2020 CHRISTMAS LAYOUT PICS!

@laming posted:

So the 2020 Christmas season has OFFICIALLY arrived.

As a kid... the Friday after Thanksgiving marked our Official Day that Christmas Season was underway and it was only a few long weeks before that Grand Day would arrive!

Now, what is more traditional for us train geeks than a Christmas layout or Christmas train memories?

Same here! SO, for the first time in YEARS, I have a Christmas layout!

Yup, it's what I call the "World's Smallest Christmas Layout"! However, the thought is what truly matters.

With that, I offer up a photo of my modest little Christmas layout that all of yesterday's small Thanksgiving Day gathering of attending family got a kick out of. Doing the honors at the moment is a replica set that represents my first ever 3R set I received in about 1959 or 1960. My first 3R set was a lowly Marx set that was a hand-me-down from friends of our family. Seems their son had outgrown toy trains (he was out of High School and off to college) and so they asked: "Would you like to have it?"

You betch'em Red Rider!

So, I became the proud owner of a 1946-vintage Marx 25225 set just like the one in the picture that I found/acquired a few months ago. I tried to run the wheels of my original Marx set... but you know how Marx trains are built: They live forever! (BTW, the Marx guys here at OGR helped me to know what set I had way back when, which led to my seeking/purchasing this set! Thanks Marx guys!)

Merry Christmas to all my OGR buds!! Come on, post up your Christmas Layout pictures here!

Andre

Very nice Andre, didn't know you ever did 3R.  No layout plans for me this year -- so far.

Tom Stoltz

in Maine

Andre - I love your Christmas layout!!  Simplicity is pure beauty  BRAVO!!!  

When I was young, the day before Thanksgiving was the family tradition of starting the seasonal train layout.  That Wednesday was always ear marked with a half day of school.  Upon early arrival at home the reassembly of two 4x8 train tables began, followed by a fresh coat of green paint.  The tables were stored outdoors in our old woodshed from January - this special day in November.   My brother and I spent the entire Thanksgiving morning working on installing track work.  On Friday we worked all day on wiring the layout's track work and accessories. Saturday morning was the family trip to Baltimore City to check out the train stores and dept. stores.  The new Lionel catalogues were drooled over during lunch! Of course we wanted everything in the catalogue ... LOL!!!    Upon arrival back home Saturday night and all day Sunday ( after going to Mass of course ) our time was devoted to scenery work.  Tweaking the scenery continued throughout the week (s) to follow.   Christmas day was show time because my parents had an open house for family and friends which began in  late morning till sometime in the evening.  Of course Santa always brought something new for the layout each year.   Visitors always enjoyed seeing the various different layout creations each year.  

This is my Christmas layout from 2018.  I don't have the Mojo for doing one this year, but who knows .... the muse may strike.  I will do something Christmassy on permanent layout though..... that is a given!  

Tom:

Oh land's sake, 3R and me have a sordid and twisted history! It was a big thing for me back in the 1990s. Sold essentially all of it in early '98 to raise the front money needed for purchasing our home (that we still live in). Experimented with a small 3R layout in the early 2000s, and have flirted with it off/on since. Recently decided to allow myself the simple pleasure of obtaining and enjoying PW and traditional 3R pieces I like.

I don't have any "solid" plans for 3R at this point. Instead I'm simply enjoying them on temporary loops when the mood hits.

Patrick:

Thanks for the kind words on my humble Christmas Layout! I enjoyed your reminiscing, too!

As you can see, space is quite limited so there won't be the growing sprawl that I experienced in the 1990s on my 3R Christmas layouts! Even with the small size, there's the possibility for small details to be added over the coming weeks/years.

Andre

Andre:

I got my first Lionel train set the Christmas before my 3rd birthday. Like you, the Friday after Thanksgiving was the day to begin the layout.

Your 2020 layout is very well done and, most of all, it evokes good memories for you, as our layout does for my son and me. There is no such thing as a bad Christmas train layout.

Added a few piddly things, received my passenger set, and spruced up the font of the hearth with some decorative presents the wife has used in the past.

Wife loves it, as did all the visiting family at Thanksgiving.

I think we have a new Christmas tradition at the Ming household!

A corner of my layout decorated for Christmas all the time:

Arnold

Not the cleanest video,  but you get the idea! Merry Christmas !

Thats a postwar 218 set.

Well folks I am afraid I am with Andre with a VERY humble Christmas tree train layout.  Wife and I are battling the "big C" this Christmas and just not up to digging out all the stuff for the layout, but you can't have a tree without a train.  So I found this little battery set in the drug store and so here is ours this year.

Those doggone Chinese can't even put the coupler on the right end of the caboose

Merry Christmas everyone.  I loved all your pictures, brightened my day!

Don

Merry Christmas on the Palms to Pines RR...

John

Neat Christmas layout pics, all!

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Andre

Don, good luck to you and the Missus.

Coach Joe. Thank you very much!!

"There isn't a train I wouldn't take, no matter where it's going"---Edna St. Vincent Millay  ---words for all of us to live by!