Winter Village: Holiday Express

[ShaydDeGrai]

A few years before there _was_ a Winter Village theme, TLG came out with the 10173 Holiday Train. I've always considered this to be sort of like the pilot that kicked off the series, for a train has always been the defining hallmark of _my_ winter village set-up. Each year I arrange my sets beneath my Christmas tree. The track is the first thing I lay down, to define the space, and placing a train on those tracks is the finishing touch once the buildings are all in place.

For a few years, the official Holiday train was the engine of note around my tree until it was replaced by the Emerald Night.

This year, I was particularly fond of the little promotional train TLG was giving out for Brick Friday but it was far to small to incorporate into my village (as I had with some of the previous holiday promotion kits), so I decided to upscale things a bit.

So I present for your consideration, The Winter Village Holiday Express:

I realize that, with the exception of the 10235 Market set, official Winter Village sets usually devote most of the building experience to a static structure with a vehicle or two added to flesh things out a bit. This is a bit of a reversal, with the vehicle taking the spotlight and a small platform for context, but after a consultation with our organizer Rick, we decided to let the voters decide how apropos this might be for the contest.

Here we have the engine and tender decked out in holiday colors, along with a dutiful engineer to keep things rolling on time for all those holiday travelers.

The passengers themselves can hang out in the lounge car. If you look carefully, you'll note a certain gentleman in a bright red suit wishing everyone a merry Christmas as the train passes by.

We also have a small platform to help the folk of West Winterville get on and off the train (East Winterville has a full train station - which was my WV entry a few years ago).

For the curious, I have a few more shots (including a comparison of this guy with the inspiration model) over at my account on MOCPages.

Thanks for visiting and may this holiday season bring peace, joy and happiness to all.

[Gunman]

Hey all those golden details, make it fairy... Toy look :) Great work man.

[Robert8]

Awww this looks amazing!

Love the color scheme

I'd wish you luck, but you won't need it

Merry Christmas, ShaydDeGrai!

[Graham Gidman]

Fantastic train!

[Actor Builder]

Great job! That's a great color choice!

[brickbuilder711]

Holy cow that's a beautiful train love it! Merry Christmas!

[Naptown11]

Outside of my dream for Lego to build an official Polar Express train this should be the 2nd generation Holiday Train since the original is now selling for obscene prices. Great build, you should be proud of your work.