Just Released MTH Premier Southern Pacific Daylight Passenger Cars w/ LEDs

Highly unlikely based on other cars. 

Also - they won't be released and available for purchase until sometime next spring/summer at the absolute earliest if they were just cataloged. 

There goes my LED lighting board business!

I wouldn't say that John. When people start buying these cars with LED's, their going to be so impressed with the quality of the lighting, their going to want to go to LED's in every passenger car they own. Not only that, your kits have a great feature of being able to adjust the brightness. I doubt that will be a feature on these MTH cars. So get ready because, when seeing pictures of LED lighted cars online, it really doesn't do the lighting any justice. It's not until you actually see them in person that they knock your socks off. I remember when I got the fever when delivering lumber to the Amish in Strasburg.  I stopped by the Choo Choo Barn on my lunch break and they had a modern Amtrak passenger train running around the layout with "cool white" LED's installed. The cool white gave them a look that matched modern day florescent lighting, with no flickering. That's when I got hooked.

I know Dave, that was kinda' a tongue-in-cheek comment.

Uh....the original poster was asking about the CHRISTMAS lights, not the interior lights. 

So do these MTH passenger cars only have exterior LED Christmas lighting with incandescent interior lighting ?

I am sure they have LEDs inside as well for the overhead lighting. I just feel MTH would sell more sets if they offered an On/Off switch for just the exterior Christmas lights, so you can run these cars all year long and choose when to flip on the Christmas lights. If they do offer an On/Off switch I would buy a set, as they would not be limited to just Christmas time. 

Actually, I think they would sell out of these if they sold them as people were getting off the Holiday Express at Oaks Station.  

Ok...maybe not. Most people there wouldn't be willing to shell out 2k for a model of the train they just finished riding. But, I might. 

I think I'd just add my own switch.

This is where having a strong product manager Stateside will make all the difference.  

Obviously, it makes sense to have two separate switches -- one for the interior lighting, and one for the exterior Christmas lights.... which is how I'd hope these get produced.  But without somebody on the MTH side driving the issue and the detailed specs though, it's anyone's guess as to how the Chinese will build he cars.  

Remember what happened when Lionel's factory manufactured their California Zephyr?  Nobody Stateside could even tell us with any certainty if the observation car would have a dome.  Left to chance, it didn't.  But nobody knew until the container of cars arrived Stateside.  

Hopefully that won't be the case here, and MTH will provide an answer before the cars are manufactured, shipped and inspected.