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@jim mcclain - Thanks for your comment on my house.  Yes, those pasteboard (Made in Japan) houses were popular as under the Christmas tree village components for many years.  Certainly through most of the 1950's.  Your story must be a wonderful memory.  I know I got the Santa Fe A-B-A and the 25xx "Silver..." passenger cars around 1954.  While I was thrilled at the time I didn't know until I did some price/inflated $ research recently what a tremendous financial outlay that was at the time for my parents.  I don't know how they managed to afford it.   I guess we were just incredibly lucky kids at the time.

Best wishes for Christmas in 2022!!

Don

There are so many outstanding Christmas displays and thank you for sharing them. A general observation would be that we all got started with our interest in trains as part of our childhood anticipation of Christmas. I had not anticipated a Christmas scene but now I’m thinking how can I not.

My question is: Which buildings, Dept. 56, etc. match up closest to the scale?

Thank you, Jay

Well, we travel about 1155 miles for Christmas so the layout gets done at that location and not here so its fairly simple.  Here are some "Christmas" like scenes from our layout at home and other places.

The citizens of Small Town have started to get the town tree ready for decoration.  McDonalds already has their tree on the sidewalk.

Layout Small Town Center

Here is an interesting fellow, returning from summer vacation in Florida but trying to hitch a ride to the North Pole.

Lionel F3 and Santa

Here are some new Christmas houses that should make it to the layout this year.

Christmas houses 1

Hey look at that, looks like that fellow managed to get a ride from the Central !

Lionel NYC work caboose with Santa

Everybody around town is buying and bringing home their tree.

Christmas Tree on Trailer

Best Wishes

Don

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In 2020, which is pre-HO layout distractions, I directed my hobby funds to a bunch of FasTrak and built the Christmas layout of my dreams - because what else did I have to do during lockdown!?
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Video of it in operation...
By 2021, a tubular O-gauge trolley out-and-back with crossover and reversing loop had been added.
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Last year my then 4-year-old only wanted to run the trolley, and didn't like the trains because they were too loud in her opinion.  Sure enough, this year we started talking about the Christmas layout in October and all she wanted was trolley.  So...thanks to Menards I expanded a bit.  Now with two switches wired so they throw simultaneously in the same direction, and "select" between two different stations.  She hasn't stopped running it at every chance!
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Video of it in operation...
Merry Christmas, and happy holidays to all!  Thanks to everyone for posting and adding to the inspiration for next year!

Not a very good picture but I threw together a simple Christmas layout on the dining room table with some trains I had packed in the closet. The outer loop is an HO Lionel set. The center loop is O gauge with the locomotive from a Polar Express set using some lighted MTH boxcars. The inner loop is an N scale Kato set. Kinda neat having 3 different scales.

Brad1125231852

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My Dad and me (not 'myself') and our Gilbert Flyer setup Christmas between 1953 to '55 I think. Santa had just discovered a fella selling 'used' trains at Christmas and I was overwhelmed with the 3 or 4 'big' items that year as they were traditionally over budget. New to me was the Santa Fe PA's, passenger cars, the log loader, and the big transformer with 'dead man's throttle'. The outer loop held our PRR K5 freight set.

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@trumptrain posted:

Here's some of my Christmas/winter train scenes. IMG_0758IMG_0718IMG_0739IMG_0442IMG_0070IMG_0865

Patrick, it’s ironic that you shared your photos because I had just taken another look at run 327 from this time last year. It was a fun narrative, and unique, in that it told the story of how Santa’s train was in trouble due to a snow storm. Thankfully your MOW crews saved the day. Sensational photographs as well. It would be fun to see an overall picture of your pike. Would you share what materials you used for the snow? It looks very authentic.

Thank you,

Jay

The Advent/Christmas decorations, other than the window lights, but including the Christmas-themed rolling stock, don't come out until Advent 1B. I did, however, decide yesterday to get a jump start on the layout. (The video was shot before adding the gantry crane and sawmill.) This year's layout is similar to the past two years', but new this year, I wired it as two separately-powered blocks, so that I can have the Christmas consist running on the twice-around-the-tree loop while my son or I are using the accessorized loop, or as one big loop.

The 6-24114 gantry crane wasn't rotating, even though that motor was running. Upon disassembling the gearbox, I found hardened grease on the worm and gear. Cleaning and regreasing them returned the crane to normal operation. The other problem was that when I tested the Christmast rolling stock, my 6-27948 GN 6464-25 Christmas boxcar was derailing on of the switches. The postwar-style trucks appeared to be the problem, so I swapped the chassis out with one that had modern, diecast, sprung trucks. Problem solved.

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Mark,
My pleasure! After all, I'm the Christmas guy 24/7/365! I am looking forward to seeing what you have planned.
Bryce

I now have the 6x4 Christmas board on a sturdy folding table, but it needs a little repair before I start adding scenic items!

Folks, some of these layouts are beyond belief! I can't fathom the time it takes , although now that I'm retired, I may have time to give the cat something more to **enjoy**. !!

I can only fit a circle of track under the tree in our small living room.  Our dog has gotten used to the little LGB train I run under the tree.  I put up the tree this afternoon.  No lights yet, but since I’m retired too, I’m going to take a nap!

Photographs to come once I have things farther along!

Hi All!

This is my first year with a train in my holiday village.  My village has been slowly growing over the years because I am making all my buildings out of plastic canvas.  Just got my benchwork done this past weekend (with much thanks to my husband!!).  I did all the planning for it and he's the one that did the handiwork!  After getting the track laid and secured, I generically placed the buildings for now and added snow blanket pieces all around.  After the holidays, my plan is to keep the table up for a few months to work on scenery.  Though I am excited to get started already! 20231130_16013320231130_16015020231130_16015520231130_160220

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OGR Publishing, Inc., 1310 Eastside Centre Ct, Suite 6, Mountain Home, AR 72653
800-980-OGRR (6477)
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