Don't let this happen to you...

looks like fun.........

That's just great!!!!

It is called the Christmas Layout withdrawals

cngw,

    Got the same disease in 1949, there is no getting rid of it, it becomes a life long 

obsession!  

PCRR/Dave

It is to late, it will continue to grow just like the Blob until it consumes everything, your wallet, your bank accounts, credit cards and your wife nerves. 

You will eventually become a member of the Joe McDoakes society.

Self-inflicted.  Grandson probably would be content with one train on a single loop of track around the Christmas tree.  My grandsons and granddaughters seem to be.

What, me worry?

Al, that is an interesting comment, and funny you would add that. I guess I should have put up a picture of this year's layout......so here that is. Took 20 minutes to do. I enjoy it. It held my 11 year old grandson's and the 4 year old grandaughter's attention for about two laps. Then, they never had any interest in seeing it run again while here Friday and Saturday.

Won't be the same memories for them when they get older, but it was much less work for me than those layouts above from other years! Thanks to all for looking and I appreciate the comments. Greg

It slowly crept up on me last Christmas when I realized that I had never owned a Lionel.  So, I successively bought more and more components but still no layout...yet.

I fell into the trap again this Christmas season; didn't see this coming.

I came to Florida for the winter and got a Christmas tree.

Then, realized that I had no Lionel to put around the tree as all my stuff was in my Northern house.

The malady reared its Lionel head and you can guess the rest.

Merry Christmas

RickM46

RickM46,

   Hay man you got to post some pictures of the new Florida Purchase, can't leave us hanging like that!

PCRR/Dave

Did you allow them to assist in assembling the display, start and stop the train (can't tell if the one pictured reverses), place objects in and retrieve them from the cars, touch the cars, remove the cars and replace them on the track?  Most children want to be actively involved, not just watch.  

What, me worry?

I put a loop around one of the trees, (wife puts up 3), want to have larger , perhaps around the center of the Den.

Brent

Al, you said, ".........probably would be content with one train on a single loop of track around the Christmas tree.  My grandsons and granddaughters seem to be."

Nothing about you unloading logs, loading & shipping cargo, or classifying cars. I assumed watching them run entertained them!

Yes, I gave him the opportunity several times over the days (the 4 year old girl likes Frozen stuff) and he declined each time....returning to either a game on his iPad or going outside with me to shoot bb guns. Life goes on, trains or not.

If I had taken the month to put up the large layout with the auto log, coal, cattle, milkcan, etc. loaders, I would have had fun though beaten up. But the end result would have been the same. I took them up to the local deli (the guy puts up a layout, lots of interactive buttons for the younguns) and they had fun pushing the buttons and getting the items to work. (the 4 year old was happy with the moving button, it did not matter if anything worked!) But after 5 minutes...that was it.

And, the little oval with the two ho scale race cars on it entertained them as much as the 4 moving O gage trains. Maybe they are just two weird kids....but I'd bet not.

Enjoy your loop with your grandkids, while you can.

Hey Dave,

I got the Lionel Pocahontas set 6-29365.

Actually, I have had my eye on the set since the spring and seeing that it was disappearing fast, I decided I had better act now.  Anyway, the smoke unit failed immediately; so, I will be sending it to Lionel for repair.  After it comes back, I will set it up around the Christmas tree and take pics.

RickM46

Sounds Familiar!  We moved to FL 6 years ago, and while I have built up a nice North Pole Central Christmas layout, all of my PW, MPC, and LTI collection has been in storage in a climate controlled basement in Iowa... Up until this past week!  Just bought a small Haulmark Flex trailer, and put a Class I hitch on our Mercedes wagon and towed it all back to our home here in FL over the weekend.  Now to start sorting it out for that which will be added to the North Pole.  In the past I have used Super O to run the PE to the NPC line which runs on Fastrack.  I use a Bascule bridge to mate the two, so it represents the transition to the fantasy land. So looking forward to having it all in one place for a change.  And yes, I will be sorting out a lot of this collection and posting to the For Sale forum over the next few weeks. I left a nice NIB Burlington MTH Premier E6 ABA (PS2 from 2003) with Matching Cars at Hobby Haven in Des Moines on consignment...  But much more came back with me and will soon be up for sale.   A Stay tuned! 

That's how i started in 0 scale.

O grew up in England in the 50's with 00 gauge trains (where Christmas trains only appeared in American films) and then homework, sports, girls, work took over for a few decades.

After I moved to LA 10 years ago my new wife bought me a Lionel set for the tree and that was it!

When i took over the entire garage for trains there was a bit of grumbling but, after I pointing out who was responsible, all is sweet harmony.

PS - never got to put a train around the tree!

hey cngw...I pretty much go thru the same thing.  My family L O V E S to see the trains, but only for a few minutes........ugghh!   Like you it takes weeks to set it up.  should explain that I work full time, but try hard to "get pumped up" to work on the layout a little bit at a time at night after work,  and that "little bit at a time" seems for me to be the answer to do it!

  although when I started putiing up my small 2 siding yard...that went up in no time!

Then,  there is the crappy RealTrax I mistakenly bought, and am stuck with. but when the trains are a' rollin' the 8 year old in me come out. same as from my wife

Joe McDoakes - So You Want a Model Railroad

Theatrical short from 1955 - 8 minutes.

The rest of the story........

• Cheers from The Detroit and Mackinac Railway

   Gary

I bet many of you can relate to this story......

I was born in 1947. About the time I was 2 or 3, I am told my day bought a bunchof used trains from a guy. A 225E and a 1947 GG1, plus enough to put an oval with a inner cut through.

Along with auto log and coal loaders he added, plus the milk car later on, it was large (4x8) on legs and always a snow theme.

Being ex army engineer, he knew how to fix anything and do electric, so all was hooked to a second transformer to control voltage to the accs. and he cut up 110V series lights to get individual sockets and put them through the table with those little cardboard houses or plasticville over them. Always, a well lit layout with working cross gates, ring bells, blinking lights and working milk, log, coal etc.

Well, up until I was about 10, "Santa" brought the trains (and the tree when we were younger!)  and put up the board and tree when he brought the presents!!!

The sisters and I go to bed at 10 or so, wake up at 5AM to all the presents, often the tree, and always that dangone well sceniced layout, with trains running and houses lit, all working. We never could understand why he was so hard to drag out of bed to see what "Santa had brought."

Only years later did I find out, and only years later when I put up my own trains did I appreciate the work that must have been done that night. I NEVER ever attempted to fool my son and put up a train board on Christmas eve....I knew I could probably not pull that off.

To this day it amazes me to think about it. Too bad he never lived to see some of the boards I put up in the last few years. I think I owe it all to him.

The good thing for him was, he had three kids that really appreciated the trains those years, especially after we found out all the work that went into it.

I bet many of you had the same story at your house - back when trains meant Christmas was here!

Greg

RickM46,

    Bummer about the smoke unit in the new P Train, they are seriously cool however. Definitely post some pictures of her when you get her on the tracks.

PCRR/Dave

Hi Greg - Yes - My layout started out as a Fruehauf Trailer. My Dad a Mechanical Engineer at Fruehauf Trailers and his friends drove home a truck & trailer, similar to the one you see in the photo below. They got out of the truck and removed both rear doors from the trailer 

     They took the doors down to the basement and the stairs was a straight shot down from the back door. My Dad built legs, what we now call bench work He put both doors together on the long side. To a kid it was huge 

     At Christmas my two brother and myself received American Flyer Trains / A.C. Gilbert.

     We did not need any high tech digital sound system. Tubular track running on a Fruehauf Trailer Door, was our sound system. The door was made from Plywood with an aluminum skin on both sides. 

  Gary - Cheers from The Detroit and Mackinac, "A Toy Train Layout"

Gary, another great story.

Finish it though....after Christmas, did they have to put the doors back on the trailer and go back to work? (what a memorable story you have.)

Thanks for sharing, Greg

Hi Greg - I have been back to the old house and those Fruehauf doors are still there.

     When I was in High School, we took the layout down and boxed it up. The trailer doors became a floor in the garage attic for storage. 

Gary - Cheers from The

How is it that the trucking company did not miss the doors? There must be more to the story.

Hi RoyBoy - There is more to the story. When you are a kid you do not care about the door issue, my Dad made the three of us a train layout and that is what matters.

     Found out years later the rest of the story. My Dad was a Mechanical Engineer for Fruehauf Trailers. The doors where being switched out for a new type of roller door.

     For testing and evaluation.

     I was also told that several other engineers made train layouts from trailer doors, for their children. 

Gary • Cheers from The Detroit & Mackinac Railway, “ A Toy Train Layout” 

So....that is where the idea of  "recycling" came from!! Greg

Hi Greg

     Time for a history check……..

“Recycling” - started during World War II, to turn junk into weapons of war.

     The “Dad’s & Mom’s of the 50’s & 60’s, saved everything. They could not let go.

As kids we knew what house to go do if you needed car parts, lumber. hardware or just every day junk.

     In the 70’s the liberals took over junk and called it “Recycling Centers” lol

“Flower Power” - "With a Symbol  

Gary - Cheers from The Detroit and Mackinac Railway

Gary, we must have lived in the same neighborhood! And ours had a bike repair shop, a small gas engine repair shop, and a "filling station" within blocks of our houses. We were always digging out mower wheels, and the like to make "soap box" cars, sling shots and other things to shoot out objects.

Old powered slef propelled, reel mowers had the engine on top of the frame, and regular "spread"  handle bars like the reel push mowers had. I remember back in the early '50's, my old man took and cut the handle bars off near the top, rotated what was left up to vertical, put a seat on that, welded and horizontal bar that stuck out the front and at the end of that, welded a 6" pipe with another pipe inside that, dropped vertically down almost to the ground.

On the end near the ground, he installed a wheel, and at the top of that pipe, either bike handle bars or the end he cut off, and voila....a riding mower. I used it to cut grass. God help me if I had fallen forward into those spinning reel cutters! But  I never gave it a second thought.

The parents and us made do....and never threw anything away. It might be useful later. Your door story validates much of the thought of the generation back then. My old man was the same way. When he died in 2004, his garage filled two dumpsters!

Greg