If you have a Christmas Tree in your house, does it have a train under it? If so, what kind of train is it?
Mine is not really under the tree, but to the side on a special bench. It is a Bachmann On30 Christmas livery set. Straight DC.
Tree #1 is HO and has a loop (54" x 72") of the Life Like track with the molded roadbed, and one of two trains running on it. (We alternate every couple of days.) One is an Athearn A-B F-7 set, MDC round-roof express boxcar, and seven matching Athean streamlined passenger cars, all in B&O. The second train is an Athearn GP9 powered-dummy set, twelve blue box Athearn cars, and a caboose. The engines and caboose are lettered B&O, and the cars are from a variety of railroads, including B&O. I built the boxcars in the train so that the doors easily open, and the other cars are mostly action cars–gondola, pig flat, bulkhead flat, stock car, auto carrier, hopper-- that can have loads put on or taken off so that my kids have play “value” with the trains. All of the cars were kits I picked up on eBay, and are built with P2K wheels and Kadee couplers.
Tree #2 is an old Marx windup set (O gauge) that I bought at an antique store over twenty years ago. The date on the cars is 1949. Whoever owned this set took remarkable care of it since it is in very good condition, and still runs. The engine and caboose are NKP, along with a PRR Merchandise boxcar and yellow Wabash gondola. It is all lithographed tinplate, with tab and slot couplers, and the cars ride on four wheels.
Greg
Mine will be a “small” HO loop with my dad’s O scale stuff within.
No train under our tree. Our 25 lbs. cat likes to “dive bomb” under the tree!!! Why? No idea [%-)].
Our Christmas train is a Bachmann On30 passenger set in PRR with one extra car. We have a large collection of ceramic houses/stores/churches, etc, and set up a slightly different display every year using only a few of them.
There is a long range plan to build a more extensive On30 Christmas display using all the buildings, but time has been a limiting factor for a few years now. Maybe next year.
Power is without a doubt DC. Some years I hook up one of the Aristo wireless throttles to it.
Sheldon
Our table top has a small oval of my HO track for my HO trains.
And two loops of N scale inside the HO loop so My Other Half {MOH} can run Nscale trains that are special to MOH. The second N scale loop is kinda for me to run some of my old N scale stuff, too, or so MOH can run more Nscale…
I am fortunate that MOH is into trains as well.
There will be trains under the tree for both of us this year, as there usually is every year!
[8-|]
With several of the “feline” breed having the roam of the house it’s enough of a challenge just to keep them from playing tennis with the ornaments let alone a train.
I was going to set up my old Lionel that I got for Christmas in 1954 but again figured it would just be a toy for the “furry brigade”.
Mark
I picked up a Bachmann G scale 10 wheeler passenger train set a couple of years ago. The train is a hit with both the kids and adults. It is fun to watch with the lite coaches. Some of the little kids in the neighbourhood come to visit to see the train, a few parents I am sure end up purchasing trains because of it.
The cats have a love/hate relation with it. It is too big to knock off the rails (most of the time). You can just watch them stalking it whenever it is running.
Nothing much, just a 40" x 60" oval of Lionel FasTrack and a few favorite pieces of rolling stock. Its a mixed bag. A Rugged Rails PRR 2-8-0, the AT&SF caboose from my son’s Cannonball set, a MPC boxcar, a newer log dump car, and three cars from the set I received for my 3rd Christmas in 1950, (Sonoco tanker, Lehigh Valley Hopper, & 3482 Milk Car).
Today, I spent some time playing with this train set with my 4 year old Granddaughter. Three generations later and she loves running the train, blowing the whistle, ringing the bell, dumping the logs, and “shooting” milk cans across the room! At first she called them garbage cans. Some day, I might get to explain how milk was shipped in cans to the dairies, but that’s not important. Now that’s Christmas joy!
A Lionel UP Merger set of my sons. Simple and he loves it.
I have a G scale, Christmas themed train under one our trees. This is the kiddy’s favorite since it’s all lit up with Santa, elves and other fun things. It also has sound. Upstairs in the other living room/ train room I have a Lionel scout set from 1953. It was my Father in law’s. We’ll see if the kids like that one too since it’s new to our house this year.
I picked up a Lionel set this year for under the tree…it is a fun diversion from the fine scale HO stuff I tend to spend all my time on.
Before the house fire: LGB double tracked loop, Schoenweiler Station set, Sawmill, and Garage (all Pola). Passenger cars pulled by a Mallet, and a 1971, 0-4-0 from the original set.
Since the fire, On30 running on Kato HO unitrack in a simple loop.
The house fire sure put a dent in my Christmas.
Kevin
You bet, a traditional Lionel multi-loop design, complete with various vintage Lionel operating accessories, all mounted on a 5x9 platform. This served as the family’s Christmas layout for more than 20 years, only very recently being retired. Quite a contrast with my far larger HO layout in the train room.
CNJ831
I have an HO scale N&W W2 (2-8-0). I place the tree on a piece of plywood and use cork roadbed. There is a small town with Santa Claus and snow. As a scale modeler, it is hard not to go “overboard” on the temporary scene.[G]
Merry Christmas to all!![;)]
We just picked up one of Atlas’ Oscale set’s in PRR livery that they’ve been selling on line for dirt cheap. Not sure how the dogs will react, they were kinda spooked yet very curious when I had the HO test track on the floor.
Old Lionel is nice. My Christmas garden just went up and I have an old Lionel set from the early 1930’s ready to roll but need a little help. I model HO usually.
I have a transformer for Lionel with two leads. The track is 3 rail. What goes where? I may have to solder leads to the track but don’t want to make a mess and don’t have the official power clip that I believe connects to the track.
As soon as I get back home I will take pics and post them here.
mike
One wire to middle, and one to any of the outside rails.
This is the first year we have actually planned trains to trees as our house is going to be part of the town’s “Old Fashioned Christmas” tour. They wanted us to display our trains… So in addition to setting up the children’s youth in model railroading modules we are going to set up our Christmas Forest each of course with its own train except for a set of twins that will have a single train on a figure-8 with a tree inside of each loop.
Tree 1 Since this is our main tree it gets the Bachmann 1:20.5 4-6-0 Annie Christmas Loco “North Pole & Southern”.
Tree 2 - Kalamzaoo 4-4-0 Mountain Central Passenger Set.
Tree 3 & 4 - Kalamazoo 4-4-0 D&RGW (PFM Sound) 3 car Freight train, on the figure-8
Tree 5 - Bachman Roustabout Circus Set.
Tree 6 - Bachman Ringmaster Circus Set Plus (this is the big circus train.)
Tree 7 - This is our original Christmas tree from 1982 so it gets our original Christmas tree train an O-Scale Atlas F9 & AHM freight cars.
Tree 8 - The “new” Lionel Century Club Berkshire I just won on Ebay and what ever Lionel cars I can find for it to pull.
Tree 9 - Getting into the smaller trees here this one will get a Lionel O-27 Crayola Crayon train.
Tree 10 - HO scale Bachmann Russian 2-10-0 with fantasy reefer cars.
Tree 11 - HO scale shortened Fox Valley Hiawatha (just because it is new and I want to run it)
Tree 12 - Lionel Learning Curve battery powered kids trains.
Tree 13 & 14 Tiny trees get N-scale (whatever I can find)