Christmas Modular Display for Library Christmas party

Suggestion- interactivity is great for kids.  Any way to include push-buttons on outside of the display so kids can activate accessories?  Even something as simple as lights turning on or rotary beacon activation. 

that I have no problem with I have a Coca Cola Bottle tower that rotates and I have several buildings that light that I can wire to a switch. I am going to try to look into getting a radar tower and a rotating beacon light but i am not sure if i can find them

All of this is possible

First off, keep it simple.  Public displays are wonderful however, the more complicated it gets, the more can go wrong.  We set up for Festival of Trees and Holiday Nights.  We are on display pretty much from the beginning of November through the end of December.  the modules we use for these events allow us 3 separate tracks.  No switches, crossovers ups and downs.  Flat prairie land.  I know it sounds boring, but it is what you do with the rest of the layout that makes it work.  Our modules are 8 feet in length by 36 inches wide.  The curve modules are 4 feet square.  Now we used Lionel Fastrack, 060, 072 & 084 curves so that we could run pretty much anything.  There is a 18 inch wide strip for scenery and that works out very nicely.  As already mentioned, include buttons.  Get creative with those buttons in so far as what they will do when pressed.  Kids eat them up.  They will stand there for hours just pushing buttons.  Hardly notice the trains going by.  Our layout is not designed for multi level operations but keeping three tracks running is quite enough.  The more scenery that you can incorporate that reminds people of yesteryear in the local area the better.  That gets the parents and grand parents to talking And sharing stories with other patrons.  Whimsical scenery also gets people laughing.  I used the Lionel Christmas gift package freight house with the conveyor belt going inside a semi trailer instead of a box car.  Go to Michaels or Hobby Lobby and load up on those little gift packages and fuller brush Christmas trees.  They go a long way and add considerable bling.  the Lemax prelim Christmas trees add very nicely.  I have 22 of them dancing to music.  Others are sitting about the layout continuously lit up.  if you want to chat some more, me email is in my profile.  Good luck and have fun!

spike thank you so very much

for your response

i was considering 4 consists plus the 2 Williams Girls Sets.  the other 4 consists were to be the MTH 2000 Gold Hudson and Passenger car set / 2. MTH proto 2 F40 PH in Caterpillar colors pulling the 12 Caterpillar Coal cars and a Caboose

a Williams 4-8-4 Done in Coca Cola Livery pulling a Consist of Coca cola Freights and

the Lionel Polar Express set as well as

the Williams Girls Steam set and the GG-1 Passenger set

i got this worked up let me know what you all think

in a quick a dirty fashion simple many trains running at one time the size your wanting I can only think of a wedding style layout one layer stacked on top of another

lower level 084 than working your way down to 036 at the top with MTH Realtrax 031 in the middle of the 036. if you do a combination of retaining walls and mountain you can fit a lot of bling in between the levels hardest part about it would be the modular design . and at the top you have enough room for a whole x-mas village. simple loops with no switches to derail causing issues. the 2 girls trains can run on 031 so there good for the top 2 levels.  

I dislike switches so i dont have or use them

all of the track on this will be straight loops and working with  a larger curve radius at the lower end and the smaller will be O-27 on the top

according to my design the two lower tracks are 072 and 063 while the next level up is 045 and the next track is 036 and then there are two tracks that are 027

Bobbie,

Matthew B. does multi-layers for his holiday layout. email him for some photos of the the 2013 version. Also, the Redford theater display posted this past season.

A combo of the two should give you some ideas.

Having 8 x 16 to work with would allow for 2' x 4' sections or 4' x 4' sections.

Play with circles\ovals in a rectangle. 6 trains at once will be dazzling. Perhaps not using all similar loops would provide some scenic separation. Some arrangement of a large oval outside, 2 separate smaller ovals inside of that at 0 elevation, then a combination of 3 elevated areas. It would avoid a typical wedding cake look. The redford theater had two areas, I believe, that were elevated.

I try a few thoughts. Give me a few days and I'll post the scarm files. Grandie's are here this weekend.

Bobbie,

here's the 1st concept, 4' x 4' with 3 loops at zero elevation. Then add cookie cutter sheets for the other 3.

It looks to me like Gargraves flex would be less costly and easier to fit than Atlas when taking into consideration the module joints.

What do think, so far?     (right-click, "save target as" for SCARM file)

OK,

version 2 concept, 6 trains , tree in center

Moonman i cant open these files in scarm it says wrong file header and if i open it with a j peg viewer  it is 1 inch by 1 inch and i can not see anything but white 

i am using firefox and acdsee for image viewing

i did get concept 1 open intersting but only 3 trains

hey Bobbie,

forum member rogerpete displays a holiday layout in the municipal building of his town each year. They started about this time in 2014 for a quite large display. here's a couple of photos that he sent to me.

The elevated circles are 045, so they can be cut from 4 x 4 and placed on the main table.

Outside is at 8" center is 16" with a Christmas Tree(maybe)

feel free to email me off forum. We put up a large display each year & take it back down...

Maybe a tunnel or two, long enough for the train to fully disappear, and have it pop out on the other side of the of the display. A simple figure "8" on the lowest level. As a kid, that was one of my favorite things, waiting for the train to come out of the tunnel.

Moon Man impressive I like the Idea

I finally got the images to open again thank you for your time

Good Idea there up with up