CHRISTMAS TRAINS - LETS SEE THEM!

As I have aged the train under the tree has become less complicated, but the tradition continues.

Here are  some of the Christmas cars currently on the tracks of my layout…the animated Santa Caboose is a favorite!!! 🚂🎅🏻🎄

I just finished this new portable layout 55" x 100" and brought it up from the garage to the living room on Monday. I just got the MTH 11-5505-1 Christmas tinplate set about a month ago: new still sealed in the box!  I could not believe I found that set new, never opened.   The F-3 diesels arrived today from the Train Loft in Winston Salem NC.  They were a custom run for them from MTH with the Southern road name. MTH part numbers 20-21614-1 and 20-21615-1.  The ES44AC is MTH 30-20757-1 which I got from MrMuffins trains.  See video below.

Update: 8Dec22 -  The video below was limited to 100MB.  I uploaded a YouTube video which shows the un-abridged version of the video. https://youtu.be/BZcnYaRKFpk

@trainnerd posted:

Here is some of my Christmas Trains on my powered wall display..

Wow, what a great idea.  I have a lot of lighted Christmas cars and this is a perfect way to show them, Thank you for a good idea.

@ConrailFan posted:

Here's mine, not as fancy as all the rest but I can sit and watch it for hours. . .

Not sure about that  "  not as fancy as the rest  "  but it sure takes me back so many decades ago when I got down on the carpet at Christmas and watched in excitement as the our first train set made it's travel around the tree . 

Thanks for sharing.

Here’s my SP Holiday Special running around the ceiling shelf in the living room/train room.

@NYC Fan posted:

Incredible Skip.  I'm amazed that you have enough NYC landmarks left to dedicate to a Christmas layout.

Patrick, I don't believe I've ever seen this view of your layout before.  Could you give some details on the building construction used on this row of buildings and how you came up with that gorgeous backdrop?

This was a Christmas present from my parents in 1954. I was 3 years old. I ran it under the tree every year. It’s still alive and well. I ran it at my layout open house. This is the old school Christmas layout I set up just for the occasion.

@Dynamo2112 posted:

Here’s my SP Holiday Special running around the ceiling shelf in the living room/train room.

I love that engine. I am looking for one of those...Railking or Premier. They are really hard to find...but I will keep looking. That is one fantastic Christmas train. I have a upper track near my ceiling too.

something simple this year for the tree

Department 56 Snow Village…🚂🎅🏻🎄

MTH Ives 1134, restored 1926 Ives Passenger Cars.

A few scenes from the modular layout.....

Merry Christmas!

Peter

@Jon G posted:

MTH Ives 1134, restored 1926 Ives Passenger Cars.

Beautiful work on the cars!  How did you prep them to get the paint to stick?

@palallin posted:

Beautiful work on the cars!  How did you prep them to get the paint to stick?

Strip in TSP, sandblast with crushed glass to roughen surface, then self etching primer before the final color (Charlie Wood’s paint).  The most time consuming part is hand painting the gold and ivory on the windows.

Thanks!  I would need someone to do the blasting for me (if I ever had to do it).  It is no doubt a key step.

A different kind of Christmas train - Lionel Christmas cars dating back to the 1980s...

Grandsons were here Sunday and got the Christmas trains out. Finally got the last one going yesterday. Gold P E has three blinks when smoke is on so we turned the smoke off.

Paula was running two of the trains last night.

We will try to get a video at some point but we aren’t there yet. Have to correct a track gremlin, switch some P E cars around, and move some trains to level two.

Our Christmas layout is on the kitchen table this year - LionChief +2.0 Pere Marquette #1225 pulling MTH Christmas Express Lines Baby Madison passenger coaches.

@th55 posted:

I just finished this new portable layout 55" x 100" and brought it up from the garage to the living room on Monday. I just got the MTH 11-5505-1 Christmas tinplate set about a month ago: new still sealed in the box!  I could not believe I found that set new, never opened.   The F-3 diesels arrived today from the Train Loft in Winston Salem NC.  They were a custom run for them from MTH with the Southern road name. MTH part numbers 20-21614-1 and 2-21615-1.  The ES44AC is MTH 30-20757-1 which I got from MrMuffins trains.  See video below.

Update: 8Dec22 -  The video below was limited to 100MB.  I uploaded a YouTube video which shows the un-abridged version of the video. https://youtu.be/BZcnYaRKFpk

Love the Christmas Tinplate train.  Just wished that MTH had issued a Tinplate engine and cars with Christmas lights.  Hey MTH's Rich Foster, bring back Tinplate!!

@Matt_GNo27 posted:

My son's Thomas & Percy, along with his postwar log unloading car, gantry crane, and saw mill. The latter two are post-war reproductions.

Today we revised the East half of the Christmas layout slightly. Putting the operating track at the sawmill right after a curve caused the pickup on the locomotive to short between the center rail and the operating powered-rail, so I added in a half-straight between the curve coming off of the switch and the operating track. This required reshaping the East-end of the loop and moving the crane yard further East.

The New Haven RR just delivered a load of Christmas trees shipped via CP Rail from just north of Quebec City.  They’re here at the NHRR’s  Vernon, CT yard, ready for unloading.  Ah, seasonal traffic!

Don

Just finished my Christmas layout in time for this Holiday Season after much preparation!

Here's my contribution to this years Christmas Trains, with a modified PE and Hobo car.

Merry Christmas to all!

This is a 4 x 8 Christmas layout I put together with the kids last year separate from my larger permanent layout I'm working on as well.  Nothing much has changed for this year.  Just have to take the sheet off, add the trains and we'll be running again!

Hope you enjoy.  Merry Christmas!

Michael

Christmas Trains Times Two ...

I placed 35 DEPT 56 lighted porcelain buildings along three perimeter edges of the upper level of my home layout. All the buildings are from the North Pole Village collection, so there's a year-round Christmassy feature on the 15x19 feet, L-shaped layout. Three bump-and-go trolley lines serve that wintry zone. The dominant building is Santa's home in the SE corner. The tallest structure is a model of the Eiffel Tower; it is the "mast" that supports a flying Christmas blimp.  Pix attached.

During the holiday season, I also install a temporary carpet layout with FasTrak around the base of the tree for enjoyment of our three great grandkids and visiting youngsters. Four Lionel trains from the THOMAS series are available for the kids: Thomas, James, Percy, and Diesel. The kids operate those LionChief locos with hand-held controllers. My only regret ... I initially installed two FasTrak MANUAL O36 switches for economy. I may replace them with RC FasTrak switches (with built-in anti-derail feature) so the trains can automatically negotiate the two interconnected loops without risk of derailments at the switches. Pix attached.

Santa knows ... Christmas and toy trains go together like milk and cookies.

Mike Mottler   LCCA 12394

@coach joe posted:

Patrick, I don't believe I've ever seen this view of your layout before.  Could you give some details on the building construction used on this row of buildings and how you came up with that gorgeous backdrop?

Coach - this is part of my Westend section of Patsburg.   Westend is  an elevated section at the western most  end of my layout.  Two of the buildings in the row were purchased from a vendor at York.  The shorter one is an MTH building.  The building with the snow flakes decorations is an MTH building.  At the end of the row I used a mirror to create the illusion that the street extends.   The background is stock background.  I forgot who makes the backgrounds ( Scenicscapes?? ) but I've seen the same backgrounds in many train stores.  They are HO scale and for my layout are perfect for creating a forced perspective.  

The garden at Kenilworth this 2022 holiday season:

An annual tradition, never ceases to draw a crowd.

PD

Merry Christmas 2022

@Michael Cimba 040217 posted:

Beautiful video Michael.

How did you do the falling snow animation ?

With the snow , backround and music this has to be as good as it gets in a layout video for Christmas.

Thank you for sharing.

Here's my layout - 10 x 5 built off of two foam boards that connect around the tree.  Outer Loop is a combo of O48 & O60; inner loop is O36.  Loving my new NYC Mohawk and Vision Pig Stock cars!

2022 Christmas Train Garden - Merry Christmas

Youtube Link - https://youtu.be/FWL2eI13_mE

The new Lionel Ready to Run Christmas Light Express and add on box car

@Dallas Joseph posted:

Beautiful video Michael.

How did you do the falling snow animation ?

With the snow , backround and music this has to be as good as it gets in a layout video for Christmas.

Thank you for sharing.

Thank you so much @Dallas Joseph!  It was fun making this and the kids enjoy running the trains!  The snow animation was just a free video of falling snow I pulled off the internet from a video website that makes different animations and video effects (I can't remember which one).  I overlaid it on top of my trains video and set the opacity so the train video would show through the snow video.  And then I just set it to loop as many times as I wanted.  Glad you enjoyed it!

Nothing like Standard Gauge under the tree -

Cheers,

- Mike

I couldn’t resist bringing this 1940 Lionel beauty off the shelf and running it under the tree. This train was my first exposure to a train in 1941. It still works great!