lights on the Holiday Train flicker on and off

I bought mine a year ago  -- premier set-- and my LHS told me to be careful handling and try not to touch the lights.  He said that causes most issues (fragile).  Not sure what is causing  your flickering, but you may want to have a tech look at it.  I have one car that works perfect except it shorts out everything when I run it in reverse.  Go figure.  My LHS said it's probably a rectifier.  It's going in the shop for repair after Christmas is over.

Those Christmas light on the cars and loco are so sweet. Every time I go to a hobby shop that has one I drool over it. Yet at the same time I am thinking .....What happens when those lights have issues? Who will repair? Where will replacement parts come from? After warranty is up MTH wants nothing to do with it. Then I leave the hobby shop with money in my pocket. I hope you get your issues fixed. Again, really nice when working as it is supposed to.

My hobby shop tech told me he doesn't need MTH parts to fix the holiday lights.  He says he has his own rectifier to fix them.  And he says its better.  I'm more concerned about the engine.  Those boards are expensive and hard to get.  And we all have that risk with every MTH engine we own.

Loose wire from pickup ? Got a tree car last year and under the crates was a poor solder joint. I expect it's something simple.

That seems to be an issue we've heard about before. I'm pretty sure the year those CP cars were released there were several posts here about: a) lights flickering and b) others where they completely went out.  It's possible that a search may be able to find some of those old threads.

Johnstrains,

Good point.  I recall reading those posts before I purchased my set last year.  That's where my Hobby Shop guy told me about not touching the lights and you should be okay.