Hi There
Lionel, MTH , and Williams produce Christmas sets ! That is a fact . My question is why there is no Chanukah train sets. I have only seen one train that has both the Christian & Jewish holiday on a box car .
You say why would a Christian care ? I lived in a neighborhood in Milwaukee, WI that had many Jewish families in it . I would say I had a few Jewish friends & classmates.
So I ask that any one here is Jewish , Do you want a Chanukah Train? If not Why ?
CHARTER MEMBER OF THE MILWAUKEE FALLEN FLAG MODEL TRAIN CLUB . I COLLECT HO, N , O-3rail & On30 Trains & run them ! I Use KATO HO & N scale Track . I also Use Lionel Fast Track ! I change track layouts Often !
The train companies don't make Chanukah train sets because they don't think they would sell well.
I think they are correct.
Reader Bruce Brown took an activist approach and made his own, as documented in this CTT story:
Bob Keller
Thanks to all that replied so far.
I will look at hobby shop for that issue . I hope to find that issue. They have a stack of old issues .
Thanks
Growing up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, I was under the impression that it wasn't really a major holiday, at least in comparison to some other Jewish holidays. It just got added attention because it fell around Christmas. Also, despite the attempts of some retailers, it really hasn't gotten nearly as commercialized as Christmas.
Finally, there is no tree to put the train under.
Why wouldn't it sell? Has anyone tried, seriously?
Look, Williams reproduces the "Lady Lionel" pink Girls Train, you know the one that makes most mens blood run cold, and here in the Fortress Firelock has Lady Firestorm's upper lip curling so much it tickles her right eyebrow? Obviously that thing sells!
By the way, it isn't just Lady Firestorm either. When I was visiting Lady F's sister and family I left a CTT open to a page with an ad for a Girls Train. The look of horror on my sister-in-laws face and her daughter's faces as well was priceless!
So why wouldn't a Hannukah Train sell? Now maybe if it had a boxcar with a digital recording of Adam Sandler's "Hannukah Song".....
Jewish boys certainly got Lionel trains when I was young.
I doubt marketing trains just for Hanukkah would be much of a marketing success.
WRGMILW I have only seen one train that has both the Christian & Jewish holiday on a box car . You say why would a Christian care ? I lived in a neighborhood in Milwaukee, WI that had many Jewish families in it . I would say I had a few Jewish friends & classmates. So I ask that any one here is Jewish , Do you want a Chanukah Train? If not Why ?
I have only seen one train that has both the Christian & Jewish holiday on a box car .
FWIW, I own a K-Line Chanukah boxcar and a Chinese New Year gondola, both of which date back to the late '90s, so it has been done...
Makes one wonder just what a Chanukah train would look like. Little extra flags on the loco with Stars of David on 'em? A motorized dreidel spinning car? Illuminated menorah car? A hopper car loaded with chocolate coins? Nu, it could work... ;)
-MMM-
I loved K-Line Because they were not afraid. To leave the mold cast in stone,
a decorated tree, trains running beneath, cookies in the shape of wreaths, eggnog & Santa... frankly i think it's sad that just because of a name, some people miss out on the spirit of the holiday season. it hasn't been about religion for me in decades.
perhaps it should be Festivus, ... for the rest of us.
I have the K-Line Chanukah boxcar and the Lionel Mogen David wine car. That's about it for Jewish offerings by train manufacturers. I guess train manufactures are a lot like pro sports teams, Lots of Jewish owners but few players.
I actually built a Chanukah train a few years back in HO. Have a pic somwhere There are train Menorahs so It may not be beyond the relm of reality to built an entire train set but I think a car or two as done in the past is more likely
Joe Staten Island West
No but Facebook had ads for a Menorah Tree. A 9 branch artifical tree shaped like a Menorah. I have also seen videos of Chanukkah trains on You Tube.
joe323 I actually built a Chanukah train a few years back in HO. Have a pic somwhere There are train Menorahs so It may not be beyond the relm of reality to built an entire train set but I think a car or two as done in the past is more likely
Hmmm. I've got a beat-up 3650 spotlight car lurking about with only the cable reel left. I suppose I could dismantle that and power a menorah mounted on the depressed center... ;-)
Mitch
Actually What I did is I took 9 Flameless LED tea light candles Mounted 8 of them on 2 Flat cars and the Shamesh (Ninth taller one) on the cuppola of the caboose. After coloring the flames yellow with a highlighter it looked like a moving Menorah. In HO it was a bit unwieldy but on my sscale set, I think it woould work well I am going to try it this year. In O scale I will used gondolas instead of flat cars. Of Course while not essential the caboose goes in the center.
Watch my videos on-line at https://www.youtube.com/user/AndrewNeilFalconer
musicman37Hasn't anyone heard of a "Hanukah bush" to run trains around? All my trains are kosher. Especially the Mogan David vat car.
Shouldn't that be a burning bush???
....oh all right, going to the back of the room
Have fun with your trains
I suspect several things are involved. As noted, the manufacturers may feel there wasn't / isn't enough of a demand for such an item. As noted, Joshua Lionel Cowan was Jewish (as were many other toy manufacturers of his time). Unfortunately, at that time there was a lot of anti-Jewish discrimination, so someone like Cowan may not have wanted to call attention to the fact that he was Jewish (not that he ever did anything to hide it of course) for fear that some yahoos would decide not to buy Lionel trains for their kids because of that.
BTW, I've often wondered if the spelling of his name - "Cowan" - was an attempt by one of his ancestors to make their name sound more English / less Jewish, since I suspect the family name at some point was "Cohen"?? Sadly it wasn't uncommon generations back for Jews or Irish folks to change or modify their names because of discrimination.
He changed the spelling himself in 1910, from "Cohen". However, strictly speaking, the correct spelling seems to be "kaf-yod-hei-nun", so we can't fault any reasonable transliteration from the Hebrew to the Roman alphabet that he may have preferred, for whatever reason.
That being said, there has been a lot of adaptation of names to avoid discrimination. I discovered long after her death that my Irish-born maternal grandmother, who lived with my family throughout my childhood, went from Bridget Mary Murphy to Beatrice Mary Fleming when she immigrated and married my grandfather.
On the other side, my great-grandfather Anders Svenson, whose father was Sven Nilsson, became Andrew S. Nelson. The "S." presumably memorialized his former patronym, although he seems never to have written it out. And Andrew and Nelson are less-Swedish respellings of his given name and his father's surname.
Incidentally, having an "S" that doesn't seem to stand for anything is very American. Two of our presidents have had such middle initials.
Bob Nelson
lionelsoni That being said, there has been a lot of adaptation of names to avoid discrimination. I discovered long after her death that my Irish-born maternal grandmother, who lived with my family throughout my childhood, went from Bridget Mary Murphy to Beatrice Mary Fleming when she immigrated and married my grandfather. On the other side, my great-grandfather Anders Svenson, whose father was Sven Nilsson, became Andrew S. Nelson. The "S." presumably memorialized his former patronym, although he seems never to have written it out. And Andrew and Nelson are less-Swedish respellings of his given name and his father's surname.
Heh. Had some of that on both sides of my family; my father dropped the "stein" from his name in the 50s with a career as a folksinger in mind (so I nearly wound up being Maurice Moses Marmelstein, Jr.!)
As for my mother's side of the family, one of my ancestors' bosses got tired of referring to an endless succession of Svensons and Johnssons, so came up with the clever idea of turning Carl Anders into Cahlander... ;-)
(who likes the tea candle idea for a Chanukkah train)
I picked up the cars for the Chanukkah train at the greenberg show Sunday 2 Gondolas and a caboose
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