LEGO Creator Expert Winter Holiday Train 10254 - Christmas Train Building Set with Locomotive, Circle Track & Spinning Tree (734 Pieces) - Perfect for Holiday Displays & Collector's Showcase

Update on 2/24/2020: I recently modified my train to have the motor under the coal car, and also upgraded to the Powered Up (Power Functions 2.0) Bluetooth system. See comment below my original review. Also - this train will burn through batteries very fast. Do yourself a favor and invest in some rechargeable AAA's. At least for the Hub on the train itself. The remote control batteries last a long time.Original Review:Train is beautifully designed, except for the Power Functions used to motorize it. The motorization is cool when it actually works, but the train wheels skip on the tracks a lot. Numerous other reviews on Amazon and the Lego site have covered these issues so I won't get into the details.Luckily, I purchased the Power Functions items directly from Lego because they were cheaper (You need four items - IR Receiver, battery pack, motor, & remote control). I first called Lego to say the train was having trouble running back in the beginning of January. Almost two months and multiple phone calls later, Lego has replaced the IR receiver, then the battery pack, and finally the motor. Each time the customer service rep is convinced the specific part would solve the problem, and if have to wait 2 weeks for the part to ship (from Denmark).The first 2 replacements (IR Receiver & battery pack) solved nothing. The replacement motor seems to be helping, I only installed it today. The train barely runs if all four cars are attached (wheels skip really, really bad), but is running okay with just the engine and coal car. We'll see if that lasts. It usually loses power after a day or 2.I think the real issue is bad engineering and integration of the Power Functions. It seems like there is not enough power to pull the weight of the train. The motor is only powered by 6 AAA batteries. As I said, glad I purchased the Power Functions through Lego - they were very helpful with troubleshooting, though it was a slow process. Since nothing is working, they're refunding the money from the Power Functions. I doubt I'd have gotten this level of customer service from Amazon, or the willingness to give a refund so long after the purchase. In fact, the return period for the train from Amazon ended a month ago, so there's probably nothing I can do except write this review, even though it isn't my fault the troubleshooting with Lego took so long.I do recommend the train, it is really a neat set, just don't be disappointed if the Power Functions option doesn't work well, maybe don't get the train if you are only getting it for the motorization.This was a great addition to the train station I had previously assembled. The plan is to display this and add to it.Kids love it. My grandson has wanted this Lego set for at least a year. It won’t be an easy build, but he has become a pro! He loves trains.So, my 3.5 year old son saw this train in the lego catalog and got obsessed. He talked about it for weeks. So, I helped my mom order it to give him for christmas. I don't know much about lego, so I was shocked that it was already sold out by the beginning of December. I weighed the options with my mom, and she decided that she would bite the bullet and over-paid for this train. (MSRP is around $100; we paid $150.)Well, my son loved it. It is a beautiful lego train. I don't know why people are saying this is a small train...it is exactly what I expected from a lego train. It isn't humongous, but it isn't what I would consider small. The tracks are fair quality, but my kids ended up forgoing the tracks and pushed this all over the house, which is what they prefer to do with trains anyway. Do you see that christmas tree section? The tree has a miniature train around it and the tree/trains spin as you push the train along. My sister is a lego geek (has been into legos continuously from 6-26) and she explained to me that the Creator sets are often limited production and that they were kind of special, especially for collectors. So, at the end of the day, this is a beautiful train, but kind of lost on a 3.5 year old. It was lucky that my sister was around for the holidays, because this took quite some time to assemble. As a Creator set, which is usually more difficult/advanced, this took my sister and I more than half a day to complete (with breaks to amuse the kids). This is probably obvious to lego fans, but don't open all the packages at once. The packages are separated by steps. My father got excited and dumped all the pieces into one pile, which prolonged the whole process. At that point, I ended up just separating the pieces by color and we found them all fine that way.This was used as part of my Christmas display. I motorized it and added track. My 3 year old grandson was able to control it. It made a beautiful display with the station, gingerbread house and Santa’s visit.This train is fantastic and goes great with the rest of the Winter Village sets. The Power Functions accessories (sold separately) are easy to install and work great. This is actually the sturdiest remote control train I have ever used right out of the box.My only complaint would be that adding the motor and battery pack requires sacrificing some of the great looks of the train. The cables can be a bit unwieldy and have to be stuffed into the cab, part of the engine is replaced with a less attractive gray (rather than green) piece, and worst of all the coal car is filled with an unattractive battery pack that just looks out of place and unattractive. Luckily this is Lego, so it is possible to make up for these problems with a bit of ingenuity. I added 2 studs worth of height to the coal car and covered the pack with black plates to look like coal. See the attached photos for before and after pictures.All in all I would call this the best self contained Christmas train on the market.This item arrived one day later than originally scheduled. A winter storm had most likely caused a delay. This turned out to be a good thing because I was at home when it was delivered. The box was damaged upon arrival. One side of the box had been sitting in water. This only made it easier to open and all the contents inside were safe and intact. Boxes and wrappings just get thrown away. This item was fun to assemble and makes a great decoration for Christmas.Now a retired set, so quite expensive but very well received and given the thumbs up as a lovely Christmas build! In many ways this is a distinct improvement over the previous Holiday Train (10173) despite being quite a bit smaller. That said, the fully assembled train is still over 50cm in length. A simple build with plenty of nice little details as well as a few interesting techniques, it is also compatible with a separate motor kit. It comes with a large circular track, though it functions just as well if displayed on just a few sections of track.I enjoyed building the kit but have set aside the festive decorations (I'll add them later when more seasonal). The train is just a push along but it can be motorised and a circle of track is included.Absolutely amazing and can be made better with a few simple inexpensive mods. YouTube is your friend.Really enjoyed making this train for my grandchildren. It’s so pretty and so interesting to build. They love it.Prompt delivery as promised. Packaged securely.Can't wait to build it.