Introduction

Im still trying to find my "place" in this community, so I'm going hang out here and continue to read this awesome resource.

I posted my layout design in that section and it didnt grab much traction. I did get it laid out to test and I'm happy with it for Christmas. Going into spring and summer, my mpdel railroading will stall as camping, fishing, yardwork, and house upkeep.

My christmas train has grown rapidly, The Hudson, Union Pacific, was treated to a Great Northern extended sight caboosen and now for the meat and potatoes of the Christmas train.

Fin and Gil's troutfarm aquarium car

Kiss Kringle chase gondola

Naughty/Nice twin dump car

Santa's Delivery dump car

Santa's mail delivery car

Great Northern searchlight car

I think that will round out the 2019 Christmas train.

But im still actively hunting for operating Christmas car. The layout might run on a sheet for 2019, but we'll see if a foamboard layout comes to life.

Some of my favorites are the Xmas aquarium cars

Although the Polar express trains seem to be very popular 

Most folks start talking about their Christmas layouts in the fall, much more activity on this topic then.

You might try a search on this topic--should turn up many threads and great ideas for you to consider (and to start buying needed/wanted items now).

Welcome to the list--a ton on information, ideas and help here.

My Christmas layout is mostly Standard Gauge tinplate.  I do have this O gauge set which is pretty cool: MTH 30-7095

Here's an OGR Christmas thread for ideas.  Good luck.

---

trainbob posted:

Some of my favorites are the Xmas aquarium cars

I haven't found an aquarium Christmas car I really like. But Im always asking santa for a good fishing season.

Scotie posted:

Most folks start talking about their Christmas layouts in the fall, much more activity on this topic then.

You might try a search on this topic--should turn up many threads and great ideas for you to consider (and to start buying needed/wanted items now).

Welcome to the list--a ton on information, ideas and help here.

I only get a Christmas layout, I follow the "what you did to your layout today" thread there is awesome stuff going there. Thank you for the Christmas thread link.

I have my want list made.  And already exceeded my purchase limit for this year. 

My stepdad came by and helped me piece together this layout. The wife "approved" the layout. Its a combination of O54 and O41 O42

This was our 2018 layout.

That's an O54 circle.

That's how i got back into the hobby again fifteen yrs ago boy it go's fast

Hey Mike, I'm an 027 track guy, so I was a bit thrown by your track diameter numbers. But then I thought "Menards." So I checked their page and sure enough, they make 054, but then they have listed 042.

Well, the reason I mention this is your other hobbies, exceeding your train budget and needing your wife's okay.

Because I was going to suggest starting small. And a hollow core door layout might be a way to get the wife's approval and keep under budget, though for a start you'd need more track as most hollow core doors are narrower than your already purchased curves.

There are challenges to door layouts, but they can be overcome. Like feeding wires through a hollow core door: You drill a hole and then feed through a sipping straw, running the wire through the straw, then pull out the straw.

But the advantages are a smaller self-contained layout that will help keep your expenditures to a reasonable level as you won't have space for lots of stuff. And it forces you to be creative with ideas and space, to keep things interesting. Like on my layout, I took a girder bridge, which has the girders mounted on a steel plate, which goes beneath the track. Well, I removed the girders and mounted them on wider strips of wood (to suggest a walkway between the track edge and girder edge.

The main advantage here, was to be able to change the girder bridge to a truss bridge or the other way around - giving some variety to a small space. On a larger layout, you might not worry about that as much. On a small layout, you want to keep things interesting to not get bored with it, so you make accessories and such to be easily moved or changed for variety.

Anyways, just some food for thought as you decide how you're going to proceed without rocking the boat too much .

Thanks Brianel,

 That is a great idea. I like building small. But this is a "temporary" layout that will run from Thanksgiving to New Years. 

My goal is to create something nice, my wife is a HUGE Christmas fan, I want something easy to setup and repeat. I enjoy running the train, but I like the mechanics and electrical and movement, hence the operating cars.

Christmas was cool to come home sit in my chair and run the train for 15 minutes, before contining my night

Hi, Mike,  you definitely came to the right place on this here forum.  There are tons of guys with the expertise to help out with any issues or advice that you might need.  

Welcome to the best model train forum

Ameen & Phil,

Thanks for the encouragement. The G- scale plastic set my now wife had before we got together was trash. I hated that train and thats what started this model train adventure. I was fortune enough to fall back on family and put together a nice "set" for last year.

This is a video of 2018 Christmas train. The Hudson, with a music boxcar (too loud to play constantly), cop and robber chase gondola, candy cane log dump car, and the little red caboose. All those cars were borrowed, returned, and my collection of rolling stock started. Now I have more cars than I can run at once, good problem to have

I searched for Christmas layouts and that's how I found this forum, after hours of browsing I found the "twice around"  and deciding that'll be my Christmas layout. I found the SCARM program, thanks to OGR, and was able to adapt the layout and find the track pieces needed to construct it. It has enough room to satisfy the wife's desire for present area and maybe a little village. 

Uh oh, running out of room sounds like a need for a siding, second loco and a passenger car or four to fill any leftover space   Let her choose #2 Then other gifts can wait in the closet or a bedroom  

Adriatic posted:

Uh oh, running out of room sounds like a need for a siding, second loco and a passenger car or four to fill any leftover space   Let her choose #2 Then other gifts can wait in the closet or a bedroom  

Thats my current problem. I cant find "her" christmas chase gondola at a price I'm willing to pay

Lionel #6-29894.

But I did find her twin dump naughty/nice car here from @railbear601, thank you

I took it out of the box to inspect and never set it on rails or took a picture.

I tried to get her excited about it at the train show in January and its not her thing. Her hobbies include, cooking, cleaning, camping, and tolerating my hobbies

Years ago I built an under tree layout on two pieces of paneling that i laid on the floor and hot glued a loop of o27 track I made my own Christmas train by decorating regular cars using bits of wrapping paper and small craft store ornaments. I name tagged them for each of my grand children 4 at the time. since I now have 10 grandchildren I've had to expand the layout to"o42" track and  add more paneling. Three years ago I found it too difficult to get down on the floor to assemble the layout so I built a table and put the whole thing on it. I will have to soon do more expansion as we are expecting two great grandchildren.

Thanks Al,

Never thought of hot glue and tracks. Im not sure I want re-cover cars, but I may get to that point. The 11 year old hopefully won't be giving us grandkids anytime soon.

Mike:
Transform a gondola car into a Christmas car by loading it with wrapped Christmas candy. As the train slowly travels around the base of the Christmas tree on a carpet layout, kids can snag a piece of candy as it passes. Memories are made of mini-moments like that.

Mike Mottler
mottlerm@gmail.com

Great idea Mike!

My cat will love it too. Any suggestions on the type of gondola I should use? I'll do some looking and see if I can find one I like.

Wish i had that idea 4 months ago. 

Welcome aboard  RIGHTTIREFIRE.  It too bad about the G scale nightmare.  I've just returned to "O" gauge from a twenty-five year stint in G scale.  I love the larger scale, but getting older it's harder to work in the garden on my layout.  Plus, I like to play with trains all year long and the winter puts a stop to that.  

Those plastic sets of G scale trains are, at best, mediocre.  In order to enjoy large scale, LGB is the way to go, in my opinion.  Even their starter sets, with the Stainz locomotives are built to last and take alot of punishment.  

Enjoy your endeavors in the O gauge world.  We look forward to seeing more pics of progress on your line.

Dan,

I wouldnt even consider it a model quality G plastic layout. It was a glorified kids toy. The plastic tracks didnt "snap" together well or true. 

But it did re-open the door to O for my family. Hopefully we can get the house repairs done with my stepdad, on his house, and get him into building a layout for himself. 

Im hoping the kid will show some more interest once we get out some tools. Im thinking a foam board layout would be nice and convenient for our situation. And it already looks like snow. But I need to do some more research on that. Im thinking we'll be running on a couple sheets this Christmas.

Mike

There is nothing wrong with a Christmas layout on the carpet, except if grease from the engine gets on the carpet !  I saw your one layout with two switches and a cross.  If you can obtain another pair of switches you can build an oval and with figure 8 in the middle.  This track plan provides for lots of action with reversing the trains and lots of switching from 8 to oval etc.  A Christmas tree looks good in one of loops of the 8.

This is the track plan I had as a kid my day made on a 5' x 9' ping pong size board that came on Christmas eve and lasted a few week.  Any small layout will get "old" after awhile if over used.  I incorporated the oval and figure 8 in my layout but added a homemade turntable in one loop. 

Charlie

Thanks Charlie,

I actually dont have any switches, deliberately avoided them.  Just the cross and to my knowledge lionel never made O54 switches. I believe i read people have adapted atlas switches.

As far as recovering cars goes all of my cars that I did are completely reversible. I made all of the additions on  cardboard slipons that are just put over the cars for the Christmas display which I then  remove to use on my regular layout during the rest of the year.  

Maybe I'll just put candy in the santa delivery dump car and borrow the candy cane log dump car again and put real candy canes on it.

Thanksgiving can't come soon enough now.

Water based acrylic craft paints under $1 each at Wally World. If you don't like it or want to change it you wash with hot water and soap, dry well asap, wipe a little oil around and try again.

 You can find cheap colorful mpc cars and let kids get creative..

roof to bricks, it's craft paint on wood

Tower roof, stacks, & delivery trolley, etc.

This one is blue again after a bath.

This is tunnel is foam carved with a hacksaw blade(optional) and kitchen knives. It was bound for the garbage so free + one half of a two pack of bells from the $1 store. Glue, toothpicks, whte, red, blk, grey (flats& satins. gloss=wet look)  so not even $5.   YOU CAN'T MESS THIS UP. There is minimalist childlike effort here. Messing up mostly just makes things look realer. (similar would be good for about 20lbs each as is for present stands, allowing some overhang of big boxes, support for a mountain, city, or combo elevation.  )

ADRIATIC,

Thank you. That's awesome and simple ideas for upcoming Christmas'

If you can wrangle some colored cardstock, or cardboard & construction paper, or an empty milk carton or two..... your town can grow without 75lbs in ceramics, or at least they might be replaced with more time for thought. 

https://get.google.com/albumar...hKey=CIWMs8SjwqXHgwE

http://littleglitterhouses.com

The building faces here are also foam... box bottoms, contruction paper, fireplace matches, silver tape/pinstripe, and Q-tip / salad container windows, staples for door handles, Lionel magnet for a sign, $1 store led mini desk lamp on the red building.. The lotto car, caboose, black crane, brown A frame hoist (2 tiny wood easels), conveyor, cement piers and bridge, background on yardsticksy are all dirt cheap fun I had.

(my Christmas layout is only 30"sq. and has even less room than normal with the tree top now mini tree eclipsing the circle.

  Little glitter houses and happy flatties / industrial parks and dirty trains; whats the differnce really? Same paints and simple materials )

Those glitter houses are awesome. Thank you. My wife is a huge Christmas fan. She has a shelf in the garage, the same size as our camping shelf, all Christmas. We set up 2 trees, plus 2 pencil pines, im sure you see our house from space because of the lights on the roof. So the display must fall into her acceptable decorations. 

The last of my train cars showed up today. Lol. The last ones of this year? Maybe. 

The Great Northern searchlight car and the Santa mailman operation box car.

Hopefully get sometime this weekend to put together some straight train and get a picture of the 2019 christmas train.

Right tire fire...hummmm....there has GOT to be a story there!!  I do see them occasionally on you tube cop chases.  That wasn't you there was it?

Sorry Tom,

Wasn't me, right tire fire, one wheel wonder, etc. Just a slang term for an automobile with an open differential.

Al Smeraldo posted:

Years ago I built an under tree layout on two pieces of paneling that i laid on the floor and hot glued a loop of o27 track I made my own Christmas train by decorating regular cars using bits of wrapping paper and small craft store ornaments. I name tagged them for each of my grand children 4 at the time. since I now have 10 grandchildren I've had to expand the layout to"o42" track and  add more paneling. Three years ago I found it too difficult to get down on the floor to assemble the layout so I built a table and put the whole thing on it. I will have to soon do more expansion as we are expecting two great grandchildren.

Al - two great grandchildren means that you need another table!

Bad news from the Christmas train... its too long. Ill need a bigger house and more layout space.

Irregular thoughts about space for O-gauge trains ...
Media treatment of so-called "collusion" between Trump and the Russians overshadows another possible collusion story  between O-gauge train manufacturers and the real estate industry.  It's common knowledge that O-gauge hobbyists often overbuild their layouts, over-purchase trains, and then run out of space at home. They have no alternative but to buy a bigger house, perhaps with a large annex for the trains.

A conspiracy theory ...
Real estate brokers earn a kickback from each sale of a larger home to train hobbyists from O-gauge manufacturers who purposely but covertly sold more and more trains to zealots who belatedly realize, "I bought too much."  Then they must seek a bigger house to keep their dream alive.  The bigger the new house, the bigger the kickback.

The Washington Post won't expose that story for fear of losing lucrative real estate ads in their newspaper. Look for a Web-based back story about the sale of NEVERLAND to a celebrity/hobbyist who sought a bigger place for his expanding layout and train collection. 

Mike Mottler    Satirical News Specialist
mottlerm@gmail.com

righttirefire posted:

Bad news from the Christmas train... its too long. Ill need a bigger house and more layout space.

 

If you say so. But maybe see how big it can get there, then you'll have a better idea how big the new place needs to be   You've got a few more to go before you start slipping or throwing traction tires

After some extensive thought. The picture has 13, 10" straight track. If O42 requires 12 track lengths to make a circle, 270 degrees would be 9 track lengths plus 15" on each end to the crossover. I might make the loop without the "snake" biting its tail. Or I may need to remove 1 car, November cant come soon enough

You need this.STD ga floor. O ga table. Ho. S.  Next level .

Top N ga.

Blue engine on floor. Mamod .0 ga live steam.  H0. Race track ..

Riki, I need that like the divorce it would cause.

Christmas is her holiday. It's a "whatever you like honey" time. 

righttirefire posted:

 

Scotie posted:

Most folks start talking about their Christmas layouts in the fall, much more activity on this topic then.

You might try a search on this topic--should turn up many threads and great ideas for you to consider (and to start buying needed/wanted items now).

Welcome to the list--a ton on information, ideas and help here.

I have my want list made.  And already exceeded my purchase limit for this year. 

I've already exceeded my purchase limit for this year, too.  So what do I do now?  Just keep buying stuff until the end of December, of course.  Then do it all over again next year, that's what!