A tree layout has been a tradition in our home since the 1980's. For many years it was the one occasion I had to display my Bachman and LGB G-scale. Then, as a result of receiving a present of several On30 trains, we began collecting Christmas Village buildings from Hawthorne. The final transition was to start using the same structures to showcase my vintage Flyer.
I have figured out what is wrong with my brain! On the left side nothing works right, and on the right side there is nothing left!
Hadn't planned on making another Christmas video this year after making one last year, but after getting the tree up with branches breaking off and needles going everywhere and then fighting with trying to get the 11-year old lights to work, I decided it was time to get a new tree like I'd been thinking the past couple years. I got a new 7.5-foot pine prelit with 600 bright LED lights (had to get a step ladder to reach the top). My old tree that I'd had since 1997 was only 6 feet tall. I'm loving this one. The 600 LED lights don't put off the heat that the old bulbs did. When it was 50 degrees outside, this room would get up to about 85 with the old bulbs (900 lights total), and I couldn't leave the door open because of the cats, which is why the tree is in my office and not the living room. The limbs are sturdier too, which is good for my heavy Hallmark Lionel ornaments. Plus, the bulbs change color, which is a neat effect.
So for this video, I expanded on the mounting of my digital camera on the flatcar and included several shots from the train going around the tree. Enjoy!
watch?v=z1jp2vtaz8g
Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Kevin
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Past years.............
Celebrating 18 years on the CTT Forum.
Buckeye Riveter......... OTTS Charter Member, a Roseyville Raider and a member of the CTT Forum since 2004..
Jelloway Creek, OH - ELV 1,100 - Home of the Baltimore, Ohio & Wabash RR
TCA 09-64284
emdmike Just my father's 1948 Lionel 1423w set featuring the 1655 steamer and short freight train. Even the transformer is the original one to the set. She has been either under the tree or on a table around a small tree every single year since I was a child.
I used to run my dad's original scout-type set every year also with it's original transformer. Since the new millenium started, I've used mainly new transformers with the whistle controller built in. This year is the first time I didn't run my dad's set. My daughter moved back in with me (until she completes college next year), and she brought her cat. She wanted the Large Scale Thomas and James going around the tree, so I took those out. Once we were done setting them up, she asked if we could get the K-Line Coca-Cola bears handcar in there somewhere. The only room left was inside the Thomas loop. So I grabbed the track and tranformer from the Crayola set, and I set up an O27 loop there. With such a small circle, there's not much room for my dad's set to run on. So far, only the bears have been circling around it. Maybe I'll dig out my dad's train for a short spin around the loop sometime within the next week and a half. Now that I think about it, it would be a drag for his train to miss a year. After all, what's Christmas without the smell of Lionel smoke in the air?
We have large breed dogs, so I have to keep my under the tree layout simple. Just my father's 1948 Lionel 1423w set featuring the 1655 steamer and short freight train. Even the transformer is the original one to the set. She has been either under the tree or on a table around a small tree every single year since I was a child. Mike
Silly NT's, I have Asperger's Syndrome
Wow!!! It looks like you got quite a bit of snow! You must live up in the north. I used to live in Indiana and later Wisconsin where we got plenty of snow. I loved it! However now I live in Mississippi. It was so warm today, I had to turn the air conditioner on. It's still on, in fact, and it's 9:30pm!
Last year, with NO cat around like this year, I had a wintry scene too. It included an HO Thomas with Santa hat pulling a Christmas tree gondola, While Santa Mickey and Mrs. Santa Minnie were whizzing around some K-Line track w/white ties in their golden handcar.
Here's our tree layout this year. Hopefully the pics aren't too out of size; I tried uploading them a bit differently this time.
Merry Christmas Everyone!
J White
The monorail is the standard Disney set available at Disney parks or through the Disney Store. It runs on 2 AA batteries at what I believe is a realistic speed in scale to the train, but being largely a children's toy many people complain that it runs too slow. Also, this set is often described as "HO" but I think it's 1:64 (ish). If you decide to buy one to run along side O gauge it looks great but the pillars need to be lengthened by at least 2 cm. I accomplished this by cutting 4 equal reactangles of foamcore and lamainating them together under the pillar. Then I added a 2cm wide strip of cardstock to cover them up which I painted a light gray to match the plastic.
However there was one point on the line where it was absolutely neccessary for the monorail and the O gauge loop to come into conflict:
If you look beyond the 20K sub dock (also new this year) you can see how I resolved the conflict by beheading one of the track risers and attaching the connector piece to a length of stiff brass. This brass arch is set to have it's "relaxed" position much higher so that it acts as a spring and fights back against the weight of the monorail. Otherwise the stack of the Lionel General smacks right into it.
Nearby is another new structure, Pinocchio's Daring Journey. This little flat lives on the outside of the track and is 7 plus feet away from the front of the layout so I photographed it prior to installation.
This is Splash Mountain, which lives under the endtable. Goofy spot, but I can't handle empty space!
This is the new Storybookland module which includes several brand new paper models I had to design. The windmills however, I designed years ago and have been built in HO, O and G! That hillside is supposed to represent a quilt but it's not as easy to recognize as I'd hoped it would be.
The bedroom layout isn't much different.
Question. What do you do when you find a pair of Mr. Peanut salt and pepper shakers in your attic? Don't know what you'd do but I opened a factory and started drilling for peanut oil! Hmmm....train knocked down a tree!
My birthday presents this year included the Mack C pumper and the 2 searchlight cars you can see in these pics.
A rather curious thing...
The assistant conductor on train 26, the Plasticville Peddler, snapped this photo as they rounded the bend today. He reported that it "just sort of popped into view, all slow like". Proposterous.
Becky
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
Ever see trains under a tree crash into a Basset Hound butt? My God, it ain't pretty, cars scattered all over the place and the Basset unmoved with a slight "What was that? And is it edible?" look on it's face.
The irresistable force finally meeting the immoveable object.
My train setup isn't as intricately planned out as yours, but I was worried about my daughters cat who recently joined us. At first the cat, Sapphire, was a bit frightened of all of them. After a short time, she decided James and Thomas were okay. She doesn't seem to like those pesky Coca-Cola bears. Sapphire loves to rest on the tree skirt. She doesn't take into account how big her butt is, so the bears tend to crash into it. That hasn't endeared them to her. Occasionally she'll take a swipe at them with her claws to let them know who's boss!
Originally we had a topper that we'd been using for years. Unfortunately the apparently singing angel must have hit some wrong notes. Sapphire attacked it and broke her (plaster?) head into pieces, before we got a chance to place her on top. Rather than have a headless topper, my daughter told me she'd look for a new topper. She found one (a star), but it didn't work out. It not only needed the support of the top branch (which is just as weak as all the other branches), but it was way too tall. Hopefully she'll find one before Christmas Eve.
Nice work, Penny. Wonderful way to celebtae the Christmas season.
Beautiful Becky! Does the monorail operate?
I hope to start work on my basement floor layout soon.
Bob Lalich
Nice as always Becky,
Thanks for the pictures. Maybe I should do a tree layout,,,,,,,,,wait not with Jordan the 2.5 year old Grand-son.
Joined 1-21-2011 TCA 13-68614
Kev, From The North Bluff Above Marseilles IL.
Hopefully this weekend Becky It won't be as great as your but I plan to put tree up this weekend the only problem is I have to fight the cats as once I put down the white soft blanket of snow it will be all over lol. I'm also only going to have about 3' by 5' to work with I think. but have to figure which train is going down there.
Life's hard, even harder if your stupid John Wayne
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It's that time of year again for our circles, ovals, carpet centrals and whatever you want to call those temporary layouts you set up around your tree, bush, pole or whatever you set them up on or around! Show us yours!
I'll start off with a pair of Disneyland photos.
This layout is definately my favorite headache! The biggest one this year is the biggest addition I've made since...well...ever! Constructing it required me to set up a large portion of the layout months ago so I could find out wether my diagrams were right or not and take it all apart again in one day! But, it all worked out OK and Disneyland finally has it's monorail!
2 other big additions are in this photo, but you'd be hard pressed to pick them out. One is under the end table and the other is behind the tree. But don't worry, I have better pics and I'll post them later.
So I got the ball rolling. Who's next?
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