2002 Christmas Layout

In 1952, I was three years old and living in occupied Germany. My parents bought me a Marx trainset to keep me from feeling envious of the attention given my new baby sister.

Along with it or soon after, came a Marx revolving beacon, signal, truss bridge, a Plasticville suburban station, streetlamps, a number of German semaphores, trees, and two undersized lighted German houses.

Because I was not allowed to play with it unsupervised, the set survived complete and in excellent shape to this day. This little train with its rattly tin 6" cars, forms some of my earliest memories, and is one of my most valued possessions.

In 2002, I moved from a cramped apartment to a house and suddenly had space for a Christmas tree layout. I bought some extra Marx locomotives and some junker 6" cars to run along with my original equipment and converted them to represent prototypes I liked.
(Later I decided to make the conversion materials commercially available in FauxToys line).

In a way, I think of this layout not only as a Christmas decoration, but as giving my childhood train a chance to show off again for its fiftieth birthday.

A plan of the layout.
Track is mostly Marx three-rail O-27, dating back to the 1950s and '60s.

See a larger image and text details of the track layout.

Goals for the layout.
I wanted an under-the-tree layout that was more than a simple circle of track. It was important to use elements from my childhood set, to have a Christmas feel, to have at least two trains on the track, and a long enough mainline to give some sense of purposeful railroading - and of course, to leave enough room for the tree's main purpose - presents.

By using a passing siding, I was able to shut off power to either track, while the train from the other track circled the layout. By running the mainline behind the cabinets, I was able to have two straight runs and let the train disappear for part of its journey so that there was not so much feeling of chasing its tail. And placing the steel truss bridge (Marx calls it a "trestle bridge") against the wall, let us pile presents across the track without interfering with the train.

Passengers are waiting for the local.
You can join them and climb aboard for a tour of the layout.
Just click on the green signal below.

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