Annual Christmas Car Quandry

I'd go with the flat car and trailer.   

Flat car and trailer 

Another vote for the trailer on the flat car.

Flat car.

"I am considering a break with tradition this year and going with not only a non religious offering but a different type of car all together, the trailer on flatcar offering by MTH. What is you guys opinion on the boxcar and/or the flatcar this year?"

I broke with my MTH Christmas box car tradition this year just because MTH broke away from their traditional Christmas artwork and replaced it with this very poor excuse for art!!! 

When I opened up the RTR catalog earlier this year and saw what was going to be offered, I thought "What are they thinking?" What a let down!

yea i would go with the flatcar over the boxcar, but i see what your saying though. I personally LOVE Lionels 2016 christmas car this year!! I love the colors, and it really is sharp looking in person!! 

Grampstrains posted:

The best Christmas car by far this year is the Angela Trotta Thomas car.  The Smithsonian car is a close second.

I agree on the Angela trotta car this year.. great car!! If you dont care since its not dated, I love my dated holiday cars. As long as you dont care , thats a great car!!

Well, certainly not MTH's best artwork on the boxcar, that's for sure.  There's something 'odd' about MTH's choice of the green color on both cars, however.   I'd have used a deeper/darker green, a redder red....but that's just MHO, of course.

OTOH, if I cast a vote...as others have...for the flat/trailer, I would hope that the train wends its way around a creche on the layout in an effort to capture the true meaning of 'Christmas'.  

BTW, the Lionel car this year IS very nice....and the MTH flat/trailer is a nice complement (reindeer/sleigh).

Whatcha got pulling them??

Pictures.....once you've made your choice?

Merry Christmas!

I have been collecting Lionel Christmas cars since they started.  With few exceptions, I have them all.

I think the flat car and trailer looks far better.  But, if I were collecting box cars, I would go with the box car.  I don't like to break tradition.

I would go with both in this case.  I just bought Lionel's flat car and trailer Christmas REA offering yesterday.  I may buy the MTH too.

Tony

I agree, the MTH Christmas boxcar is kind of a letdown but I collect every year since 2012, when I first started a layout under the tree for the grandkids, ( okay, that's the reason I give people)! So I got it this year and hope criticism inspires them for next year! LOL And I do like their religious theme!

I don't collect Christmas cars, but for what it's worth, I think "bland" is being generous (in keeping with the season!!!). They would have been better served if they had done the car like the trailer - red on top, green on bottom, and maybe the door white. But as Tony and Play Trains have pointed out, if you've collected the for years, maybe you don't want to break with tradition. I have a pretty complete set of the Hallmark Lionel ornaments - I had to hold my nose, but I even got the ugly pink steamer to keep up the collection.

The flat car is definitely better looking.  It is the white on the lower half of the boxcar that makes it look off.  If they had gone with green instead of white, it would have been a nice boxcar.

Andy

Unfortunately, if you look at Christmas decorations in many stores, these sorts of odd colors are common these days.  A fair number of consumers and/or product designers are pushing/accepting a trend toward "different, up-to-date, cool" (pick your adjective); the traditional color palate is apparently boring to some.  There are BLACK Christmas trees in the stores, fercryinoutloud.  It looks to me like MTH is pursuing that trend.

Not for me, thankyouverymuch. 

But the box car reflects the real reason for the season!

If it's one or the other, I'd vote for tradition and add the box car. Keep the string of years going. The white on the bottom of the box car is the theme they've been using for the last couple of years. Seems to me they change up the color schemes every 3 or so years as the early versions I have all have creme and blue and then they switched over to creme with green or red for a couple of years, and lately it's the white base with green and red. They all are related to the Nativity so it's really the religious theme and time that make them attractive for me.

Full disclosure - I bought them both!

Thanks for the replies, I think I'm going to stick with tradition this year and go with the boxcar for two reasons, one is it has the religious theme and two it does have the date ( I will admit the date was the deciding factor altho the trailer does say 120016 on but it why it doesn't say 122016 is a bit strange). I hope that next years offering goes back to past artwork designs, while I'm not a religious person by any stretch I do understand and respect tradition and the reason for the holiday and it does bring back memorys from when I was younger. In fact this year the wife and I were planning to set up her Lenox Nativty set under the tree until it became obvious we would be having three 6 month old kittens running around the house this Christmas and that would probably be a bad mix.

Jerry

Interesting Jerry! I'm a bit nervous because this will be the first Christmas for our newest German Shorthair Pointer! I am getting ready for some serious, intense training! Hopefully he learns as fast our others do! LOL

For the MTH cars, I'd say the TOFC is better looking.

Certainly a unique Christmas car this years is Lionel's 83917 personalized box car.  Can personalize a message and a photo on the car. This car isn't in the 2016 catalog, its available from the Lionel store.  Also note the original 2016 personalized Christmas car (83762) was canceled and replaced by  the 83917.

photo of the Lionel car before being personalized:

I have this image of the personalized box car with a picture on it of our GSP puppy with the MTH Christmas car in his mouth! Not a pretty picture! LOL

I took Amtrak into Chicago on Thanksgiving Day and then Friday managed my way over to Macy's on State Street. Once there, found this Doorbuster table filled with Lionel products...and all were priced at 40% off. I had been on the fence regarding the purchase of this years Macy's 90th Anniversay Boxcar from Lionel, but being there and able to get it for $40.00...well somehow it made it into my suitcase for the train ride home and now joins the other Thanksgiving Parade and Christmas cars on my layout this year.

Very interesting was an animated display in one of the store windows that produced an image of a child playing with a toy train under a Christmas tree...could be the use of subliminal selling to get toy trains into little ones hands? Did hear one parent say to his son..."look at that little boy playing with his toy train under the tree"...so maybe it worked?

ed h posted:

For the MTH cars, I'd say the TOFC is better looking.

Certainly a unique Christmas car this years is Lionel's 83917 personalized box car.  Can personalize a message and a photo on the car. This car isn't in the 2016 catalog, its available from the Lionel store.  Also note the original 2016 personalized Christmas car (83762) was canceled and replaced by  the 83917.

photo of the Lionel car before being personalized:

Did Lionel advertise these. I would have liked to have had one if I had known. Now they are sold out.

Big Jim - The 83917 wasn't really advertised, or at least all that well.  The 2016 RTR catalog had the initial version of the car as 83762, that one was canceled and replaced by the 83917 in mid summer.  Problem was the newer car never made it into the volume 2 catalog, other than being in lionelstore.com, there wasn't much of an announcement. Still think Lionel needs a product changes/announcements section on their website to document such changes.

Thanks Ed. 

Looks like Lionel is taking it in the butt this season!!!

Big Jim posted:

ed h posted:

For the MTH cars, I'd say the TOFC is better looking.

Certainly a unique Christmas car this years is Lionel's 83917 personalized box car.  Can personalize a message and a photo on the car. This car isn't in the 2016 catalog, its available from the Lionel store.  Also note the original 2016 personalized Christmas car (83762) was canceled and replaced by  the 83917.

photo of the Lionel car before being personalized:

Did Lionel advertise these. I would have liked to have had one if I had known. Now they are sold out.

I made a call to the Lionel Store today and asked why this car was out of stock. The young lady stepped away from the phone, came back and said the car shells were out of stock, but, would find out if any more would be coming in. She emailed me this afternoon and this car is again available as of late this afternoon. Nice job Lass!

My vote is for the car with the trailer my issue with the Christmas cards they put the date on both sides and big print I would rather they just left the year off and focused on the artwork of the car. Or maybe offer it either way.

Joe Gozzo