Steven's First Annual Christmas Layout

Okay, so calling it a layout may be a bit of a stretch.  It's a Christmas layout, so it's temporary, I'll be taking it down after Christmas.  But I'm hoping this will become an annual thing, where I'll set up a train each year around Christmas.

I used a 2 1/2 by 5 foot folding table as my "benchwork," which doesn't give enough space for a full loop in HO scale, so I had to do it in N scale.  I had never worked in any other scale than HO before, and I learned a few things from this.

First, a lot of the knowledge I have about model railroading is only applicable to HO scale.  I know who a lot of good manufacturers are, as well as manufacturers that produce cheap models, but there are different manufacturers for N scale.  Some HO manufacturers don't produce anything in N scale, and there are other manufacturers that make N scale models but do nothing in HO.  Honestly, I felt a little lost when I was looking for a train for the setup!  Something else I hadn't thought of was that I know what a tight radius curve is in HO scale, and I know what a wide curve is.  I had no idea what was considered tight in N scale, which made it hard to select track.

I ended up buying a loop of Bachmann E-Z track that fit on the table that I had.  I learned that HO and N scale use the same type of power, and I used a spare DC power pack that I had for power.  I had no idea what type of train I wanted to model, but I found a Boston and Maine Alco RS-2 for a good price, so I decided I would model a transition era freight train.  I found a matching caboose and four 40-foot box cars with New England road names, and I had my train.

Since this was to be a temporary Christmas layout, I had no plans to use N scale structures or to do any scenery.  I used ceramic Christmas village buildings as my structures, and a table top Christmas tree, to fill in the space inside the loop of track.  I ran an extension cord over the track by wrapping it around one of the branches of the Christmas tree and down the trunk, and I used that to provide lights for both the Christmas tree and the buildings.

My plan here is to change something on this setup each year.  In the future, I plan on adding a second track so I can have a second train, and depending on space, a small staging yard so I can have options on what I want to run.  The Christmas village buildings that I used this year are large for N scale, but there are smaller ones available, so in the future I want to use the smaller ones.

Anyways, it has been fun setting up this temporary Christmas layout, and I look forward to doing it each year and sharing it each year on this blog!

Here are some photos of the layout: