How many of us have trains under our Xmas trees each year? This is the first time I have done it, and in N. Well, it is a small tree afterall. At bequest of m'lady, a circle of Kato Uni-Track... ... complete with a MTL gondola loaded with pressies, all individually wrapped! Gary. (yes, it is hard to type in a straight-jacket... the pencil kept dropping out from between my teeth! )
You betcha!...actually bought a new 0 gauge set for the wife last year! Set it up last night.....and the darn thing doesn't work....grrrrrrr It's an MTH RTR set and I think the Loco-Sound control/sound decoder is shot. Guess I'll be making a trip to the hobby shop. Oh to get back to my simple HO layout....... Happy Holidays [ 12 December 2001: Message edited by: Shaummy ]</p>
I try every year with either my Lionel 0-27 or some HO stuff, but I don't have any luck with it cuz the family Irish Setter doesn't seem to realize that these are not toys! IS have big feet too! Charlie T
That's so cute! No trains under my tree, but my layout in the bedroom is decorated for the holidays. There are mini wreaths on the buildings, mini Christmas trees, and hopefully I'll be putting mini Christmas lights on my HELL GATE BRIDGE lookalike. I even have one tiny wreath on the front grill of my NYC sanitation truck! Very much like the real thing!
This is the first time in 6 years I have not had a train under the tree. We must first get our new cat used to the idea of the tree iteslf. So far he thinks he has a new scratching post and/or a yummy snack. I don't want to know what he will do with a train on the floor... Gary - I can't see your picts. I'll check back later...
The wife and I baught a Christmas train last year for under our tree. I have it set up now under a 4 foot tree The train is about G scale runs on plastic rails and 6 C cell batteries. It has a switch that I can flick to run with Christmas music, or chug chug with Bells and whistle every so often
AS you can see, I am not much of a photographer. This is last years 6x4 foot layout using a #33 Lionel engine with some 100 series cars and a 600 series passenger set, all were scrap box pieces I put back in run and viewing order. I used large ceramic houses and lots a trees of all sizes. Some cast iron repro cars added charm to it. Unfortunately, I just had a hernia repaired so I dont know that I will be able to have a layout under the tree this year, other than a circle of O ga. track. <center></center></div><center><img src="http://www.fishmojo.com/photos/dsc_021.jpg"
Bought a small Lionel set last year at Christmas for my son who was 6 weeks old at the time. I will buy a car or other accessory every Christmas season until he takes it for his own as an heirloom. It looks pretty traditional running around the tree. A lot noisier than N scale.
HERMANzGERMAN, that is a great idea, wish more folks thought like you. Lionel or the other o-ga. trains have so much play value in them. I wish I had the several trains I had as a kid, mom gave them to Good WIll or the Salvation Army when I was in the service. What fun it would have been to find them in the addict when My son was little and oil them up for Christmas.
Yes.... my Mother (God rest her soul), also gave away or sold a lot of my toys and such. I was an only child and at 5 years old my Dad bought a big American Flyer "S" scale set for Christmas. My Dad built a layout for it in the basement, but one day I was running it and it derailed and shorted out with smoke going everywhere. Well, that was the last I saw of the Gilbert set as my Mother made my Dad tear it down. He then got an HO set that eventually turned in to a basement layout, which was later sold when I got interested in cars and girls. If I still had all the cool toys, G.I. Joes and Hot Wheels and trains etc. that I had as a kid, I could probably sell them and retire on the money at 44. I can still hear my Mom. "If you're not going to play with these, I'm going to give them to the [poor kids]. I have promised myself that I will NOT do that to my son. I don't care if I have to rent a storage locker to store it all in, I will NOT do that.
I've recently got some Life-Like "power-Lock" track 18 inch radius track that I'm going to put on the normal board that I set the tree stand and tree on and run my Mantua "Goat" Camelback 0-4-0, and 6 or 8 ore hoppers, with a little bobber caboose. I am however, going to turn our Christmas tree layout into a small 3 and a half foot round layout with white styrofoam for the holiday to represent snow and all with a small town on one side, and another on the oposite side. Separated with a tunnel and a mountain in the back. Being my 7 foot tree is set in the corner of my living room, so it can be seen from the out side from 2 windows. All the styrofoam will be monuted on the existing board and all along with the track. I'm going to start this little Christmas tree layout in January. I believe this could be called a continuos running Diorama? But a nice addition to the Christmas decorations so.... And leave it up to me and anythings possible! [ 15 December 2001: Message edited by: 7600EM_1 ]
I just helped redid my dads platform for Christmas, man talk about alot of junk from more than 10 yrs. of Christmas's that came off the bloody thing. Hes got 2 HO trains & 1 N scale, the "No. 1" track the 1 that runs outside runs the passenger and goes through a new tunnel, also it has a siding for a coal train (which doesnt run at all, it just sits there looking good) the "No 2" track runs the DeWitt Clinton that goes up a tresle over a bridge thats over the tunnel & back to the station. I took the time to scratchbuild a water tank and then added a red light on the roof. The N scale just runs in a figure 8 and goes under a stone tunnel beside a school. I also took time to modify his church & cemetary, I added a light where the steps are, I added a fresh filled in burial plot, and on the other side of the church we added a funeral scene complete with scratchbuilt coffin and people standing at the gravesite (I know a little bit morbid but hey, we all gotta go somewhere after we pass away). And thats it, wish I had some pictures to show but I need film for the camera.
Actually my HO (permanent) layout started because I wanted a village for under my tree -- the only houses I could find were HO scale, and the rest is history.. Some ten years back I was able to purchase three boxes of (pre-war) American Flyer O Guage stuff -- actually, I was looking for an American Flyer Whistle (billboard) and got a lot more than I expected. So now we have an O-guage oval around the tree at one end of the room and my HO layout at the other. With the fireplace in the middle - it's quite the Christmas Room. Both layouts are decorated - the O guage has a ceramic village covered in cotton snow while the HO has a large decorated tree right in front (with Santa) and several strings of LED christmas lights decorating the houses.
Not much of a one, but I did put a loop of O27 around our shortened tree (this year) and run a 45 or 50 year old Marx die-cast reversing steamer with a Fundimensions Lionel tender and a Lionel boxcar. The cat hates it, but two of my grand kids spent hours with it last night. When my wife found out that the loco was old, she said, "Why are the kids playing with it?" I replied, "Because it's a Marx and Marx built 'em to be played with." Best reason I can think of!
This is my 1st time in my life that I run my Athearn HO kit that my wife gave me for xmas 2 years ago. When I first got into trains, I was going for HO, but my plans called for a 3000 square foot room-I was going for the big one! Now that I am into N scale which by the way rocks far better than HO (settle down HO'ers!), I have this Athearn kit under my xmas tree. It looks very nice and I am looking forward to doing it every xmas. Now, if I can only get Tango-my mini daschhund to stop barking at it...
