Christmas Lionel Letdown

Mark, This is a lesson we learned a while back, when we purchase an operating toy, we open and run it before it gets wrapped. It's to hard to deal with the disappointment that shows on a child's face.

Ray

@Rayin"S" posted:

Mark, This is a lesson we learned a while back, when we purchase an operating toy, we open and run it before it gets wrapped. It's to hard to deal with the disappointment that shows on a child's face.

Ray

Yeah that’s a good lesson and one I haven’t learned in over 21 years of parenting. I didn’t try out the train set. At most if I was on top of things I would have set it up Christmas Eve but that would have been too late to do anything about it. And this isn’t my first Christmas epic fail.

I drove about 110 miles round trip to my “local” hobby shop where I bought it today and they swapped out the locomotive. The good news is my little girl is absolutely over the moon for her new train set. The volume was too loud but I used the app to adjust it.

The locomotive is a little jerky at low-ish speeds. However, it passes the all important “staying on the rails at flank speed” test, even if someone dials up full reverse. I also got her an MPC era gondola so she can haul stuff with her Frozen consist. Glad she’s happy!

When I was not yet two years old, my Grandpa gave me some little plastic, battery-operated, near-HO-sized train for Christmas.  It came with a plastic play mat with roads, roadbed, and various other details on it and paperboard buildings, signals, gates, and so forth.  He waited till Christmas morning to set it up, and the thing was DoA.  *I* was too young to notice, but *he* was mighty disappointed.  It went back to Sears the next day in exchange for the only Marx set left in the store.  I still have that set--it's on the layout even as I type--and he learned the lesson.  Every subsequent train he gave me (as long as he was able) got tested and set up running before Christmas morning.

Funnily enough, years later in '76, he took me shopping on Christmas Eve for that year's Christmas train at Sears, and they had nothing left but a pair of Santa Fe Bluebonnet Alcos.  I wanted them, but he insisted that we get a whole set, so we went to Penny's and walked out with a Tyco Chattanooga Choo-Choo.  It was, of course, too late to test.  naturally, the next morning, the engine was DoA.  Mom took me back the next day for an exchange, and IT proved to be dead, too.  The third one finally worked.  (Still ran as of, say, ten years ago or so; haven't had it out since.)

Still wish I had gotten that pair of Alcos   It would have spared me a painful detour into HO.  I was able to develop a few skills--the only loco kit I ever built was in HO--but, Boy! did I ever get frustrated.

Anyway, the whole story goes to reinforce the suggestion Rayin"S" made.