I want to share this short video of a uniquely awesome Christmas Train Tree Layout I came upon created by Ken Kelly of Kitchen Designs which features Lionel, LGB, and Thomas the Tank trains with Department 56 buildings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5sd_bn8sc8
This unbelievable multi-layer Christmas train tree and village display was built by Ken in his workshop at Kitchen Designs. He has been collecting a holiday box car each year since 1987.
The first bottom layer features the large G-scale LGB Circus Train and Playmobil’s Circus Tent. The second layer from the bottom has a Lionel Big Boy engine pulling Lionel’s Christmas box cars from 1987 through 1999 and on this same layer's inner loop is a Thomas the Tank engine with Annie and Clarabel train cars.
On the third layer from the bottom is running Lionel Christmas box cars from the years 2000 through 2016. There are two inner loops on this layer as well. One features a clown speeder car and one features the Santa and Snowman handcar.
On the fourth level from the bottom is Ken’s original 1957 Lionel train set given to him by his grandfather.
The fifth tier houses Lionel’s pink girl’s train set.
The sixth tier is a Lionel Steel coal train set (just in case someone’s naughty).
The seventh tier is Lionel’s version of Thomas the Tank from the giant circus collection and at the very top or eighth tier is an HO Christmas engine and features Department 56 Santa’s North Pole.
The entire tree is constructed of plywood circles supported by PVC pipe. The inner pipe is a conduit for all the electric for both the trains and the houses. It took 7 different transformers to run all the different trains. The village details are quite personalized with models of the very first cars Ken and his wife owned, the hotel they stayed at on their honeymoon, and gifts they've received through the years.
Here's a photo of the entire tree along with close-ups of some of its layers. Enjoy!
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