Our 2023 Christmas Train Display

Do you do facebook (Meta) or are you a YouTube fan? If so, how many times have you seen those big, beautiful, absolutely breathtaking Christmas train layouts with entirely complete villages of Dept. 56 buildings and millions of figures, vehicles, special animations, etc.? I didn't do that 😉

We have a small house with an equally small living room - the only place in the house it's possible to do a Christmas train layout. I know that in the past I would setup the layout in The Cave as a Christmas display but the rest of the family couldn't really enjoy it so last year I built a 4'x6' platform, put it on the floor and placed our tree on it surrounded by the Christmas village. Last year's Christmas village was really wonderful, as small as it was, and was full of ceramic and resin buildings with interior lights. But, as is my wont, I switched things up and wanted to do something different again. Some months back I bought a terrific boxed Christmas train set made by K-Line back in 1992 (set #K-1110 Santa's Yuletide Central posted on 16 Nov). After buying it I decided to go with the vintage K-Line village sets that I've been posting the past month.

I had the train set, the village, and the board, but still there needed to be another change: the board had to be raised to a higher level. Last year the 4'x6' board was placed directly on the floor allowing us to use the big tree but it was a bit awkward - if not a bit painful - to get on the floor and play with trains. That meant the board needed to be raised up to a manageable level - so I put it on sawhorses (the folding metal kind). That in turn meant we needed a shorter tree, so a trip to Wal-Mart netted us a 4'H, all-white, pre-lit tree. The board was now comfortable to work on. Fake cotton batting was laid over the top to cover the fake grass, then Lionel FasTrak was placed on top of the batting. From there the layout was fleshed out with the village, acrylic LED Christmas trees, and odd-and-ends. Small plastic figures didn't work well on the layout as the cotton batting would allow them to stand up properly. The worked better on the train station or on the street material. 

Anywho, to make a long story short, it turned out nice - not terrific, but nice - and we all like it. So here goes folks, our 2023 Christmas train layout. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

K-Line Set No. K-1110 Santa's Yuletide Central (1992)

K-Line #42101 KCC Christmas Village Set (1992)

K-Line #K-012103A North Pole Village (2004)

The layout in its early stages. The pre-printed road material is okay but in the future maybe I should come up with something thicker - more substantial. This BTW is our first ever all-white tree. My granddaughter wanted one. Her mother had been asking for one for years and I always said 'No". The granddaughter asks me and I say "Yes." 😂

The lighted acrylic ornaments are from Kurt Adler as are the trees

My daughter had a couple of trailer ornaments and I thought that would make a good scene.

I love the color-changing trees and can sit here all evening watching them all over the layout.

Our little wooden choir and wooden village we bought while in Germany