[MOD/MOC] Expanding the 10254 Winter Holiday Train

[Blackpool]

Very cool! As many have already stated, the hot cocoa car is a really neat idea. Great job. I've come up with a larger passenger car based on the toy story train that I'll post when I get a chance.

[JopieK]

On 27-10-2016 at 5:46 AM, aukevin said:

I build your passenger car tonight, very happy with it.  I could not have four sets of wheels on the car though and have it still go around curves on my track, so I only have two pair of wheels.  Were you able to get yours to go around curves with all four pairs?  Anyway, here's my car.  Thanks for the inspiration!  Will do the cocoa train next :)]

You could add a bogie plate above the wheels of course!

[Dick-Trom]

On 20-10-2016 at 8:33 AM, redtrooper27 said:

Well, I didn't want this train, but looking at your MODs/MOCs, got me thinking...

 

 

 

awesome work, by the way!

Same here, it looks amazing!

[GmaBlu]

Be still my heart... I already have the old Holiday Train in my Winter Village and the new one around a small elevated Christmas tree, but yours is soooo much better.  I bought your instructions.

I  love this mod!

[Fenestra]

Searching on ebay Instructions Lego has changed my life.... Thanks so much for making your instructions available for purchase! I am still so new to this I need all the help I can get!

[Xon67]

VERY nice!  Great ideas, great execution.

Ho, ho, ho!

[lugnut]

Here is your cocoa tanker built ... with some mods for the bricks that I had ... and some steam for the stack!

[mouseketeer]

Thank you for the kind words everyone! 

3 hours ago, lugnut said:

Here is your cocoa tanker built ... with some mods for the bricks that I had ... and some steam for the stack!

That's wonderful! Thank you for sharing the photo! I love knowing that something I've designed is now part of peoples' Christmases.

[yoshi98bc]

Was wondering were you put the second motor?

[mouseketeer]

The passenger is actually able to fit two motors (but I think you'll need to move the 2x6 with holes plate to line the motors up properly) - and it also looks better than doing it the official way in the locomotive! HOWEVER, over Christmas I found it can actually go round with just the one motor if you weight it down a bit (I've seen people use taped up coins to do this). Much cheaper than buying extra Power Functions too :) 

[Carefree_Dude]

I bought the instructions! So I motorized my christmas train, but it seems to have trouble pulling anything beyond what the set comes with. Is there a good way to weigh down the motor?

[ncx]

21 hours ago, Goldenmasamune said:

I bought the instructions! So I motorized my christmas train, but it seems to have trouble pulling anything beyond what the set comes with. Is there a good way to weigh down the motor?

I have a suggestion, if you have extra pieces, try extending the tender so it can use a train motor, the weight from the battery box will give it traction.  The design that was used by LEGO is poor, they did not design it for length it seems, just for what came with the set.

another idea is to extend the engine and power the drive wheels.  The engine as it is, is like driving a rear wheel drive car in the snow (except the traction is in the front but no weight is there to give it traction)

[Carefree_Dude]

I've been extending my own train and making good progress. 

I've made the engine and tender slightly bigger to better handle the extra load

I made the tree bigger.  Also added a mini figures placeholder until I get santa

I used a train plate and tan windows for the passenger car.  I also made the caboose bigger

Also the holed 1x1 round plates are great for making the gold poles sturdy

[Legocat8002]

Hi. Your Christmas Train is amazing. I've recently bought the original set but felt it was missing something and you have made the set complete.  I would like to buy your instructions. But was wondering if you could say roughly how much all the bits cost you from bricklink. Thank you. 

[kokkie20]

I calculated it and it was for me around 150 euro for all parts *excluding shipping + handling costs... (combined used and new parts) but that was some time ago, not sure now atm tough

Edited November 6, 2017 by kokkie20

[Legocat8002]

1 hour ago, kokkie20 said:

I calculated it and it was for me around 150 euro for all parts *excluding shipping + handling costs... (combined used and new parts) but that was some time ago, not sure now atm tough

Thank you for your help. I thought I could build one carriage a year to make it more affordable. I'm so excited to start 

 

[Fenestra]

I just recently Bricklinked the Train add-ons and found the Passenger/Gingerbread/Cocoa Wagon to be the most expensive. I held out on the three of those but ordered the pieces of the rest. I add to my village every year with the offical WV and usually some bricklinked items. So I will be holding off. Those wagons referenced above (when I checked) were about 50-100 USD each. The others I managed to get for 15-20 USD each. 

Also I did a seperate Want List for each of them in Bricklink to help better manage cost and what I was looking for if you are looking for some advice on that end. 

I hope to start building my soon but if you beat me to it I would love to see some of the pictures. 

On 2/12/2017 at 12:44 AM, Goldenmasamune said:

I've been extending my own train and making good progress. 

I've made the engine and tender slightly bigger to better handle the extra load

I made the tree bigger.  Also added a mini figures placeholder until I get santa

I used a train plate and tan windows for the passenger car.  I also made the caboose bigger

Also the holed 1x1 round plates are great for making the gold poles sturdy

Can you share how you were able to make the Engine and Tender slightly Larger? Also do you know have the battery back in the Engine for weight on the wheels?

[Legocat8002]

23 minutes ago, Fenestra said:

I just recently Bricklinked the Train add-ons and found the Passenger/Gingerbread/Cocoa Wagon to be the most expensive. I held out on the three of those but ordered the pieces of the rest. I add to my village every year with the offical WV and usually some bricklinked items. So I will be holding off. Those wagons referenced above (when I checked) were about 50-100 USD each. The others I managed to get for 15-20 USD each. 

Also I did a seperate Want List for each of them in Bricklink to help better manage cost and what I was looking for if you are looking for some advice on that end. 

I hope to start building my soon but if you beat me to it I would love to see some of the pictures.

This is the first Lego Christmas set I've bought, so I will buy the instructions and make a wagon from it next year, as i have 2 children to buy for. This is my set, as I never get a look in when they get their lego for Christmas. I did get the 24 in 1 Christmas set for Free when I spent over £60 on the lego shop today (buying the power functions for the train). 

[Carefree_Dude]

4 hours ago, Fenestra said:

I just recently Bricklinked the Train add-ons and found the Passenger/Gingerbread/Cocoa Wagon to be the most expensive. I held out on the three of those but ordered the pieces of the rest. I add to my village every year with the offical WV and usually some bricklinked items. So I will be holding off. Those wagons referenced above (when I checked) were about 50-100 USD each. The others I managed to get for 15-20 USD each. 

Also I did a seperate Want List for each of them in Bricklink to help better manage cost and what I was looking for if you are looking for some advice on that end. 

I hope to start building my soon but if you beat me to it I would love to see some of the pictures. 

Can you share how you were able to make the Engine and Tender slightly Larger? Also do you know have the battery back in the Engine for weight on the wheels?

Step 1: smash your christmas train into roughly 100 pieces.
Step 2: Purchase second christmas train set
Step 3: Try and build a large train using parts from the two sets
Step 4: realize the parts given don't work really well for two trains. Use only wheels and green pieces
Step 5: Grab the giant pile of various lego you have laying around. Make a basic frame for the train
Step 6: Realize your frame is bad and you should feel bad. Scrap it all.
Step 7: Look at various sources online for ideas. eventually just loosely base frame and gearing on emerald night
Step 8: Try to make your train as different from the emerald night as possible. Order Power functions parts and an M motor.
Step 9: Realize the M motor is bad for this and replace it with an XL motor you have laying around.
Step 10: After spending hours incorporating the XL motor into the train in an acceptable matter, learn that the L motor is a thing.
step 11: Order L motor, but never get around to actually installing it on the train.
Step 12: Use those curved green parts on your train, make it all nice and pretty.
Step 13: Add greebling and other stuff, to complete your train
Step 14: Try running your train. Realize it doesn't work properly.
Step 15: Try and figure out what went wrong, frustratingly destroying your model in the process
Step 16: Copy emerald night gearing exactly. Rebuild model.
Step 17: Forget you had gotten that nice L motor and use the huge XL motor instead.
Step 18: Come to the realization you just have a poorly recolored emerald night, consider scrapping the whole project and starting over, but never getting around to it.
Step 19: Congratulations! You now have completed your new christmas train!

[Fenestra]

4 hours ago, Goldenmasamune said:

Step 1: smash your christmas train into roughly 100 pieces.
Step 2: Purchase second christmas train set
Step 3: Try and build a large train using parts from the two sets
Step 4: realize the parts given don't work really well for two trains. Use only wheels and green pieces
Step 5: Grab the giant pile of various lego you have laying around. Make a basic frame for the train
Step 6: Realize your frame is bad and you should feel bad. Scrap it all.
Step 7: Look at various sources online for ideas. eventually just loosely base frame and gearing on emerald night
Step 8: Try to make your train as different from the emerald night as possible. Order Power functions parts and an M motor.
Step 9: Realize the M motor is bad for this and replace it with an XL motor you have laying around.
Step 10: After spending hours incorporating the XL motor into the train in an acceptable matter, learn that the L motor is a thing.
step 11: Order L motor, but never get around to actually installing it on the train.
Step 12: Use those curved green parts on your train, make it all nice and pretty.
Step 13: Add greebling and other stuff, to complete your train
Step 14: Try running your train. Realize it doesn't work properly.
Step 15: Try and figure out what went wrong, frustratingly destroying your model in the process
Step 16: Copy emerald night gearing exactly. Rebuild model.
Step 17: Forget you had gotten that nice L motor and use the huge XL motor instead.
Step 18: Come to the realization you just have a poorly recolored emerald night, consider scrapping the whole project and starting over, but never getting around to it.
Step 19: Congratulations! You now have completed your new christmas train!

Sorry you had to go though all of this but at least the end result is that it look great! :)