H A P P Y H O L I D A Y S T O A L L
PAGE 68a - December 2007, ©2007 Carl Arendt
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H O T I D E A S F O R S M A L L R A I L R O A D S
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I'll bet that a high percentage of model rails got started in the hobby around this time of year by playing with Dad's trains under the Christmas tree or whatever festive decoration graced your home. There's something about trains and the winter solstice holiday season — they're linked together like Atchison and Topeka, Stockton and Darlington, Paris and Lyon, Koblenz and Mainz, or Sydney and Perth. |
IDEA No. 1: Put a Circle of Track on the Floor
Photo by Sarah Machinist
The classic holiday model railroad layout is simply a circle or oval of track laid on the floor, either under the tree or nearby. This tradition started in the days of three-rail O gauge or Standard Gauge sectional track, which made a very practical way to assemble a temporary layout. Today, with built in ballast available on sectional track in HO, N and even Z gauges, modelers can build classic floor ovals in virtually any scale. And, my mail says, they do!
The photo shows the classic problem with floor layouts (even worse than carpet fluff in the motors): household pets also love to "play trains!" Cats have a special affinity for model trains and love to pounce on them as if they were mice. Beardsley, the black-and-white cat eyeing the varnish in the photo, is 1.8 seconds away from a pounce!
One cure for this problem is presented in Scrapbook #30 — the Cat-Skills Railroad, a separate layout specially designed to provide exercise for the family feline ... and incidentally, to keep its attention away from the all-important holiday track circuit!
IDEA No. 2: Use Ceramic Holiday Village Buildings for Scenery
Young Lars Knapp, from Charlotte, North Carolina USA, built this tiny 32x16in (80x40cm) holiday layout in On30/O-16.5 with a little help from his dad, Larry. Scenery consists mainly of ground cover/paving, and a row of buildings made from drugstore ceramic Christmas village structures. Rolling stock is mainly ready-to-run equipment from Bachmann, whose popular On30 trains actually started out as an enhancement to Department 56 ceramic village displays! Lars uses DCC to run locomotives and trolley at the same time, a newer feature of the On30 models.
Buildings and accessories like these are readily available this time of year in many sizes and price levels. They're an excellent way to put together a good looking display in a hurry. There's more information about Lars's little layout in Scrapbook #59.
IDEA No. 3: Make a Crowd-Pleasing Fantasy RR with 'Glitter Houses'
Anaother good way to make a "quickie" holiday display is to make use of traditional holiday decorations such as these cardboard "glitter houses." Howard Leroy Lamey, from Jacksonville, Florida USA, makes these houses (in a style popular from the 1930s to the 1950s) as his main hobby, and at this season of the year he uses them as scenery with a small HO railroad layout measuring 4x5ft (1.2x1.5m) – the Pine Mountain Valley RR. Howard's two granddaughters actually arranged the houses around the trolley and streetcar tracks. There's more about Howard's hobby in Scrapbook #68 and at his website.
IDEA No. 4: Build a Foam-Based Landscape for a Pizza Delight
Jim Favre, from Dalton, Mass. USA, designed this little Gn15 pizza layout as a six-tiered "layer cake" made from blue or pink insulating foam. It's 16in (40cm) in diameter and 12in (30cm) high. Jim planned to use his wife's Department 56 buildings, but any scale structures would work fine! See Scrapbook #5 for more info.
IDEA No. 5: Use Inexpensive Toy Trains and Buildings
Ian Bareham, from Ipswich, England, used many of the ideas above and some more of his own to build this little holiday display layout. According to Ian's notes, "I used a cheap, plastic battery-powered toy train set. Then put it on a plywood base and built up everything around.
"All the structures are from plastic kits and some children's toys. Others are built up second-hand structures from train store bargain baskets and other hobby kits. The depot is an N scale Pola Rico station, to which I added HO doors and raised the wall height. The large Papa Noel's toy factory started as a hamster house with added walls and roofs.
"I put a set of auto 12-volt Christmas lights inside the buildings and added Model Power Steam Era 7 winter people plus some Airfix wagon train folk. I hope you like it." I do, I do! Ian has made great use of "found" materials to build up a charming holiday display. See Scrapbook #43 for more.
IDEA No. 6: Build a Spiral Inside the Tree Base
If you have the inclination and the skills to do a more complex project, your options are even broader. Here's a good example by Daan Biessels, from the Netherlands. He's building a one meter (39.4in) square H0 layout (with a 40cm (16in) square "bite" out of one corner) that includes a platform for his Christmas tree.
Daan reports, "It's made with Märklin M track, using the tightest curve of 280mm (11in) radius to make a spiral. It has a mountain station, a middle station and a shadow station inside the mountain. The height difference between the middle and higher stations is 18cm (7in)... Of course it has snow on it and is situated in a mountainous area." What an elegant support for the tree!
IDEA No. 7: Go All the Way — Make a Layout for Charity
Given time and a good cause, you may even want to dive in and make an entire layout for the season. Andrew Smith, who lives in Essex, England, built a 5x3ft (150x90cm) OO scale layout for his local church's Christmas Fair. It's a "Pay and Play" railroad — for 20p (about 40 US cents) anyone who wants to "play" can drive a train around the track oval for a couple minutes. (Note: we butted two different photographs together to make this composite view of the whole layout.)
Lurking and just visible behind the backdrop at the right rear is Andrew's son, Matthew, who is controlling the timer that determines how long the driver travels for his 20p (40 US cents) investment. The layout (in various guises) has been very popular with Fairgoers for several years, and it has already been invited back for next year.
IDEA No.8: Make a Small-Space Pizza Centerpiece
Perhaps the most popular holiday model railway display is the small, circular "pizza" style layout that can sit on the coffee table or even be a festive dining table centerpiece. If my e-mail is any indication, the most popular scale for this kind of layout is N ... and here are a few examples of delightful mostly-N-scale pizza layouts built especially for the holidays.
No exhibit of seasonal pizza displays would be complete without a Akihiro Morohoshi Christmas cake, from Japan. This one is HOn30/H0e, and it's a double decker. Notice the way the lower track valiantly tunnels right through the slice that's being removed from the cake!
One of Moro's previous Christmas cakes can be seen in Scrapbook #8. These and many other fascinating small layouts are all on display at Moro's website, under "Layouts."
Mark Holmstrup, from Albuquerque, New Mexico USA, describes his little N-scale pizza this way: "The layout measures 7.5x8.5in (19x22cm) and has a loop of track with about a 3.5in (9cm) radius. The base is pressed wood and Homasote, and the mountain is beaded foam covered with rock castings, plaster and Woodland Scenics snow. The pictured tram is by Kato, and the close-to-N-scale snowpersons were found at a local craft store." Mark's pizza was also featured in Scrapbook #23.
 Al McWhorter, from Eugene, Oregon USA, built this 17x15in (43x38cm) N seasonal centerpiece as his first micro layout! The track and rolling stock (except the new Plymouth switcher) were inherited from Al's father, who bought them in 1968 but never had a chance to use them. Al has an unusual occupation: he hand crafts ukeleles! |
 Dick Kuepper, from Aurora, Ohio USA, made this N pizza in a 12in (30cm) decorated tub, with a Lemax lighted Christmas tree, a lighted house, and a 5in (13cm) radius track circle running a Bachmann trolley. His wife liked the display and wanted to use it as a table centerpiece—but with no wires! |
A perfect conclusion to this holiday festival of layouts is this tiny Z scale seasonal pizza by Yukio Kashiwa, from Japan. There's more on his website.
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