Lionel/Hallmark Toy Maker Christmas Santa Express Train !

Great looking train !!  it would look great running with the new Christmas Express train Lionel made for this year !  

Here is my set, which I purchased in 2015.  It came out rather late in the shopping season, so it was repeated in 2016.  I have not seen any add-on cars for the Santa Toymaker Express. My two additional cars for this are the 2015 LCCA car and the boxcar from "A Christmas Story" which I received as a gift.  I'll see if I can post a video of the train running, too. 

Tim & WRGMILW,

  Thanks for the idea's, I do have many custom Christmas Cars to run with the HallMark Toymaker Santa Express, look closely at the 1st picture and notice the Custom ERIE Christmas Hobo/Cop Car that I custom created especially for the Toy Maker Santa Express Train, along with the vintage Tin Plate Christmas Dump Car.  I was really hoping Lionel and Hallmark would team up and put out an add on car this year for the Train.

PCRR/Dave  

Agreeably, the Toymaker Santa Express is set more vibrant and stunning in person than in photos. I have two sets. The first was bought the day after Christmas 2015 at 50% off and the second set was purchased the day after last Christmas, also for 50% off with both purchased at the same Hallmark Crown store.

Unfortunately, Dave, no add-on cars have been made for this set but that's likely a good thing since the engine has the same small motor as most of Lionel's 0-8-0 starter sets. While that motor can effortlessly pull the cars included with the set, it typically can't pull many more without undue strain on that small motor.

According to Hallmark's upper echelon, the reason resources and funding for additional cars wasn't forthcoming was the set's lackluster, disappointing sales in stores, seemingly doomed before even being manufactured because of poor marketing strategy and price point for the set. 

• First, model railroaders saw the $399 m.s.r.p with no discounting by retailers and generally decided that was too hefty a price for a LionChief starter set considering other Lion Chief starter sets were available discounted for much less.
• Second, any item costing that much which wasn’t either a limited, numbered collector’s edition item or imprinted for a certain year did not appeal to the vast majority of Hallmark collectors and was summarily dismissed by them.
• Third, there was poor product visibility in most retail stores due to the large amount of space required for an operating display of this set. Stores, of necessity, devoted their limited retail display space to smaller, less costly items thereby relegating any Toymaker Santa Express display to its sealed box sitting on a shelf. Not even a video monitor running a promotional video of this set was utilized in the vast majority of stores.

BTW, while this set was featured in both the 2015 and 2016 Hallmark Wishbook catalogs, it was only manufactured in 2015. It was featured again in the 2016 Wishbook since Hallmark needed to sell off the unusually large amount of inventory left unsold from the previous 2015 Christmas season. Unfortunately for Hallmark, the 2015 sales were so lackluster, many independent Hallmark retailers chose to not even carry it their stores during 2016 but instead told potential customers who inquired about the set that it had to be ordered on line at Hallmark.com.

UPDATED 12/12/2017

FYI - in an apparent attempt to blow out Hallmark's remaining stock on this 2015 production run, some select Hallmark Stores in southeastern PA/NJ currently have a Special 1/2 off ($200) closeout sale on this set with a Keepsake ornament purchase ~$15. No returns. Do your research and better hurry!!!