Each year I set up a large Toy Train Christmas layout at our railway museum train ride event to the north pole. This year I set up a 64x14 foot display to spread out for less crowding and social distancing for Covid. Normally I have the controls on the fence for sounds, animations and LionChief Controllers for the kids to run the trains make noise and activate animated stuff. We eliminated this this year so I did not have to keep working on it with large crowds and instead set up 2 trains on the far right side with Lionel LionChief Bluetooth and signage to download the app and run the trains from a phone. It worked OK, several families downloaded the app and had fun running trains, but I expect next year will be back to controls on the fence the kids prefer this.
For the most part I had Williams, some Lionel, MTH and Atlas engines running in loops. With limited time to set up I was not able to create a much more layered display. On the left side I built a 2x4 frame with plywood top to hold a snowy village and enough clearance to crawl underneath to look after the track. Inside under the mountain; the train went over a X crossing and did a loop before coming out of the tunnel on the other side. The kids would watch the train enter the tunnel on the left then move a couple of feet left along the fence to watch the train come out the tunnel on the other side. Then trying to figure out how the train could disappear looking down into the tunnel to see where the train went, of course it would appear a minute later. Good fun they liked this.
The Unicorn Pink train was very popular as well as the Coke, Disney Mickey and M&M's trains. I had a LED light strip changing colors shining on the Coors Silver Bullet making it extra shinny and colorful. Lots of animated Lemax stuff and buildings on the right side village. And I put together a Disney "Cars" train with the Bluetooth engine, the kids liked this. Gave out lots of old toy train catalogues and magazines with flyers on our train club included.
Here is link to a video of the layout;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP1xSF42om0
And a link to the full size train ride in the snow;
https://ogrforum.com/...n-north-pole-express
You entered the site then went to the railway station boarded the train for an hour train ride then got off and entered the museum roundhouse building to see the Royal Hudson Steam engine, visit Santa, crafts, gingerbread cookies decorating, the toy train layout, food and a mini rail train ride. This year the mini-rail train looped around the roundhouse building then out the door through a tunnel into another large engine shop to see the North Pole Workshop and PGE engine decorated etc. . Great event ran 4 weekends 12 hour days. Several thousand people through the display. Good fun.
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