Hornby Santa’s Express: All Aboard for Festive Fun
I can still remember the first time our daughter said that she wanted an electric train set. We were watching Fantastic Mr Fox, where Ash and Kristophsen sit mesmerised as Ash’s electric train goes round and round the track.
I remember turning to our daughter, who would have been around five or six at the time, and seeing her little face enchanted by it too.
“Would you like one of those?” I remember asking her.
“Yes,” she replied, without any hesitation whatsoever. “Can I? For my birthday?”
Her birthday is in early December, and my first thought was to buy a Hornby Santa’s Express set. At the time Hornby sold a more grown-up version that was based on their other starter sets. Unfortunately, these had all sold out, so we settled for a Valley Drifter set instead. We still put it around the Christmas Tree every December, with a miniature Santa sitting on one of the wagons. Like all Hornby locomotives, which often become collectors’ items, it’s beautifully detailed and has been well-loved for many years.
But it wasn’t a Santa’s Express.
So, I was very excited to be offered to review Hornby’s new Playtrains version of the Santa’s Express for M&D Magazine, and so was our daughter.
Taking it from the box, we were happy to see that – for a toy-grade build – the quality of the locomotive has been kept high, and in line with Hornby’s more premium sets. Hornby has stuck with a 1:76 scale model, which runs on the same size tracks that their more advanced sets run on. The red locomotive has a minimalist look, with the words Santa’s Express being the main indication that this is a yuletide set. This is followed by a couple of wagons that add to the festive theme. One has Mrs Claus’ Gift & Candy Shop written on the side and is brimming with presents, while the other has Santa’s Workshop written on it, along with Santa’s beaming face. These are easily connected together with magnets, rather than with fiddly plastic couplings found on more advanced sets.
The locomotive is battery-powered and is quickly activated by pressing the steam dome, which acts as an on/off button. Pressing this once turns the motor on, along with headlights and classic train sounds – like chuffing and steam whistles. These are joined by the occasional sound of Santa’s voice chipping in with a “ho ho ho, Merry Christmas”. Pressing the button a second time puts the Santa’s Express into silent mode as it makes its way around the track.
The kids obviously loved the sound effects mode best, but it will be nice to have the option of silent mode too when we’re settling down to a Christmas movie and still want to have the Santa Express driving around our tree. Both modes also switch on a headlight on the locomotive that looks great at night-time, and no doubt on Christmas morning, when the kids come down to unwrap their presents at 5am!
Assembling the track was a doddle, especially compared to the more intricate advanced sets, and the plastic track was clipped together by our ten-year-old daughter in seconds. I’d say that even much younger hands could do this easily. The track does look more toy-like than our other Hornby set, but that’s a feature rather than a bug as far as little ones are concerned. The set is clearly designed to be positioned around a tree, and the eight curved plastic track pieces form a 770mm diameter loop that’s perfect for this purpose and will hug the base of our tree nicely to allow presents to be positioned beyond the track. I’ve photographed it around one of my indoor plants to show this.
This would make a gorgeous addition to our Christmas decorations
Awesome festive themed gift idea for Christmas
love the train set
Santa Claus and trains makes a fantastic seasonal duo. In fact any time of the year.
Father Christmas and trains go together like bread and cheese. It would be more reliable these days
to travel by reindeer
This is so adorable! love the old school look and I know that my 2 year old son would be obsessed with it😍
Love this my mum would love this round the bottom of her tree
Would be a great way to start our Hornby journey ❤️
I love the idea of this perfect Christmas decoration
My girls would love this
This is a lovely seasonal set to display in the upcoming festive period!
Looks fab!
Looks great!
A great Christmas gift.
Nice! 👍🙂
Love this train set would look great going under our xmas tree
Looks great! I can just see it going around the Christmas table or under the tree 🙂
You cannot beat a train set at Christmas. Weather it be a gift for someone, or a wonderful decoration to have under the tree, there is something magical about a train set.
Love this,would look great going around under my Tree and it’ll be played with loads
This looks great but I do wonder if you can buy additional track to add to this and different trains; obviously you would bring the Santa Express train out in the run up to Christmas but at other times of year it would be mainly sat in a box so it would be good if you could do the above to make it usable all year round. Alternatively can you buy the Santa Express train as a standalone to add to existing track, I presume you can as you said Hornby have stuck with the 1:76 sizing for the train.
I’m new to all this so I don’t understand but it would be useful to know for when my grandson gets a bit older, he’s only 6 months so I’ve got plenty of time to research. Thanks for a great review article 🙂
Hi Helen,
I came to this set from the more grown up sets, so I’ve probably done it the opposite way round to most people.
The normal 1:76 Hornby trains don’t work on this track because they’re powered using a DC transformer via the nickel tracks, whereas this set has an onboard battery for power. You can still run this train on 00 gauge nickel track without any need to plug in the DC controller. I’ve tried this myself, and it’s one way to expand it. That said, if you’re going down that route it’s probably best to get a more grown up set and have more options for track, as well as the ability to reverse and alter speed.
To me, this set will just be something we dig out with the decorations, to put under the tree. It’s more fun than the angel on top that’s for sure!
Hope that helps
Love a quality train set. My great grandson would really enjoy it
This is such a great fun train for my littler ones to play with
love this set ideal for round the tree
be great to give the kids their own train set, as they love grandads layout
Looks really good, great for going round the tree
I don’t know who would love this more, my son or his dad
I know a little girl that would really love this!
What a great present this would make!
Looks amazing
Lovely train sets.
This is such a lovely set. My nephew would love it. Hornby are a fantastic brand!
What a magical experience this would be for any child. Utterly gorgeous and perfect for little ones. Thank you.