I really liked the idea of having a motorized LEGO train circling the Christmas tree, but the Winter Holiday Train is notorious for having too little traction to pull the cars along well. I also wanted the microscale train to circle the tree without the tree spinning. And somehow, a steam engine without drive bars just doesn't look right. So I redesigned it.

You can see it in action in this short video.  

Some features of this improved version:

• The motor and battery box/hub are integrated into the tender. This puts the battery weight above the motor, providing great traction while removing the need to string the power cable between the tender and locomotive.
• The locomotive is longer, with an additional set of drive wheels and working drive bars.
• The toy train spins around the Christmas tree, which is fixed to the train car.
• The Christmas tree is completely redesigned to be a lot healthier looking than the original, which was a bit too much like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree for my taste.
• Santa isn't a part of everyone's holiday tradition, so it makes sense that LEGO left him out of this set, but I wanted our train to have one, so I designed an additional car to carry Santa and some passengers.
• The dining car has been extended to be in proportion to the rest of the train, and this allows for a bigger table with a couple of tea cups (the original only has a single coffee mug, which made it feel like the passengers were about to fight over it).
• The locomotive has a firebox window with orange transparent flames.

The instructions have been made carefully with a lot of thought towards making an interesting build experience. The train has been test built from the instructions, and comments and suggestions on how to improve them are welcome. 

The minifigures are for the pictures, and are not included in the set!