No train this year because I am getting married in three weeks January 8th (Too busy to decorate this year. But we have the M&Ms On30 Christmas set and the Walthers Subway set that we like to run.
Next year we will have a hugh set though Stay tunned.
Currently building an HO loop (27" radius) for under the tree, it should be ready for next year. Will be a small-town winter/snow scene set somewhere in Pennsylvania.
Last year I bult a platform with an Atlas HO 18" radius circle with cork roadbed. This year we’re running Thomas the tank engine using the “Fun with Cargo” cars. Sunday, I picked up 2 more cargo cars, so Thomas is chucking along with six cars behind him.
The Thomas package came with the Bachman EZ-Track, so it’s a great little set that I can set up for my 3 1/2 y/o when it’s not under the tree.
I have a standing Christmas layout that spends summers stored in boxes in the basement. For most of the past years I used repainted Bachman On30 equipment that was actually sold as companion to the Christmas Village buildings.
This holiday season, however, I am trying out some new trains that I picked up over the course of the past year. The On30 and the S being very similar in size:
Mine is HO scale, with an Athearn Genesis 4-6-2 running now. Don’t know the sze though.
One tree, TWO trains! LOL
IN the tree is my N scale circle layout. Stole the idea from Bachmann’s Trim-A-Tree layout. Built out of 1" thick blue foam. It nestles between the upper and lower sections of our artificial tree:
Under the tree is a little loop of HO track for my On30 trains that I bought before Christmas last year just for this purpose. It’s only a loop and we don’t put up any scenery 'cuz that would take away valuable space for GIFTS, silly!
The under-tree layout serves multi-use. I bought the HO scale Hawthorne Village “Elvis” special train for my wife last year. I run the On30 for a while, then change it out for Elvis. This past summer, I picked up a Bachmann On30 train set at an auction for $7.00. I tested the engine and it runs, so it, too, will get some track time this year.
I am FIRMLY resisting the urge to expand the layout!!! I went with O scale because of it’s size but narrow gauge so it would run on 15" radius under the tree. Any larger would have intruded into the room too much or interfered with the front door. I really wanted to use the G scale from the high shelf layout in the train room, but a simple oval was just too big to fit.
Darrell, quiet…for now
I set up three loops of Kato N Scale track for my tree.
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I decorate one tree exclusively with train ornaments – most of them being the Hallmark Lionel series. Some of those Hallmark ornaments are really remarkable little scale models. As for under the tree, some years I set up a Lionel set my late mother had picked up at a rummage sale (she picked up two, actually, both with engines, track and transformer: one she got for $15 which I thought was a remarkable bargain. Then she picked up another for a dollar (!!!) including a die cast steam engine 0-27).
Other years I have set up a British Hornby OO scale trainset that, again, my mother picked up over 40 years ago at a department store: 0-6-0T steam engine, two tinplate British coaches, and am oval of bullhead rail track. The price tag is still on the box: $2.99. I often lament that I did not go back to the store and buy the whole stack of sets she said they had.
Dave Nelson
HO scale DCC. Athearn, Bachmann, Atlas, Proto 2000. But I can’t really say that it’s under the Christmas tree but is rather all around it, as my Christmas tree is only 6" tall and is ON the layout.
Currently no train under the tree, though I have an HO scale train that I may put under it. I do, however, have an N scale loop in the tree(I’ve been doing this for three or four years now. Here is a picture from a couple of years ago:
I am lucky enough to have my dad’s American Flyer under the tree for the last two years. When I got my own house and had the room I swore that I would restore the old A.C. Gilbert train and get’er running again and that’s just what I did. I had it running under the tree last year and I think it brought a little tear to my dad’s eye to see his favorite childhood toy still running after 57 years.
Is the tree actually lighted or is that just the reflection of the camera lights?
That’s just the reflection from the flash. The tree is liberally coated in multiple colors of glitter so that it sparkles. Perhaps next year I’ll have it motorized so that it slowly turns.
When I was a preschool age child, my father set up a 5’ x 18’ “Christmas Garden” taking up most of the living room. Since it left no room for the tree, they would get a short tree, about 4’ tall (or cut one down if needed) and place it in one corner of the layout.
In latter years, when we had more room (a house with a basement) this “Christmas Garden” complete with TrueScale track, craftsman kit buildings, lighted structures, plaster mountains, etc, was set up and left up and quickly became my first model railroad.
Sheldon