It's made of really cheap plastic, horribly tack, and the moment I saw it on eBay, I knew I wanted one.
As far as I can tell, the Santaland range of festive trains are an American thing like all the other plasticy train sets you find in cheap shops at Christmas. At least this is proper 45mm gauge so will work on the garden railway.
The exciting bit is that the elves (gnomes?) rock back and forth as the wagon moves along, apparently sawing the log between them. The mechanism is driven from one of the inner wheels on the bogie. To aid this, the wheelset is fitted with a traction tyre.
I'm assuming the 1997 on the side indicates there were new wagons every year. Digging further, there are at least two other versions of this wagon, along with a steam loco and caboose. Since I had to import this from the other side of the Atlantic, and paid several times the original $9.99 price, I won't be building a train up in a hurry.
Unless Santa brings me some of course - I have been a good boy!
3 comments:
In general elves do not have facial hair, the exceptions are elderly elves in the third phase of third lives. Your two small gentle men are more likely to be dwarves / gnomes. Gnomes have a Renaissance history where as dwarves are Norse. Both are known for being curmudgeonly.
I stand corrected.
(And I love that sort of nerdy correction, as anyone who reads my Thomas the Tank review in BRM will find out - well done!)
Love it !! G-nomes and elves seem to like garden railways. Last year I even had gingerbread people coming out of the ginger ore mine.
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