The sides are now done and sliding doors are added on both sides. There's also a nice jail door dividing the car in half. At this point, you can just build a generic wagon with all the Power Functions inside, and then hook up this wagon to any of your trains to motorize them. I decided to get a bit fancier, and match the design of the Constitution wagon, and the Holiday Train caboose. Note that I left part of the roof open. This is so that I can access the on/off button of the battery box without having to remove the roof, and I also found that the IR receiver had a more reliable and greater connection distance with the roof open. You can’t really see these openings unless you directly look down on the train. Put together any set by LEGO and you’ll notice that certain areas of a model look better than others. These areas usually are those sections that are in the front, or the ones that get looked at the most. This is what’s called “front-loading”. This technique is not often employed by LEGO fans. After all, if you go through the trouble of building a LEGO model, why wouldn’t it look good from every possible way? Well, LEGO does not have that luxury. LEGO designers have a price-range to stay in, which means they’re limited by the number of parts they can use.

Almost done. There are a few trans-blue parts inside the tank to be the water, and the whole thing is ready to topple. The bell and light are both nicely built. The pearl gold clip and fez make for a great small bell to fit the scale of the train. Pretty obvious where this is going... but also obvious that there's not going to be an easy way to motorize it.With the hair off, you can see the alternate faces that some have. FYI, Tonto's hair is rubbery, but the rest are hard plastic. Tonto's hair also has a small hole on top for the bird to attach to. There is a pretty simple mechanism coming to make the gun spin. First, a crank is built (that tan crankshaft part is pretty rare in this color) with a gear and a towball as a handle. There have been a few posts with various tender mods out there. The one I would like to see (or design) is one that can contain an entire PF system (battery/RC/train_motor) while still looking like a realistic tender. I was also thinking changing the coal to wood. In the meantime, my other favorite train from #79111 LEGO The Lone Ranger Constitution Train Chase set was sitting un-motorized, because it was not designed with Power Functions in mind. While some trains are easy to motorize even if LEGO doesn’t provide instructions, the Constitution was not one of them. The coal car could hold the battery box the same way as in the Holiday Train, but the engine would take quite a bit of rework to include the train motor and IR receiver. Speaking of running LEGO trains, the fun you can have with them increases exponentially when you motorize them. LEGO sometimes releases trains with LEGO Power Functions components already included with the set, and at other times, they release trains without Power Functions, but they include instructions on how to motorize them (all this takes is swapping a few parts out, as the train is already designed with Power Functions in mind). And in some instances, the train is not planned to have Power Functions, so LEGO fans have to figure out on their own how to motorize them.

Minifigs: 10/10 - These 7 figs (and the horse if you want to count him) are all great. Not a dud in the group, and a wide variety too.On top of the box, they used the same figure lineup (but with legs this time!) as the 1:1 size indicator. That's sorta surprising to me, since most buyers would know what size a minifig is, but it's hard to judge the size of the train from the photo. Something like the wheels from the locomotive would be a better scale I'd think. Now the cab is taking shape and we're finally getting some color! Sorry, no glass in those windows. Have to add that yourself if you want it. To motorize the #10254 LEGO Creator Holiday Train, you replace the underside of the engine with the Power Functions Train Motor, swap out some parts in front of the conductor’s compartment to accommodate the IR receiver, and insert the battery box into the coal car. Then, you run some wires between the engine, the IR receiver, and the battery box that you stuff into the conductor’s compartment so they are less unsightly.

The locomotive starts with a nice sturdy frame. That's good to see, since the Toy Story train was so wobbly. If you want to add a Power Functions wagon like I did, I would suggest that you build a generic car that could work with all your trains. Something like the design of the Constitution wagon works really well, as it fits with pretty much any train from any era. You could also build extra “shells” to match the design of your different trains, and then just swap out the battery box and IR receiver in between them, which is quite easy to do. I ended up buying an extra train motor, battery box, and IR receiver, so I have two fully powered train wagons for my two little trains. Finally, what you've all been waiting for. Here's the 7 figures. The Lone Ranger gets a pair of guns, but Butch only gets one. And poor Latham - he can hardly stand up with that rifle in hand! Seriously though, these figs are just fantastic. I'm not familiar with who they all are, but who cares? They're just great old-time characters! Four very different hats, wide variety of torso prints, great faces.Two books - the first builds the locomotive and tender, the second builds the other two cars and the accessories. All the instructions are clear and simple to follow, as long as you actually pay attention to the part box to make sure you do everything you're supposed to on each step. So what do you think? How do you like the LEGO building techniques discussed here? Do you focus on all sides of your LEGO models or only the sections that are most visible? And how about building your own trains? Have you run into any trouble with figuring out how to space the wheels to handle curves? Feel free to share your own experiences, tips or ask questions in the comment section below! 😉 Finally, the wheels. Sadly, there's no driving rods in the set to make it look more realistic, but it'd be easy enough to add. And I'm not OCD, so my wheels aren't all lined up like in Lego's photos :) What do you think? Do you have the #10254 LEGO Creator Winter Holiday Train and/or the train from the #79111 LEGO The Lone Ranger Constitution Train Chase set? Or any other of the smaller LEGO trains? How do you like them? Do you motorize them? Or would you like to? And what do you think of my solution of building and adding a Power Functions wagon? Feel free to share your thoughts, questions, and comments below! 😉 Please note that this solution is for smaller, lighter LEGO trains like the #10254 LEGO Creator Winter Holiday Train, and the train from the #79111 LEGO The Lone Ranger Constitution Train Chase set. Full-size LEGO trains generally need better balancing, and it is still best to put the Power Functions components inside the engine. But for smaller trains, or trains that are too difficult to motorize in the conventional way, adding a Power Functions wagon is likely all you need. This way, you don’t have to modify your trains at all, and you can easily swap Power Fuctions between them.