Who here has a permanent Christmas layout?

I built an 8x6 winter themed layot for the 2011 OGR layout contest. Received runner up.
Bought a couple dozen ceramic village houses. I'd love to sell them and build more of my own putz style houses to go along with it.
In fact it was such a hit with my daughter last year we're going to make it an annual tradition. One more way to make a lasting holiday memory for her.

for the layout...design in a simple two or three rail switch yard so as to not scatter locos and rail cars every which way.
Design your track to support two or more trains running at the same time.
Design in fiddle areas for the kids to load and unload mini presents to and from hopper, coal and gondola style rail cars at various points along the edge of the layout. Jr. engineero loves this and we can interact with the layout much longer together. Her logistical mind loves the fun play of moving freight...
I built my layout to be transportable. Local clubs, holiday display opportunities and keeps the CFO content cause she only loses the 10x10 dining room for 6 weeks a year.

I used Kilz as my winter snow. Not fancy but has held up and hasn't shown signs of yellowing.
Used it on the mountains then added some fine glitter for the snow tops. Looks amazing when the sun peeks through on winter mornings or the light from the Christmas tree.

Here is the link to the thread:
https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/t...268#2415514336607268

This was my layout for 3-4 years. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xypvlPPbV0A

The snow was getting pretty brown so it had to go.

 

Steve

I have a 4 foot Christmas tree with 1950's style ornaments set up year round. The base has a round 32" or so loop of track with a few street lights and a couple lighted lionel Christmas buildings. Doesn't take up much space and is definitely an item that people ask about. Terry

Not up all year, but on a raised tabletop that gets set up pretty much the same each year. The table (about 3 1/2 x 6) is stored in the cellar, and all that goes on it is stored upstairs. It has been in service since 1986. I would describe the scenics as Hi-Rail.

 

IMO, a Christmas layout up all year looses a lot of the "magic".

We have one. When I built our current layout, I considered the effort to install and take down every year over one-hundred-fifty D56 buildings and hundreds of cars and accessories. The thought was this would be just too much work. So I built the layout on two different levels, the Christmas/winter scene is 9 1/2 ft. by 23 ft.

 

I have never regretted going this direction. Visitors to the layout just love Christmas and time of the year. Good luck with your project.

 

 

 

WRGMILW:

 

If you will send me an e-mail, I will be happy to share information with you that may make your efforts to build a year-round Christmas layout a whole lot easier.

When I got married I retrieved my train from my parents attic and began a Christmas layout around the tree. My Christmas Village collecting relatives started giving me buildings as presents and others gave me more train cars.  Soon the layout outgrew the tree and moved to the empty dining room and eventually to the basement.  Where it continued to grow but remained a temporary layout on the floor.  As my kids got older our Christmas season activities multiplied (we are all a bunch of musicians) and there was no time to assemble the train and village for 3 years.  2 and 1/2 years ago my wife and the kids piano teacher decided to have a Christmas recital at our house.  That seemed like a good excuse to set up a more elaborate layout.  It was still intended to be temporary but I wanted a cleaner look.  Tabletop instead of on the floor, hidden wiring, and more track.  Over several weeks I built 7 4'x8' folding tables with legs from Home Depot.  Using a combination of my existing 0-27 track and new fastrack I build two loops.  My wife gave me another locomotive as a Christmas present so I could run two trains with all of my cars.  It was a big hit at the recital and with the neighborhood kids, and parents,  at an open house a week later.  Somehow the layout never came down after the holiday season.  The next year I decided it needed some level changes and a bridge over the river.  More buildings, Locomotives, and rolling stock arrived (including two passenger trains).  For this past Christmas I replaced all of the track with atlas, added switches between the loops, expanded the inner loop to another set of tables, and added Legacy control.  For next year I plan an outer loop expansion with a small switch yard in it.  As it has now been up for 2 and 1/2 years I guess it is more or less permanent.

 

Beautiful Christmas layout Fred. Thanks for posting photos of the different views.