Displaying model trains outside of your train room

I have a Lionel Big Boy above the TV in the den along with the K-line "survivors" caboose. No display case for them. In the living room, on the fake fireplace's mantle, my Milwaukee Road S-3 pilot with case.

Hear are my cabinets I keep my trains in. I do have 1 more to hang up as soon as I get a chance. These are in my living room.

I have 48 linear feet of shelving in our office/den/dog sleeping room and the shelving is directly above my desk.

In my old house in Virginia I had a Lionel Standard Gauge Hiawatha on the mantelpiece and some other trains on top of a long, low bookcase in the guest bedroom. When I moved to bigger quarters in Arizona, the trains all wound up in the train room. 

Nowhere. Not a single item. The trains and everything associated with them are displayed and stored in the basement trainroom. I preferred that arrangement, from the first day we got into this hobby, and my wife concurred.

FrankM.

The hutch in our dining room provides a place.

The 2026 that Santa brought me in 1951 is in honored retirement on our coffee table, and only runs at Christmas time.  All my other trains are downstairs with the layout.

One way to start a conversation with new company in living room.......

Steve, Lady and Tex

I very briefly got the foolish notion to display a locomotive or two in the family room. Not well received. Two Glen Snyder shelves got "recycled" before they even made it into the house. Currently stored in boxes under the bed. Very sore subject around the household.

Gilly

Frank M., re : "the wife concurring.."  Yeah that's kind of what I sense here.

Gilly, probably would get same reaction here.  Might require further "research."  

I'll post pictures later.....but I have to laugh.........

I have a few engines in our family room on an antique shelf that has been in my wife's family over a 100 years.......

I normally dislike interior decorators.....they think you are made of money......however, the one we had that decorated our main floor told my wife that "you must have trains displayed in this room.....it's who you are..."

Needless to say, I was floored!  

Peter

I have my Dad's mid-1930s wind-up tinplate Marx 0-4-0 tender, two cars and caboose on display in my study, along with a Lionel Lionel funeral train and a Darsted 2-6-2 tinplate tank engine (just because they are pretty) on a shelf across the room.  At home, that is it.

I have a 3rd Rail ATSF Northern, 2929, in a display case near the door of my office here at work.  People love it.

Just now, we are attempting to remove the "dust collectors of our lives" (sounds like a soap opera).  Over the years, I have had various collections displayed, Murano glass clowns, 50's art glass, copper ware, trains, books, nut crackers, and I am sure some other things.  

Here is the rub, we also have three house dogs, who like to roam the woods, and despite our constant cleaning of their 12 respective feet, they bring in copious amounts of dirt, that turns into dust, and deposits itself on all our displayed treasures.  Cleaning is a real nightmare, hence we have attempted to eliminate most of the displays for now.  

But, that said, I truly enjoy looking at fellow member's displays.  Letting others look at your stuff is part of what this is all about, isn't it?  

Simple answer: No.  However, I certainly would not mind a train on the fireplace mantle or somewhere else on the main floor. Even my 'train room' is on a lease with lots of easements, covenants and restrictions.  The carpet central runs around an end table and TV and in front of a couch.  Please watch your feet when watching TV down there! The legal department of Lykens Valley Central obviously did not have a bunch of Harvard Law graduates working for it.

We have trains on display in both our living room and family room. It was my wife's idea.

How's this?  A little too tacky perhaps?  James, Nicole, what would they call this across the Atlantic?  A "Soo on the Loo" maybe?    

Mike, we are like you, love to do it but the space that could be used for this purpose is taken with something else family related.

"Soo on the Loo"...there's a Haiku just waited for that line! 

--Greg

These are displayed on the mantle because of the names. (Spence & Sue)

I have some on my bookcase shelves in front of the books, as a place to put them when I'm not running them on the carpet loop.  My 1 year old would love it if I left them down, but I'm sure you can imagine what shape they'd be in when I got home from work.  I have also put a locomotive or two on the top of the piano from time to time.  There is a shelf in our bedroom that I have a LEGO Garrett on, but it's behind my wife's collection of figures.  I'm toying with the idea of putting shelves up in the hallway at the top of the walls for my HO and N stuff, but I'm not sure how well they'll stay with kids running around and banging into the walls.

On Snyder shelves in former layout room, was dismantled in '09. Built a small layout in the attic room down the hall February '10 .....now dormant due to health issues.

I have trains--O scale/gauge, Large Scale, O tinplate, and Z scale--displayed in just about every room of my home except the bathrooms and kitchen.  All are in glass- or acrylic-protected cases so absolutely no dusting is needed (I HATE dusting).  I'll try to take some photos this coming weekend.

Since I live alone--really very alone now until I get a new pooch--I don't have to answer to anyone when it comes to how I "decorate" my home.  One of the few advantages of being single.

I have a Lionel wooden base with track above my desk at work and need to replace the No 5344 Hudson that recently went to a new home.

We have my wife's Standard Gauge Lionel Blue Comet set over the bookcase in our living room.

Guys,

Unlike some of you, I am not retired yet. I have some reminders of my hobby in my office. I am at home where I work, I wouldn't have it any other way.

****, at the Kiwanis club, which meets on Wednesday nights, the guys have taken to calling me "Choo Choo".

I don't mind.

Mike Maurice

Mike,

   I have a couple different displays in the house, A Tin Plate 263E Engine with Tender & mini Crane Car under glass on the mantel in the living room, and the 249E train set

displayed on the mantle with it's custom made box in the game room.

CRR/Dave

Here is the 249E I purchased from one of the members just a little while ago.

Dewey. Don't let any health issue stop you from working on the trains. I know that you are always posting helpful information to all different posts which you helped me a number of times. I lost my right leg & im still pushing to build my layout. So please don't stop. Your help with questions  are great.     Scot

My office at work...

I kept a few train items around my office: a #50 gang car, and a #394 beacon on the shelf above my monitor. And I had a 6112 style gondola on my desk that I used as a pencil holder. Both wheeled items were on a piece of cut down Gargraves track.

The trains interested one of my staff members enough that he went out and purchased some Lionel for himself.

I love this. My wife would probably allow something like this, as we rode behind this very locomotive twice on our Grand Canyon trip!

That said, my wife has made it VERY clear that no RR or military stuff (my two primary hobbies) is allowed out of the 'toy room' I have in the house.

In an old kitchen dresser from the farm next door in my bedroom. It houses some of my other hobbies as well On30, OO trams, plates, Avatar & other movie items.

James

Per the Boss: Anywhere except the bedroom.

Both, my sweetheart, (wife), and my favorite daughter-in-law, have hiked the Canyon with me.  Both have done rim to rim hikes.   I think they both like the display.

I tried to put one up on the fire place mattle and was told in no unsurtain term to get it the #$$#%@$#%Y off of there. Then I tried the entertainment center, again %$%%@^%&^

The man cave(basement) is all that was left, now the daughter has her stained glass ^&7* junk down there and the wife wants part of the work bench for her sewing machine, the man cave has turned to His , hers and hers.

That is ok, wait till I turn on the smoke to MAX when the trains are up.

Gee honey the smoke will not turn off on this one.

I hear you on this. About 2 years into the marriage, my wife start talking about building a house. My ONLY demand was (other than not moving where there's well water as I grew up with a well and we didn't have water if the power went out) I was to have a room for my stuff. She's decorated the whole house and yard in a style I sure wouldn't have picked, and she doesn't see that she really has the entire house already to do whatever she wants. Really, she doesn't see that at all, I've given up trying to explain that to her.

And like all such rooms, she's been trying to shoehorn eveything she possibly can into that room as if it's a giant hallway closet ever since. And everything has been bounced right out of there like the walls were made of rubber.

One of many reasons I wanted to put my planned On30 layout in there was I am certain it would change her perspective of what the room really is. If it's just a repository for my RR and WW2 collections, then all bets are off. But if it's a display room for the layout (which will take up the majority of the room as it's not a very big room to start with), I think that will change how she sees the place and that should stop the never-ending attempts to put other stuff in there.

I never put my foot down on much of anything with her, but THAT is one of the few things I don't back down on. That was the selling point for her having the house built at all.

I've known too many men like John who lost their only space in their own houses and I was not gonna back down on this. Ever.

I'm not one of those chest-thumping, "Me man, me rule all" types, but I have a short list of things that aren't open for discussion or compromise. This is one of them. Growing up, I never had room for a layout of anything of my own and now that I'm in my 40s, I know I've earned the right to have that room the way I want it.

I've thought about it a few times, and always decided against it. If I have engines outside of my train room, those engines will not get run nearly as often. I like to run my trains.

Of course, I do have some on shelves in my train room.