While I'm primarily a scale modeler, or at least as close as I can get, at Christmas I'm strictly a standard gauge guy. My holiday train display has evolved to the point where I have no additional room for it, so the best I can do to freshen it up each year is to rearrange or improve the details. Here are some of this year's efforts.
It's an interesting time down at the depot as busy platforms predict heavy holiday traffic -
Hiding in plain sight at the station door, a plain clothes Santa is trying to convince little Virginia O'Hanlon to believe. No doubt the Christmas morning appearance of that teddy bear he's hiding will prove his point -
In this age before Air Force One, even the president travels by train. FDR must be inside buying a ticket as his 1938 Cadillac V16 limo waits under the watchful eyes of a railroad gateman and an officer of the local constabulary -
That hot dog vendor is probably the guy who gave him the idea to serve tube steaks to the King and Queen when they come to visit him at Hyde Park next June. Nothing like a good, old-fashioned American picnic! The arrival of the blue carriages of the Royal Train from Canada will be quite a sight, hauled as they will be by a gray New York Central Dreyfuss Hudson. Colorful. 
And finally a gloriously deco train arrives to speed travelers to destinations distant in the imagination.
More later. Maybe.
Cheers,
- Mike
. Or maybe the food is just really good
. Oh, to have been rich in the '30s . . .
. Thanks, Dad!
. Given that bag of coal hanging from his wrist, some naughty child may not be so lucky 
. Maybe there's still time to save the day -
