Battery-Powered Holiday Trains


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Battery-Powered Holiday Trains

To be honest, I like track-powered trains. The kind with metal tracks and a power supply you crank up or down to change the train's speed.

But sometimes a battery-powered train is the best solution, especially when cost or fear of damage is a consideration. For example:

When your train will be in reach of children or strangers
When you want to run a train as part of an outdoor display that is unconnected to your model railroad, or
When the train will be outside of your control, say when you've been asked to "loan" a train to a library or school program.

Every autumn, countless battery-powered trains show up anywhere Christmas decorations are sold. Many of them are cheap sets of junk. A few will work as promised and last a season. A very few will work as promised and last two to five seasons if taken care of properly. These are the ones we will be reviewing.

Many of these trains - if there is any stock left - will go on sale for half price after Christmas, so if you're reading this on December 26 and thinking ahead to next year, keep your eye out.

Note: Several of the articles we link to on this page are on our sister site FamilyGardenTrains.com, because some of the trains are practical for use outside for Christmas displays, etc. Our videos and photos are mostly taken out-of-doors as well, which gives you a chance to see just how these would work out if you already have a garden railway, or if you want to put a seasonal display in your yard, on your front porch, etc. . . .

Sizes of Battery Powered Trains

The most worthwhile products tend to be the ones that run on 45mm track (also called "G Gauge"), or - in the case of Lionel's "Ready-to-Play" trains - 2" track.

These tend to be a little larger than Lionel O gauge trains and a little smaller than garden trains like those made by LGB. Technically, they'll be too large to look quite right with most ceramic or resin villages But the battery-powered trains that are the "right" size for those villages are all junk as far as I have found - even the "name brand" ones. (I recommend On30, O gauge, or S-gauge track-powered trains for those).

Some trains that are advertised to run on "G Gauge" track are junk as well. So I recommend sticking with the "name brands" if you can. These are:

Lionel's Battery-Powered Toy Holiday Trains - These were made in two batches. The first iteration was made to run on 45mm track, the same gauge that LGB uses. The second (and for now, current) iteration runs on 2" track, which nobody but Lionel makes. We discuss them together in some of our articles, because they use the same molds, and have most of the same features.
- An overview of Lionel's battery-powered Christmas trains is here.
- An overview of the Lionel battery-powered trains that are pulled by their old-timey-looking "General" locomotive is here.
  - To see a video of the Lionel G gauge "General" running on our outdoor railroad twice, once with the default "chuff" sound, and once with Christmas carols playing, click here. Be certain to click on the little gear and select 1080p resolution.
  - To see a video of the Lionel "Ready-to-Play" "General" running on a temporary outdoor railroad, click here.
  - To see a video presentation on the plusses and minuses of both General-drawn trains, click here.
- For more information about Lionel's battery toy trains in general, please visit our Family Garden Trains^TMarticle on Lionel's Toy "G" trains. It focuses on the "G gauge" versions Lionel issued between 2011 and 2015, including the Polar Express.
  It also has many links to articles that discuss other battery-powered trains, both in "G gauge" and "Ready-to-Play" Versions.
Scientific Toys/Ez-Tec Holiday Trains - Most of their trains run on G gauge track (avoid any that don't). Though they seem to be made of a more brittle plastic than the Lionel battery-powered trains, they are very solid and reliable. They will run on a garden railroad, as well as any battery-powered train and better than some. The versions that have been made the last 12 years or so nearly all include a remote control that serves most purposes.
New Bright Holiday Trains - Their "G Gauge" trains have been around for decades. They tend to be a little smaller than the Lionel or Scientific Toys' trains, and not quite as solid. But there are some clever sets that people without small children have enjoyed operating. Like Scientific Toys/Ez-Tec trains, they will run on a garden railroad as long as the track is smooth and level and the wind isn't too bad.
I know some folks who have used these outside, but I don't have enough experience with them to report in detail.
I have seen EZ-Tech and New Bright trains that are smaller and run on skinnier track. They do not run nearly as well as the "G gauge" trains.

The following photo shows examples from these three brands next to each other for comparison: New Bright (at the left), Scientific Toys/Ez-Tek (at the right), and Lionel (bottom). Click on it to see a bigger photo.

This photo compares the sizes of the three most reliable brands: New Bright (at the left), Scientific Toys/Ez-Tek (at the right), and Lionel (bottom). Click for larger photo.

To be as transparent as possible, all of the trains I have described above are toys, and few of them have customer service departments worthy of the name "service." On the other hand, even with prices, rising they cost much less than similarly sized track-powered train sets. In the worst case, if you buy one and it gets damaged in the first year, you can always try to buy another one in the after-Christmas sales. Which will give you at least one more car and lots of extra track.

Finally, many of these I see in non-working condition at flea markets, garage sales, etc. were damaged by leaking batteries. ALWAYS take the batteries out of the train and the remote when you put it away, even if you plan to get it out again in a few days.

Copycats

Every year, multiple companies that copy the trains above emerge. Most seem to copy the Scientific Toys/Ez-Tec, though a few copy New Bright.

As often as not, those companies disappear as soon as they ship their orders to the distributors each August, which means that you have even less of a chance of "service" if anything goes wrong than you do with the established companies. And despite their lookalike appearance, the trains and their track may not be compatible with the trains they imitate.

In case you're wondering, I did a quick check for some of the "off brands" that showed promise last year. They're not even appearing in internet searches this year, much less offering service or add-ons.

Smaller Battery-Powered Trains

If you want a battery-powered train to go with, say, your Christmas village, you might want to look at New Bright. Some of their trains are not that much larger than Lionel O gauge trains. Also, the more "modern-looking" steam engines from Scientific Toys/Ez-Tec are smaller than their old-timey trains.

But I have yet to see a smaller battery-powered set that was anywhere near as reliable as the name-brand sets I listed above. That includes sets sold under name brands that I won't mention for fear of getting sued. If the track is less than 45mm wide (about 1 3/4"), you are generally looking at flimsier track and light-weight, significantly underpowered trains. Typical complaints are that the track pieces keep coming apart, the cars won't stay coupled, and the train won't stay on the track.

Test Early

Whatever you buy. be sure and try it out as soon as you get it. Don't wait until a week before Christmas to learn that you made a mistake. And if you do that, please don't contact me and ask me to "save Christmas" for you. Yes, I get lots of those contacts every year, which explains why I took my phone number off the site.

And after you've tested it, take the batteries out until you plan to set it up for Christmas.

Next Steps

I have examples of Lionel, Scientific Toys/Eztec, and New Bright trains that I plan to share and review in the future, so check back. As of this writing, I believe I would rate the trains in that order, which is not to say that New Bright is bad - it's still far better than the dozens of other "pop-up" brands that show up in the stores and on Amazon every November and disappear without a trace by New Years.

In the meantime, here are some helpful articles and links about these trains"

An overview of Lionel's battery-powered toy trains is here.
An overview of the Lionel battery-powered trains that are pulled by their old-timey-looking "General" locomotive is here.
For more information about Lionel's battery toy trains in general, please visit our Family Garden Trains^TM article on Lionel's Toy "G" trains. It focuses on the "G gauge" versions Lionel issued between 2011 and 2015, including the Polar Express.
It also has many links to articles that discuss other battery-powered trains, both in "G gauge" and "Ready-to-Play" Versions.
For details about EZ-Tech's Christmas-themed trains, past and present, please visit our Family Garden Trains article on the subject.

Other detailed articles on trains in this class are in the planning stages.

Finally, if you have any questions, testimonials, recommendations, or photographs you'd like to share with other readers, please contact me. In the meantime, may your holidays and all of the days in your life be blessed!

Paul D. Race, Proprietor

For More Information

Because we've broken our information about these trains up into many small articles and videos, we're listing them here to make them easier to find.

Note About Video Resolution: Most of the videos were recorded in HD, so when you watch them, Watch them full-screen, and look for the letters HD on the little gear. If "HD" isn't there, click on the gear and select HD. The "default" and "auto settings" are often much lower resolution.

EZ-Tech Christmas Train Articles and Videos

EZ-Tech Christmas Trains - Overview and locomotive descriptions
EZ-Tech Christmas Cars - Different cars you might find in different sets
Video - EZ-Tech Action Cars on a Garden Railroad. I put action cars from different Christmas sets together in one train and ran it on my raised platform railroad, so you could see them in, er, action. 1.5 minutes.
EZ-Tech Disney World Trains - A fun variant of these sets, including delightful observation coaches.
Video - Disney World Train on our Garden Railroad. It's short but show how the train looks running on an existing garden railroad. 27 seconds.

Lionel G-Gauge and Ready-to-Play Battery Powered Christmas Trains

Lionel's Battery-Powered Holiday Trains. An overview.
Lionel's Battery-Powered General and its Christmas Trains. Reviews one of the most reliable locomotives of this line.
Video - Lionel's G-gauge General on our Garden Railroad - Pulling a train on our raised platform garden railroad, first with train sounds, then with Christmas songs. 1 minute.
Video - Lionel's Gauge 2 North Pole Central with Carols - Lionel's Ready-to-Play General pulling a Christmas train on a temporary railroad. 1.5 minutes
Video - Lionel's Battery-Powered General and its Christmas Trains - A detailed live comparison of both the G-gauge and Ready-to-Play Generals. 32 minutes.
Video - Lionel Lines' Scientific Toys/Ez-Tec Battery-Powered Christmas Train (1980s) - Before making their own line of battery-powered G gauge trains, Lionel commissioned EZ-Tech to make a Christmas train with Lionel's name on it. 1.4 minutes.
Lionel's® Toy "G Gauge" Trains. Reviews the Lionel's original line of G-gauge battery-powered trains, now discontinued, but still available on used markets. Though the article focuses on the non-Christmas trains, the information applies to the Christmas trains as well.

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