Sadly, I agree that these may end up being a knee jerk purchase by fathers running to Menard's, "just to get a trainset" for Christmas. If the total set runs about $275 or so, it may be set up on the floor on Christmas morning, or the day after, and be one of those "toys" that the kids play with for about the first 3 weeks after Christmas. By then, the kids will be bored with it, and Mom will have had enough, and tell them to take it apart and put it back in the box. After that, it may be thrown together again six months later on the kids' bedroom floor, or not. Maybe it will be put together again for the next Christmas, or not.
As with most toys that kids get for Christmas nowadays, though, probably most of these trainsets will just be considered junk after 2 or 3 years and thrown out. Or, sometime during that time period, the remote will have been dropped and cracked a few times, so it won't work, and the whole thing will be trashed even earlier.
With parents buying their 10 year-olds $1,000 phones these days, $275 or so may be considered a cheap, disposable gift, rather than the start to a long-term hobby.
Mannyrock
