lionel and Large Scale (G scale) enthusiasts/fanatics here. I'm the one that is most hooked on O-scale (Lionel and MTH), NOT my husband! The Lionel and MTH trains are mine; I hunted down, scouted prices, and bought all of them! Plus the 20-car consist G scale circus train is all mine too!

We have the Lionel Polar Express train starter set, I bought it the year AFTER the movie came out, as I was not going to buy into the first year it came out feeding frenzy skyrocketed prices on evilBay.

We had it running every night for weeks in our garage on our family's Holiday open-to-the Neighborhood Train Layout(s) one year- complete with a large mountain it ran through. Three O-scale trains operated simultaneously on a 9'x12' raised us-built train table. We had four G scale trains also running on us-built tables, total size 16'x20' on the front driveway.

Last year the PE ran around the Xmas tree in the house. It will again this year. I'll probably be swapping the plastic PE cars for my older metal cars to better match the metal PE engine and tender. I have three vintage metal Lionel Blue Comet passenger cars (dating to the late 20s) that are very cool.

The evilBay prices others mentioned right now for the PE starter set is good! If you want to get it, I'd say do it. For a child get the modern track as is in the starter set with the PE. The old style Lionel track, cool as it is a b***h to take apart and put together. I use another's mfg. track (Atlas three-rail) for our O layouts and I love it.

For this PE train you put drops of smoke fluid in it. It is a nice little smoker, not too much but just enough to be fun.The whistle sound on the PE btw, is VERY cool, a kind of sad, lonely whistle noise is how I describe it.

For nice figures for an O scale train set, I don't recommend myself (okay I'm not a complete toy train purist, honest!) that you get the Lionel O-scale people. The larger figures from Dept 56 aren't the right O-scale either and are too high gloss/shiny finish to really look good- though lots of people do use 'em. The ones we REALLY like are the Dept 56 Seasons Bay figures. They are a matte paint finish, are pewter like the old stuff and are a nice workable scale for the O-scale. They are highly detailed. However, they are Victorian themed people, not modern.

I'm posting a couple of pics of our G scale trains that were in the front driveway for FL folks to see. This was (2004) the first year we shared our trains with the community. It got bigger and better each year we did it. The year we had the also the O-scale trains was 2007.

 

[Diamondback]

Also, for O Gauge/O Scale, any commercial 1/48-scale vehicle, aircraft or accessory-kit for same is nominally the same scale and thus potentially display/scenery-fodder.

 

[Flivver]

A good way to find an inexpensive, yet serviceable O-Gauge train set for a child is to go to a train collector's swapmeet. There are many independant shows this time of year, but the best ones are sponsored by the TCA (Train Collector's Association). Their meets used to be for members only, but now many are open to the public. You can check their website to see if they sponsor any shows in your area:

http://www.traincollectors.org/

TCA members are interested in getting kids interested in trains so many offer inexpensive starter sets for just that purpose. I've seen some beautiful sets of common (and therefore not very collectable) trains offered at these meets for well under $100. And most of these meets have test tracks set up so you can test the trains for correct operation before purchasing them.

I'd concentrate on looking for Lionel trains from the 1980s. These have a lot of play value and a classic look, but are not as detailed as the scale and semi-scale O-Gauge trains that are popular with collectors today.

 

[chanteuseCarey]

The 1/43 scale ones also work well.

Also, for O Gauge/O Scale, any commercial 1/48-scale vehicle, aircraft or accessory-kit for same is nominally the same scale and thus potentially display/scenery-fodder.