Christmas/Winter Trains & Layouts - LETS SEE YOURS!

0 scale lover,  I believe you and my wife colleen must be related somewhere down the line.  Ha Ha Ha.  Cheers Jim

In about 1959 my dad bought me a set with a ZW and a 2358 Great Northern EP5 (don't know how he afforded it there were already 8 kids) but on Christmas morning I woke up to the set around the tree with about six of those same type of houses.

@jim mcclain - Thanks for your comment on my house.  Yes, those pasteboard (Made in Japan) houses were popular as under the Christmas tree village components for many years.  Certainly through most of the 1950's.  Your story must be a wonderful memory.  I know I got the Santa Fe A-B-A and the 25xx "Silver..." passenger cars around 1954.  While I was thrilled at the time I didn't know until I did some price/inflated $ research recently what a tremendous financial outlay that was at the time for my parents.  I don't know how they managed to afford it.   I guess we were just incredibly lucky kids at the time.

Best wishes for Christmas in 2022!!

Don

There are so many outstanding Christmas displays and thank you for sharing them. A general observation would be that we all got started with our interest in trains as part of our childhood anticipation of Christmas. I had not anticipated a Christmas scene but now I’m thinking how can I not.

My question is: Which buildings, Dept. 56, etc. match up closest to the scale?

Thank you, Jay

I have been setting trains around my tree since I got married in 1982. Almost finished this years will post hopefully in a few days. But I have been using Dept. 56. Don't know how close to scale they are but they look nice.

Thank you Jim, that’s what I wanted to know, close to scale.

Jay

It is that time of year again folks, let's see those snow-covered layouts!

Here is Main St. on my full-time winter/Christmas layout. I'll try to get an updated, panoramic shot in the near future as a decent bit of work has been done on the layout

Wow! I had never seen this thread before, originating in 2021. Fantastic photos and some of you go all out. Very nice.

Here's a few shots of my winter-themed layout that will be 12 years old this Christmas.

Well, we travel about 1155 miles for Christmas so the layout gets done at that location and not here so its fairly simple.  Here are some "Christmas" like scenes from our layout at home and other places.

The citizens of Small Town have started to get the town tree ready for decoration.  McDonalds already has their tree on the sidewalk.

Here is an interesting fellow, returning from summer vacation in Florida but trying to hitch a ride to the North Pole.

Here are some new Christmas houses that should make it to the layout this year.

Hey look at that, looks like that fellow managed to get a ride from the Central !

Everybody around town is buying and bringing home their tree.

Best Wishes

Don

Same well built layout since ‘21, …..but new flooring, and Century Green paint on the walls,……don’t tell Ms. Tammy it’s Century Green!….it’s teal green ….right??…..

Pat    

Here's some of my Christmas/winter train scenes.

I never had an 0 gauge Christmas layout; but here is my rock garden Christmas layout that I set up in Brooklyn for 35 years.

Not as 'snowy' as those above, but here's one that I did on my 2022 Christmas layout.

- walt

These 2 ceramic trains are 'family' trains.  Each car has a name of my 2 kids, their 4 kids, and me on both trains.  The smaller one is supposed to be tree ornaments.

Some photos of the Fezziwig Railway.

It appears how this special FasTrack has poor connectivity. It would not run my RailKing hand car, and barely runs the caboose hop.

My boys are enjoying the trains! 😃 The Lionchief remote control locomotives are great. I use a power brick with a PM-1 and CAB1 to set voltage at a reasonable max speed and let them have at it. No flying off the tracks!

Here is my little video from last year.  Turn up your speakers if you would like to hear the music.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ET...Q&feature=shared

The new puppy wants to play trains.

High Plains 3 Railers at the Boulder County Fairgrounds last year . We will set up again this year with even more rides, more snow and more lights.  Don't miss our Christmas search and find!

Tell your daughter the trolley is a great layout idea

Bryce, Thank you for picking up this thread again!!  So far, mine is an empty brown table.  Stay tuned!! 

Hoping to resurrect last Christmas layout this year with some updates, bad enuff I had to skip Halloween this year but if I have to skip Christmas, I'll be one really crabby old man. Hoping cardiologist and cardiac device doctor gives me the approval before too much longer.

Not a very good picture but I threw together a simple Christmas layout on the dining room table with some trains I had packed in the closet. The outer loop is an HO Lionel set. The center loop is O gauge with the locomotive from a Polar Express set using some lighted MTH boxcars. The inner loop is an N scale Kato set. Kinda neat having 3 different scales.

Brad

Here is a video of last years Christmas special.

Layouts from Christmas' past.

My Dad and me (not 'myself') and our Gilbert Flyer setup Christmas between 1953 to '55 I think. Santa had just discovered a fella selling 'used' trains at Christmas and I was overwhelmed with the 3 or 4 'big' items that year as they were traditionally over budget. New to me was the Santa Fe PA's, passenger cars, the log loader, and the big transformer with 'dead man's throttle'. The outer loop held our PRR K5 freight set.

@trumpettrain posted:

Here's some of my Christmas/winter train scenes.

Patrick, it’s ironic that you shared your photos because I had just taken another look at run 327 from this time last year. It was a fun narrative, and unique, in that it told the story of how Santa’s train was in trouble due to a snow storm. Thankfully your MOW crews saved the day. Sensational photographs as well. It would be fun to see an overall picture of your pike. Would you share what materials you used for the snow? It looks very authentic.

Thank you,

Jay

Our Christmas Train Garden has been a family tradition since 1940 -

Merry Christmas!

@Mark Boyce posted:

Bryce, Thank you for picking up this thread again!!  So far, mine is an empty brown table.  Stay tuned!! 

Mark,
My pleasure! After all, I'm the Christmas guy 24/7/365! I am looking forward to seeing what you have planned.
Bryce

Folks, some of these layouts are beyond belief! I can't fathom the time it takes , although now that I'm retired, I may have time to give the cat something more to **enjoy**. !!

Our Christmas Layout fits in the corner behind two couches against the window.  Standard size Christmas village buildings, etc with an N Scale track on each level.  Each one has a tunnel, one has a trestle, one has a ramp and a bridge.

John

My around the tree layout from 2018.

The Advent/Christmas decorations, other than the window lights, but including the Christmas-themed rolling stock, don't come out until Advent 1B. I did, however, decide yesterday to get a jump start on the layout. (The video was shot before adding the gantry crane and sawmill.) This year's layout is similar to the past two years', but new this year, I wired it as two separately-powered blocks, so that I can have the Christmas consist running on the twice-around-the-tree loop while my son or I are using the accessorized loop, or as one big loop.

The 6-24114 gantry crane wasn't rotating, even though that motor was running. Upon disassembling the gearbox, I found hardened grease on the worm and gear. Cleaning and regreasing them returned the crane to normal operation. The other problem was that when I tested the Christmast rolling stock, my 6-27948 GN 6464-25 Christmas boxcar was derailing on of the switches. The postwar-style trucks appeared to be the problem, so I swapped the chassis out with one that had modern, diecast, sprung trucks. Problem solved.

@Oscale_Trains_Lover_ posted:

Mark,
My pleasure! After all, I'm the Christmas guy 24/7/365! I am looking forward to seeing what you have planned.
Bryce

I now have the 6x4 Christmas board on a sturdy folding table, but it needs a little repair before I start adding scenic items!

@endless tracks posted:

Folks, some of these layouts are beyond belief! I can't fathom the time it takes , although now that I'm retired, I may have time to give the cat something more to **enjoy**. !!

I can only fit a circle of track under the tree in our small living room.  Our dog has gotten used to the little LGB train I run under the tree.  I put up the tree this afternoon.  No lights yet, but since I’m retired too, I’m going to take a nap!

Photographs to come once I have things farther along!

This is my Christmas layout that I set up for The community each Christmas. Details posted on the event form. It is located in White House Tennessee just north of Nashville. Thankful for the friends who help me set this up this week. Merry Christmas to all

Hi All!

This is my first year with a train in my holiday village.  My village has been slowly growing over the years because I am making all my buildings out of plastic canvas.  Just got my benchwork done this past weekend (with much thanks to my husband!!).  I did all the planning for it and he's the one that did the handiwork!  After getting the track laid and secured, I generically placed the buildings for now and added snow blanket pieces all around.  After the holidays, my plan is to keep the table up for a few months to work on scenery.  Though I am excited to get started already!

@Squirrel

Welcome to OGR.

What is Plastic Canvas, can you show us a close-up?

Dave

I think this gives an idea of what she is doing

https://www.marymaxim.com/prod...t-plastic-canvas-kit