Snap on Snow covered roofs to hold LED Christmas lights to Box car roofs????

My personal opinion is that fiber optics mounted entirely from the inside would make a neater, more professional looking and safer installation.

Cut white or ice blue flannel fabric a little larger than roof.  Hot glue wires to bottom so lights show.  Secure fabric with double sided tape.

I had thought about finding some junk box cars and holes in them to mount lights from inside would be easy to push the bulbs through then doing a custom paint job but did not want to start modifying or drilling really nice someone collectable existing Christmas cars. But I had another idea will try it and post results is to use corrugated white plastic sheets bend them to the roof shape sloped, and mount lights in the corrugated channels from behind.  Have little tabs sticking out I an use to thin wire tie around the roof walks at either end. Spray top with white spackle paint and sprinkle on some silver glitter while still wet. Will try it see it if works and post a photo.

I was trying to stay away from tape to prevent damage to roof paint. Thanks for the ideas!

Let me share what I did.

First, I did not use LEDs:  I can't stand the colors.  I used little incandescents sold to decorate ceramic or resin houses/buildings for Christmas gardens.  they use 2 AA batteries for power (they can also use a wall-wart adapter that a person clever with electrical circuits could use to employ track power, but I am not clever).  The set I used was sold under the Lemax brand:

I took a super common, white #6019 Frisco scout boxcar.  I drilled a series of holes under the edge of the roof and also in the doors and ends (the door and end holes were camouflaged by little wreaths sold for decorating the same buildings.

I inserted the lights from the inside and secured them with a little ACC/super glue.  I cut a small square out of the hole to provide access to the power switch, and I secured the battery box to the floor with Velcro.  The Velcro holds the door of the box; I change batteries by sliding the box off its doors.

A short video of the result:

I have a similar red car that will soon get the same treatment with white lights.

I also did a Bachmann On30 Christmas combine, but I simply glued the butt of the sockets to the car side and call the connecting wires garland:

Hi Palallin,

Great job mounting the lights in your boxcar. I agree with the incandescent lights and have used a similar set but I just wrapped them around the top of the car and shoved the battery box through the open door.  

As for the OPs request to have a removable snow load for a boxcar, that sounds like a do-it-yourself project. There are so many different Christmas box cars that a manufacturer would never recover the development and production costs on a specialty item like that.  

John

Palallin,  what a great way to have a lighted boxcar. No power from the rails needed. That looks great.

I have just about everything MTH issued with Christmas lights except for the RK GS4.  I would be interested in adding these lights to a steam engine like the Hudson or a Berk.  Both the engine and tender would have to be decorated with lights.  Any ideas on how this can be accomplished??  Where would I hide the battery pack?

Do you have a specific engine in mind?  Any room in the tender?