It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas....?

Coming up on 500 hours run time on the bulletproofed Polar Express!....it’s just so happy making laps 16-18  hours a day!....love the season!...doesn’t get any better!...

Pat

@MartyE posted:

Marty, I love that Santa Shay, very cool.

FINALLY , 9 yarn building Christmas layout for 2020.

LIONEL PE , MTH NATIVITY TRAIN and LIONEL ELF HANDCART.

This year's Christmas layout.  I'm running the Polar Express now.  LAter, I'll run my wife's Hallmark Toymaker Santa set, then the North Pole Central pulling MTH Nativity themed cars.

Looking good Mark.

What are those buildings made of ?      If you bought them  what brand were they ?       They make a really nice old fashioned winter city scape that works well with the Polar Express.  🎅

@Dallas Joseph posted:

Looking good Mark.

What are those buildings made of ?      If you bought them  what brand were they ?       They make a really nice old fashioned winter city scape that works well with the Polar Express.  🎅

Thank you!!  They are all ceramic.  Some are Department 56, some Lemax, some I don't know.  My wife bought all of them at the the local thrift store over time. 

Here's a shot of the layout at church. Couldn't do the big layout this year since our classes had to spread out due to Covid. So just a small and humble set up. Was kind of refreshing.

And here's the Christmas layout at home. Mostly just track and trains. But I'm totally okay with that.

@Engineer Bob posted                                    So just a  small and humble set up. Was kind of refreshing.

" So just a small and humble set up "..................." Was kind of refreshing ".

Perfect Bob , just the way that perfect first Christmas must have been .   👪🛐

@Dallas Joseph posted:

" So just a small and humble set up "..................." Was kind of refreshing ".

Perfect Bob , just the way that perfect first Christmas must have been .   👪🛐

Amen!!

@Engineer Bob posted:

Here's a shot of the layout at church. Couldn't do the big layout this year since our classes had to spread out due to Covid. So just a small and humble set up. Was kind of refreshing.

And here's the Christmas layout at home. Mostly just track and trains. But I'm totally okay with that.

Wow! I’ve got 2 long tables and never thought of doing that for a Christmas layout. I might just have to do some rearranging in the garage tomorrow.

For this year I added a new level to our train “tree” plus a train under the “tree”.

Our daughter loves the trains this year.  She asks for the Cab 1L and just about every car in her Girl’s set has some of her toys in it or on it. She opens the boxcar doors and puts her little toy animals in them. Bert and the Count are currently riding in the hopper.

Merry Christmas Everyone! 

Hope everyone is staying safe out there!

@Ryan Mc posted:

For this year I added a new level to our train “tree” plus a train under the “tree”.

Our daughter loves the trains this year.  She asks for the Cab 1L and just about every car in her Girl’s set has some of her toys in it or on it. She opens the boxcar doors and puts her little toy animals in them. Bert and the Count are currently riding in the hopper.

Ryan, Your train tree is fantastic!!  It has gotten me thinking of how to do something different that doesn’t take much space.

Your daughter reminds me of our girls so long ago.

This is just a sneak preview, I am not really finished yet. This year is my first attempt at a skating pond, and I am going to build something else tonight.
Sadly, my 2243 is running a little funky. It was never going to be there the whole season, but now I have to figure out what is wrong.

I’ve had a holiday layout for a few years, and this year with Covid spent some time building a platform that I could easily take down each year. I ended up using 1/4 poplar plywood (very lightweight) and 1x3 pine for the base. In previous years I had a lot of issues with track power...so I overdid it a bit with making sure that each of the three sections had independent power.

It’s been a fun project, and I’m sure it will continue to evolve each year.

A few additions yesterday.  Interestingly enough the tree looks like it "twist locks" onto something else.  It had that twist lock look on the underside of the base.

Polar Express running on the northbound mainline while the steel gang runs up and down the southward main working on track alignment.

Finally got a tree up this year.

@Mark Boyce posted:

Lots of great layouts.  I thought I had taken photographs of the Christmas town with one loop of track, but I don't see them.  I'll get some posted later.

New for 2020 is a nice looking and running LGB set I bought from a Forum member last spring.  It runs real smooth now that I polished the brass track and connected my old Lionel DC Type 0100 transformer I bought back in the late '60s.

Hi Mark,

That LGB Christmas train looks awfully familiar.  Glad you are enjoying it.

Here's our layout for 2020. Company cutbacks forced us down to a 4x8 on the Dining room table (no biggie since we won't be hosting any gatherings).

Foam panel over a simple frame of 1x2's. We reused our existing wiring harness which has 14g spines and 18g feeders.

Lionel 031 tubular and 022 switches.

We broke out the vintage ZW but added TVS diodes and fast 5 amp breakers to each throttle

Merry Christmas All!

Here's a video of our barebones Christmas layout. 

You'll notice that there is a strange silver piece of rolling stock in the Polar Express consist.  My wife loves the tribbles from Star Trek.  So, we bought the Lionel Tribble Transport car, and the Polar Express is hauling it.

A short video of my 2020 layout.

Keeping things low key this year. Kids aren’t coming to our house.

Steve

Here is my very first snow-covered Christmas layout!

New MTH North Pole cars w/ Christmas trains... Enjoy

New Christmas layout for 2020, probably our best yet! Please enjoy.

I found this video on YouTube that you will enjoy.  NH Joe

With a new dog in the house this Christmas, we pondered a safe location for the tree.  On-top-of-the-spa cover was a good solution.  Getting some run time after many years is a beautiful (to me) Atlas CNJ Alco, an MTH cast flat, followed up with a Williams Rdg brass smoking caboose.

@trestleking posted:

With a new dog in the house this Christmas, we pondered a safe location for the tree.  On-top-of-the-spa cover was a good solution.  Getting some run time after many years is a beautiful (to me) Atlas CNJ Alco, an MTH cast flat, followed up with a Williams Rdg brass smoking caboose.

Good luck with the dog..........they are a lot smarter and mischievous than we sometimes think.  We are finding this out with our 12 year old Rescue pup.

GOOD LUCK WITH THE TREE and  TRAIN .😉

Great looking layouts. Here is the one my grandson has to run on. It is setup in their front window so that family, friends and neighbors can come up and see it from the outside and visit and use the LionChief App to run the engine without making contact with the family inside! Covid safe!

When he is not running with the LionChief engine we have a couple of steam engines without motors that he likes to push around the track. They painted up these old freight cars in white, green and red and added sticker decorations lights etc. to some of the cars.

Wonderful photos and videos by all so far this holiday season.  Full of warmth.

Here are my entries for 2020.

First off, Die Hard is a Christmas Movie, so you know where I stand on that, LOL

Now the rest...

I'll take the video tonight and post it tomorrow.

So... yup! Die Hard is a Christmas movie!
Dallas, I like the use of the Nativity loco. Have you found a good Caboose?
Pat - I threatened to buy the $500 Polar Express loco this year and my old one is running better than ever. It’s from the first year it had a remote. Still going!
I’ll post a little of this years Christmas layout in a bit. For some reason (not the wine and bourbon, teaching the kids to play bridge) I can’t get the iPad to film.

The caboose is Lionel, if my memory serves me well Marty. 🤔

It has a Thomas Kinkade print on it.   It had very little weight to it and had no lighting.        I had to put a ground arrangement on it ( it has plastic trucks ) .  I also installed a center pickup .   After adding weights and LEDs , it turned out pretty well.

There were a couple other cabooses out there but we found this one at Hobbyspeed in Indiana Pa. ( i saw a little red Christmas bobber at the time but Judy liked the T. K. One. )

Happy Holidays

@Amfleet25124 posted:

Wonderful photos and videos by all so far this holiday season.  Full of warmth.

Here are my entries for 2020.

First off, Die Hard is a Christmas Movie, so you know where I stand on that, LOL

Now the rest...

I'll take the video tonight and post it tomorrow.

I am an S gauge guy but, I sure do appreciate all the work of all of your displays in O gauge.

Ray

Kevin, I like how you angled the two levels different ways!  Very nice!

My 2020 4x8 layout.  Merry Christmas to all !

Don

Here's some shots of my Christmas layout, the CEO has shown enthusiasm for this to permanently remain in operation. Red Arrow Lines dominate on this one.

Some really fine examples and good work on this thread.

Stay Safe Scott