Lionel Serves Up Hot Chocolate For Christmas

May 6, 2006

The new Lionel 2006 Christmas Catalog is now available on line or at local hobby shops.

There are 24 new offerings from Lionel including the Hot Chocolate Car, Candy Cane Single Dome Tank Car and the North Pole Central 4-4-0 Steam Locomotive.

One of the most interesting new items is the Polar Express Add-on Hot Chocolate Car. This car is a coach car (not a diner) with silhouettes of the dancing “hot chocolate” waiters and seated children in the windows and also includes a replica Polar Express ticket.

Some of the silhouettes on the windows of last year’s Diner car are similar to the silhouettes of the Hot Chocolate car. The Diner car also has silhouettes of children holding up cups of hot chocolate.

Sure to be popular will be the new Lionel Polar Express items. There is a Lionel Polar Express Add-on Figure set which includes Santa, the Hobo, the Lonely Boy (Billy) and the Hero Girl. This is a good add-on to the four figures included in the Lionel Polar Express Set (The Conductor, Hero Boy, Smoke and Steamer).

There is also a new Polar Express Elf Handcar, including elves hanging from the handcar’s handles. This is a replica of the hand car the elves in the movie use to deliver the detached observation car back to the train.

All of the Lionel O Gauge items will operate on O-27 track. Some of the items are also offered in S Gauge and there is one G Scale Holiday Boxcar which could be meant as an add-on for the new G-Scale Holiday Tradition Express which debuted earlier this year.

The Lionel website is www.lionel.com.