My February 2010 issue arrived on Christmas eve. I opened it up to “Reviews” and the story is called “Father Christmas”, Lionel’s “Santa’s Flyer”.
Your other review, “The Jetsons”, about jet powered snow blowers has great history. Too bad Lionel didn’t take the Jet Snow Blower one step more. In your photo of a NYC prototype, it appears the railroad made it by cutting the forward 1/3 from a NYC wood side caboose and mounting a jet engine. Lionel has produced that caboose in scale size in both plastic and metal.
Yes, jet snow blowers are still used. I took this about 4 years ago in the New Haven CT yard of the Metro North Railroad (New York City commuter rail)
My issue came today, Dec 28. I read the Santa’s Flyer article, and am now scanning the Lionel service station page. Is this a Lionel ad? or a public service page of the publisher that service stations pay in to? Just wondering. More articles to be read, too.
The service station listing was paid for by the service stations themselves, not Lionel.
Re: The snow blower - I think the Bob’s Train Box video caught the smoke better than the review video - I could SEE the smoke, but with the lighting in the workshop, it was difficult to capture it for video.
Thanks Laz! Working with Roger was great. There may not be a nicer guy in the Toy Train world. I’ll try to get together some videos over the holiday weekend and post them to YouTube.
