Review: Santa’s Express from Hornby for festive family fun

I have a feeling both our children will be spending a lot of time staring at our Christmas tree or Christmas table decorations this Christmas. It just depends where Santa’s Express will be running in December.

Santa’s Express from Hornby (£69.99), a model train set we received to review, brought the whole family together on Saturday when all four of us played with it on the living room floor. For Christmas we will have the train either around the base of our Christmas tree, or on our Christmas table as a fun moving decoration, and I can’t wait to set it up and watch the children’s reaction again when they see Santa’s train speeding along the tracks.

I think train sets are great fun for parents and children alike. Saturday was the first time even five-month-old Baby Boy really joined in on a family activity, not wanting to feed or take his eyes off the fabulous train set that had suddenly appeared next to his play mat, and Daddy T was super excited, constantly ensuring no one moved any of his precious tracks.

It’s our very first model train set, and it’s ideal as a Christmas gift for beginners like us, or as a festive Christmas gift to a train collector. It comes with a Santa’s Express locomotive, an open wagon filled with presents and a box van for reindeer in transit. There’s also an oval track included and a paper mat that can be used as a starting point for creating a model train world.

With Baby Boy and Daddy T both loving their first Hornby train, I have a feeling we will have a model train world taking over our living room pretty soon!

Tags: Christmas, Christmas gift ideas, Hornby, Model train, Reviews, Santa, Toys, Train set