Wondering from up here in Canadaland about the tradition of Americans of putting trains under (around) their Christmas Tree, where did this start? and how do you dismantle your layout, drag it up the stairs, or bring it in from the garage, reassemble it under the tree and how does it fit?? seems like a lot of work for a few days of Christmas. any way, have a Good Christmas and a Happy New Year (Hogmanay) from all us Hosers.
I don't know when it started, but it was in the days of Lionel, American Flyer, and other brands that used sectional track; not an entire permanent layout. The train was perhaps the only Christmas present -- at least it was the year I got one right after World War 2.
Today, I would not call it a tradition, since most children have never even seen a train and would not want one for Christmas.
I can remember when I got my first train set for Christmas, it was a tyco and I was about 5 or 6 years old. It was the best thing ever, and I immediatley put the sectional loop track around the tree. Everybody in the family loved it. And every year since then we had trains around the tree.
I think Lionel pushed the idea to increase sales during Christmas time.
Michael
CEO- Mile-HI-RailroadPrototype: D&RGW Moffat Line 1989
My parents set up my first Lionel trainset (a Prairie loco) around a small Christmas tree on the dining room table. I was asleep upstairs of course. That is until they ran the train and blew the whistle. Haven't been without a train since then and that was 71 years ago.
73
Bruce in the Peg
We have a store downtown that has a Bachmann train(F7A and 5 cars) circling a Christmas tree in their display window.
During the 50s the majority of the stores in downtown Columbus(Oh) had a Lionel train circling their animated Christmas display.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
I'm thinking along the same lines as cacole. Probably started as Christmas ads, and some of the big department stores of the day usually had a "lay out" on display in their windows, a main lobby, or in the toy department. My first train appeared under (not around) the Christmas tree, I think it was 1955, and discovered when I arrived back home Christmas Eve, evening, after the church Christmas pagent. It was a Marx.
I have a 6' x 4' (approx.) winter / Christmas themed lay out I set up when It's our turn to host the family Christmas Eve. I leave it up for most of January. It all packs up in 4 Tuberware containers, the table is in 2 sections, and stores neatly in the basement, under my permanent lay out.
I'm also working on an On3 Christmas train.
I also agree with the fact that it's more of a "novelty" than tradition with most of todays kids. Something that attracts their attention for a short while, than it's back to the "gaming".
Mike.
My You Tube
I got my first train set exactly 50 years ago. Out of a family tradition, it had to be Marklin, as mny Dad got his trains 30 years before that. His was a 0-4-0 clockwork loco, running on OO gauge track. A year later, Marklin introduced the HO scale electric version of it.
In my youth, it was also a custom to put the trains up for Christmas. Kids were able to operate the trains, usually under the watchful eyes of their dads. Quite a lot put them away on January 6th - for next year´s use.
I have no idea when it started. The first time I saw a train going around a Christmas tree (other than on TV) was when I got up on Christmas day in 1964 and saw that big Marx diesel freight going around the tree. It was an E7 AB set pulling five cars around a loop of Lionel track. It was quickly relocated to the dining room table where the metal ties could do a proper job of scratching up the tabletop. Starting about 1984 I've always tried to have a train going around a Christmas tree in some fashion. Usually it's a small Christmas tree set up on the layout. Sometimes the tree is up to two feet tall, other times it's been as short as an inch and a half. To me the size of the tree doesn't matter. It's a Christmas tree on the layout and it has a train going around it.
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
Model trains especially during the fifties became so popular at Christmas. As mentioned so many strore fronts displayed some sort of train display. It was every "boy's" dream to find that Lionel or Gilbert set under the tree. I was one Christmas of '59.
Now I just set up a "newer" Lionel Christmas starter set.
Have a great and safe Holiday
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org
My family Christmas train tradition began when I "inherited" my older brother's Lionel trains.
The track was attached to plywood on top of 2X4 frames and were laid on the floor. There were / are three sections that were bolted togther and the wiring of course was attached to terminal strips.
The layout was laid on a bedroom floor which caused a clothes closet to be emptied. My father put it down right after Thanksgiving and was taken up mid January after I had time to play with my Christmas train presents.
During the off season the sections were stored in the attic. When my son came of train age I brought them to our house and we both enjoyed and added to them. We put them on legs as well. Then it was back in storage again until 2007 when I the train bug bit me again.
Pictured are the 3 sections from my childhood when I started my present layout
Mery Christmas to All and long live model trains Bob
Mery Christmas to All and long live model trains
Bob
Don't Ever Give Up
tatansseems like a lot of work for a few days of Christmas.
I guess it depends how long you keep your tree up. I've never been one to take down a tree the day after Christmas. It was usually mid-January when I was growing up. We have a artificial tree for the first time this year and we may keep it up till February - lights and all.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
The idea of a train around the tree could predate Lionel. Remember the clockwork / wind-up trains of the late 1800s, they could easily be set up around a tree, no power needed
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
Many times large companies would use trains in their advertisments at Christmas.
Back then the model train was the ultimate Christmas present, sadly today it is the I (idiot) phone
Jim
The idea of the running train goes back to at least the 30's with the advent of electric model trains, the idea was you buy the train set, then on christmas eve when the kids are asleep, setting up the track from the set around the tree, then early xmas morning right before you wake the kids, go down and turn it on so its running when the children comes screaming to the tree to see the toys and train miraculaously set up by Santa of course, running around the tree.
This couldnt be done with the prior motive options: clockwork, too short a run time, or live steam, way way WAY to dangerous under a live tree, electric trains allowed for safely running the train unsupervised while the kids were awakened. Clockworks could have been set up in the decades prior, so the kids could wind up and run them upon discovery under the tree. but it took the electric versions for the trains to be running thanks to Santa.
Have fun with your trains
I think the tradition of putting the train around the tree started when a father who drank too much egg nog the night before came downstairs and stepped on the train set up in the middle of the room in his bare feet.
Ed
G Paine The idea of a train around the tree could predate Lionel. Remember the clockwork / wind-up trains of the late 1800s, they could easily be set up around a tree, no power needed
I have had a train under my Christmas tree for the past 15 years. My wife just asked me yesterday why I always have a train there? She never heard of it until she met me. I guess it is a train nut thing but, all of my grandkids and now my great grandson (in photo) loved to lay on the floor and watch the train go by them at 'track level'. I have similar photos of all my grandkids in the same pose taken over the years. It has become a tradition in my family. I bought the G scale set a few years ago to replace the original one. These are battery powered and have sounds and smoke, and I have resisted weathering them!
-Bob
Life is what happens while you are making other plans!
One advantage for stores is that the trains provide animation to draw attention. A Lionel cirlcle of track can be pretty small and still operate reliably.
Hard as it is for some of us to remember, but trains once were one of the best if not the best toy for boys. So a train for Christmas was a natural. And what better place for Santa to set it up than around the tree.
Merry Christmas all
Paul
I keep a loop of sectional track just for the Christmas tree, I use an old MRC powerpack and run some older DC locos that never got converted to DCC. The kids (older now) still get a kick out of the open top hoppers hauling candy.
Merry Christmas everyone.
A new furry creature just made it totally impractical for me to put an HO train under the tree. Looks like I may have to go G scale for a tree train, something a little bigger might survive the cat!
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
This also grows out of a German custom of putting up a Christmas Village under the tree. Combine that German tradition with the Christmas gift/tradition of a train and you get a beautiful annual event. My uncle always put up his American Flyer trains in a separate room each Christmas. My dad sometimes put up his Lionels. When dad gave me my first HO, it went up in the living room near the tree (on a 4 x 8 layout) every year. Today I always run a train around the tree and my 5 year old daughter has been trained to operate it since her first Christmas.
Santa had a problem: Where to put the new treain set he had just carted all the way down from the North Pole. The middle of the living room floor is definitely out. Somebody will step on it. How about Junior's room? Not a chance. That room makes Bedlam look like a proper English tearoom, so the little darling can't show off his new train to Grandma & Grandpa THERE. Besides, the little brat (STRIKE THAT!).......the precious little tyke would probably jump out of bed and step on the dang thing, destroying the engine and cutting his foot, necessitating a trip to the Emergency Room, thus scarring him for life and forcing him into a life of model ships and planes or (HORRORS!) slot cars. The dining room table is a nonstarter. Where would we serve Christmas dinner to the aforementioned Grandparents? Furthermore, one scratch in the tabletop would incur the Wrath of Mom, and that's not a small issue. Fido would object to the use of his doghouse in the back yards, and it would be hard to run an extension cord out there anyway.
The TREE! Of course. Nobody will step on it because it's sheltered under the overhanging branches. The metal ties can't very well scratch the carpet (we're talking about big ol' Standard Gauge here, or at least something like Lionel's version of O gauge). The tree was put up close to the electrical outlet, so there's a ready-made place to plug the set in. We do have to be sure the metal tinsel doesn't fall on the track and cause a short, of course (no, Children, tinsel wasn't always plastic).
My first set came along in 1955. It was a Lionel no. 1615 0-4-0 switcher with (I think) an NYC gondola, a L.V. hopper, a wreck crane, and a work caboose. Santa thought it needed something more, so he added a 6464 series boxcar. In matters of this gravity, Santa's thinking was always pretty much in accord with Dad's. In subsequent years, Santa brought a proper PRR N5c cabin car, a reefer, a stock car, and several more boxcars. The first year, the train was around the base of the Christmas tree. In later years, it grew to loop around the tree, under an adjacent chair, back around the tree, and under the sofa.
I still have that set.