I still have some more painting and lighting to do, but I wanted to have a chance to show it before I finished. I have three Lionel Holliday type trains with my wife's collection of porcelain houses, which got me started on O-scale.
The layout is 8x9 3 level with a sub level for a harbor. I have it on wheels so I can pull it out from the wall. I have a total of 16 casters holding it up because I wanted to distribute the weight with 5 wheels directly under the tree for extra weight and stability.
Having the wheels made it real easy to set up a ladder in back to decorate. The tree also rotates so the ladder doesn't have to move.
This is my chief tree decorator.
View of all three tracks
Sleeper,
That is fantastic work. I cannot wait to see the finished product and hopefully some videos. Are you going to have to tear it all down after Christmas? It is superb enough to be a permanent layout.
Thanks for sharing,
Joe
Joe's comments matched my reaction...just fantastic. It reminds me of the window display at Fields back in the day in Chicago..better than quite a few I have seen in public display. As a kid I was mesmerized by it and any kid will certainly have the same reaction to yours... I am glad to see you made it portable as there's a chance it can be retained as it is, and not be dismantled.
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
Excellent!
Really festive and quaint.
I see you have a helper, to decorate the Christmas Tree.
Merry Christmas,
Take care,
Ralph
Very nice, would like to see a video once it is in operation
Bill T.
Thanks everyone. I am going to make a video when I finish and I'll post here.
All my neighbors & friends say that I should just remove the tree and leave it up all year. I thought about since the kids are grown we rarely use the living room anymore. Unfortunately there is just too much Christmas stuff on it, although the icy winter scene might help cool those hot summers down here in the desert.
It is too big to push through the door so I do have to take it down and store it through the summer. I built it into 7 main modules that unbolt into pieces. The outside track loop comes apart in 3 pieces that bolt around to the 8x6 main section. Then the other levels bolt on top of each other.
There are also 7 triangle wheel bases that screw to the bottom when on its up on its side I have to remove the wheelbases because the main level is too heavy for me to pick up. When I take it down I might strategically remove some of the ¾" plywood by cutting large holes underneath the foam to lighten it up.
Oh I also have a Harbor on wheels that slides in front below the track. It was carried over from last year, but I'm going to be adding to it a little.
I painted my mountain side and upper waterfall yesterday between the 1st and 2nd level.
I built in a mill a wooden water spillway l to spill into the river below. I didn't want to add another waterfall or widen the lower river.
Today I will be starting on the Lower River and Waterfalls to the harbor. I hope to have it done today if the paint and caulking dry.
I agree. Very nice!
WOW, Sleeper!!!!!!!! You are way out in front!!!! Impressive!!!!!!!! My Christmas layout is delayed until we get our natural tree, hopefully next weekend.
Jack
IF IT WON'T COME LOOSE BY TAPPING ON IT, DON'T TRY TO FORCE IT. USE A BIGGER HAMMER.
RockIsland52 WOW, Sleeper!!!!!!!! You are way out in front!!!! Impressive!!!!!!!! My Christmas layout is delayed until we get our natural tree, hopefully next weekend. Jack
Thanks, we always had natural trees, but I had to abandon that as the layout got higher. The wife and I aren't as strong anymore and just can't pick it up.
We saw a really nice Nobel Fir the other day and we are looking for another place in another room to put it. We really miss the smell of a fresh tree.
The one advantage of the artificial is we don't have to water it and don't have to worry about it drying out. We always got at least a month out of them, but a few needles would still drop on the tracks and sometimes stick to the underside.
WOW Sleeper!
That looks great. Can't wait to see the finished product.
Can you trust the cat??
Kev.
Joined 1-21-2011 TCA 13-68614
Kev, From The North Bluff Above Marseilles IL.
KRM WOW Sleeper! That looks great. Can't wait to see the finished product. Can you trust the cat?? Kev.
Thanks!
As far as the cat goes probably not for decorating, the cat is cross eyed and nearsighted. There's no telling what it will look like if the cat does the tree. It sure likes watching from high places and I haven't figured out what it sees or how it manages to get up there.
I love it!
Becky
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
Wow! Really REALLY nice! There's a lot to like, for sure, but for some reason I am super impressed with your faux tree trunk with the pipe inside. Maybe it is b/c it took my dad, my brother and I half an hour of grunting and arguing to get our tree--our artificial tree--to stand up straight in one of those 3-leg tree stands this year! And it still doesn't have real-looking trunk like yours!
nickaix Wow! Really REALLY nice! There's a lot to like, for sure, but for some reason I am super impressed with your faux tree trunk with the pipe inside. Maybe it is b/c it took my dad, my brother and I half an hour of grunting and arguing to get our tree--our artificial tree--to stand up straight in one of those 3-leg tree stands this year! And it still doesn't have real-looking trunk like yours!
Oh thanks for asking. I made the trunk out of screen and plaster. I then painted it. I had a little trouble finding a pipe that the tree would fit in so I split a piece of electrical conduit to open it up a little and welded it to an old saw blade as a tree stand. I ground some slots in the hard steel blade to secure it with screw to the ¾" plywood underneath.
It went in so easy that both the wife and I were amazed. I carried the tree on my shoulder up one side of the ladder with my wife on the other side and all I had to do was bend over and my wife guided it into the hole.
I have to say that it also worked well that I could rotate the tree in the pipe which made it real easy to decorate from one side.
This is what the tree trunk looks like with Santa's Village.
Well I'm done with most of it I just have to fill-in the bottom to hide all the wires and keep the cat out from underneath. She likes to chew on wires.
I had a section made out of Lemax Christmas Village Façade to cover the front but it's a little short this year. I haven't decided if I should order another and extend it or do something else. I probably should seek advice from someone who is more design oriented. It actually hangs from the platform.
The last photo shows the harbor which still being remodeled. I'm reusing it from last year and making modifications to fit properly since the layout is so much bigger this year. I'm also extending it just a tad to add a yacht club that we've had for years and never had a place to put it.
Johnny,
I am at a loss to think of a superlative..again, it reminds me of a store window display back in the day...The way the multi-levels of track was worked into the design is really terrific and original and it could not look more like Christmas in your house. How about a video?
Bruce
I'm working on a video now. I can't find my tripod and I can't hold the camera steady enough for making videos. I think I lent it to someone, but can't remember who. I need to buy another tripod of figure out how to hold the camera steady. It just occurred to me that I may have a set of crutches around her someplace. I'll see if I can find them.
I still don't know how to use this camera very well, but I think there is some settings to smooth it out
FANTASTIC!!!! Excellent work! You've inspired me!
Small tables, footstools, stacks of books, almost anything can help keep a camera stable.
It took me a couple of tries, but I'm up loading the video now.
It's taking a really long time to upload to YouTube (6 hrs for around 4 min). It's a new camera and I didn't realize that I filmed it in HD. I haven't learned yet how to change the settings.
I was reading the instructions and I guess it came with a CD with programs to help manage the videos. The program had a special function to load videos to YouTube which I will use next time. I'm at 51% and 187 min to go now, so I'll just let it run.
I recorded it in daylight and I want to do one with all the lights, but it's going to be a lot shorter.
Well I uploaded for over 7 hours. It said it had finished uploading was processing and then it disappeared. I have no idea of what happened so I'm going to try again, but this time I'm going to bed and I hope it will be done in the morning when I get up,
Well I finally got this up loaded, but I'm not too happy with the quality. The free up load program that came with the camera it not very good, so I trying another up load. It's been going all night and only 50% done. I have to go to work now maybe it will be done when I get home.
watch?v=kVPNGc8sWIE
JohnnyB,
That is extremely nice WOW!
looks great to me. I can't imagine waiting 7 hrs for a camera to upload. I wouldn't have the patients for it. I would be talking to someone real quick.
again it all looks great thanks for sharing
Life's hard, even harder if your stupid John Wayne
http://rtssite.shutterfly.com/
Seeing photos of the layout and seeing "moving pictures" is really great..I would have liked to have seen the camera pulled back a bit to see the different levels in one shot, but I'm no Roger Ebert, and my videos leave much to be desired..I look forward to V.2.0 ...Seeing these multilevel layouts..forget Christmas, that is a year round set up IMHO..If I were not so lazy, I would redo mine. In retirement I seem to "ponderate" ideas while my projects back up. LOL. Johnny, how long did the whole process take?
I wouldn't worry about it. A lot of the times simple is better as opposed to an over edited film where you its littered with FX.Also I wanted to ask. How did you do the snow on top of the trains? it looks Amazing, as does the entire layout! Great work.
Remember the Veterans. Past, present and future.
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Thanks everyone.
First I have to say I welcome any advice on the video techniques. Since I've uploaded it I've noticed couple of mistakes I made. I have a few physical restrictions like a bad knee and shoulder which makes it difficult to move the camera smoothly. And I don't think I have the camera settings correct.
The snow on the polar express cars came about by accident a few years ago when I was experimenting with snow effects on the Santa's Village. I bought a couple of different type of snow sheets and was laying them out to see which I liked best when the thinner of the two dropped on top of a car. It looked so natural that I glued it down along the edges of the cars and trimmed it off with scissors. I used whit glue so that I could remove it easily when it got dirty. I didn't even look at it this when I took them out of the box, but they need to touched up a bit.
As far as how long it took, well I've been working on it for quite a few years. It started out as a 4x8x¾ plywood sitting on blocks which worked well to support our 8' Noble Fir Christmas trees. Then as our collection of porcelain house started to grow I added more levels of ¾" plywood.
I extended the second level track a few years ago
Last January I tore up the Bachmann ON30 trolley to add the 2" foam and I built the outside loop.
So I'd say I've spent a couple of weeks each year for at least 10 years, but a lot of time was spent tearing stuff out and modifying what I already had. If I were to do it again, I would not use the ¾" plywood which really ended up as an obstacle and I'd do it out of planks and foam. I think I could do it all over again from scratch in about a month or two weeks if I were 20 again.
Here is a video at night, but I don't know what happened to the color. It's completely off. I must have pressed something by mistake.
watch?v=tT1hAZT Nyw&feature=mfuinorder&list=UL
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