I built this fun little winter wonderland fantasy layout along with my 12 year old son. It's a tribute to my dad who helped me build my first layout in the late 70's. This layout was designed to be movable and displayed temporarily on top of our TV stand during the Christmas season. The cutout in the center is for the TV soundbar. It goes into the attic when the holidays are over. It's not quite door sized but close at 77x28". It's a simple track plan with essentially two separate ovals. One is a true oval with a gradient and two steel bridges while the other has a small serpentine curve that travels under the bridges of the first. All track is Kato Unitrack. The larger oval is 12 3/8" radius and the smaller is 11" radius.
Most of the layout is made from extruded polystyrene pink foam along with two sheets of 10mm fluted polypropylene as a base. The two polypropylene sheets were glued together with the flutes perpendicular to each other to form a strong, lightweight and rigid base. The grades are made from Woodland Scenics 3% inclines. The terrain is a mix of pink foam, white foam, cardboard and Sculptamold. The rock ledge is pink foam, patterned with a small blade and painted to resemble rock. Most of the other terrain was painted white and then dusted with a combination of both Woodland Scenics and AK Interactive snow with a little bit of iridescent glitter mixed in. All of the snow and surface terrain features are sealed with a few coats of WS scenic cement.
The track was painted, weathered and ballasted with a mix of brown and gray WS fine ballast. The trees are a mix of WS, Busch and generic evergreen trees from eBay. They were flocked with a mix of snow powders and Woodland Scenics Flex Paste. The Christmas trees are from an artist on eBay who hand makes them. We tried to find some trees that were pre-lit with little lights but couldn't really find anything in the right size. So we decided to install LED's in the ground to make a small area of 'enchanted forest'. The little cabin is from WS and the fire pit is a combo of three LED's (yellow, orange and red) driven by two circuits from eBay designed to simulate the glow of a campfire. The signals are modified Kato units and most of the other small details like the equipment cabinets and flag pole are from BLMA or Blair Line.
This little layout is conventional DC driven with two KATO SX power packs. We like to change up the rolling stock to keep things interesting and run everything from container trains, various unit trains, general manifest, MOW and of course Christmas theme trains. We have pretty much every Con-Cor and Bev-Bel Christmas car from 1975 onward. The older cars are my favorite. Brings back memories...
Thanks for watching, Merry Christmas and best wishes for the holidays!
