Preparing for Christmas Train Day, 2013

Our club, the Miami Valley Garden Railway Association always sets up a huge temporary railroad that is a highlight of the train show, so the NMRA guys figured it was only fair to have at least one outdoor railroad open for visitors. And nobody with the really big impressive garden railroads thought they could get ready in time. So we put all of our buildings back out, did other cleanup work, and ran trains. The next year, they asked us again. We contacted several club members with bigger and better garden railroads and asked if they wanted to do it, instead. But they seemed to think we were crazy. So we did it again. Only we added a few Christmas lights, and more things for the kids to do.

The next year, nobody else in the club was brave enough to run trains in November either. So we did it again. With more lights, more trains the kids could run, and so on. You get the idea.

Over the years, more non-railroaders than railroaders have attended. Instead of trying to explain what a Christmas-themed Open Garden Railroad was again and again, we just started calling it "Christmas Train Day." That's not as explicit, but it gives folks the notion that it has something to do with trains and Christmas, and that's all most folks need to know before they show up.

This year, after five years of having only cold-weather open railroads, we had the opportunity to have a June open railroad as well. So a lot of the work I'm usually doing in September and October got pushed back to April and May - including disassembling and reassembling several of our buildings that I'd been kidding along for years. For the first of a three-part series of articles describing what we did to prep for the June open railroad click here.

The June open railroad was daylight hours only, so I didn't bother to replace the lighting that I had to remove when the buildings were rebuilt. It was a long, crazy day but we lived through it. For an account of that day, click here.

The "Tour" Gets Canceled

When I was about halfway through rewiring my buildings for the November event, I received word that only a handful of the "indoor railroaders" whose club promotes these open railroads thought they could be ready in time. So the fellow who usually puts together the schedule and maps decided it would be a waste of club resources to print them up this year.

Unlike the previous five years, in which we received a dozen or two visitors who had been to the train show and picked up the open railroad schedule, this year we could only expect our family and friends to come. But some of those folks have come to think of this event as the start of their family's holiday season. To them, and to their kids especially, the "show must go on."

12 Volt Lighting, Revisited

The photo below, taken during the second June open railroad, shows many of the buildings I repainted and/or reassembled this past spring. (Click here and scroll down for a description of that process.) I didn't have time to replace the backs on several of the buildings, but I arranged most of them back-to-back so you couldn't tell.

If you've been following our site, you know that the buildings in the foreground of the photo above are reconfigured Fisher Price Sesame Street houses. In 2008, I found some "wedge bulb" sockets that I could screw to the inside of those buildings, attaching them to the pressed-wood walls. As you can see in the photo to the right, by the time I did that, the pressed-wood walls were already starting to deteriorate. For a few years, the internal lighting on the buildings looked great after dark. But when I replaced those walls with plexiglass, the lighting circuits had to come out.

Also, years earlier, I had glued Model Power "O-scale" gooseneck lamps (#6083) onto the bases of those buildings. But I hadn't connected those wires to the internal lighting wires - instead I had just tied everything directly into the same source wiring, using screw-on connectors. I was hoping that when I replaced the internal lighting this time, I'd have time to attach the flimsy lamp cord to the heavier building lighting and have just one pair of heavy-duty leads coming from each building.

By the way, all the wire I use for this and related projects comes from dead Christmas light strands - a free source of decent wiring that will hold up fairly well outdoors. For more information on this, click here.

In addition, I had several buildings that had never been wired. I got out my last remaining stash of the sockets and soldered leads to all of them, as shown in the photo to the left. In case you wondered, stumbling across these was a freak accident. I used up every one I had this time and I don't think I can get any more. But they were useful while they lasted, and how many more buildings am I going to need to light anyway? (If you want to try this yourself, I think that this product would work for you. I don't know where you can get them in bulk, though, unless you maybe track down the original provider. That said, this is still cheaper than spending $2.99@ for screw-in sockets from the hobby shop.)

I had already drilled holes in the bases of the buildings. So the main job was:

• Pull the wire from the lamp post up through the foundation. Strip the end(s) if necessary.

• Make new leads to go from the building to the lighting circuit. I made them about 18" long depending on where I expected the building to be placed.

• Fasten one lead from the wedge socket, one lead from the lamp post, and one of the "main" leads together, solder, and tape.

• Repeat with the other leads.

• Fish the leads that will go to the external power down through the foundation and out of the building.

• Move the wiring inside the building so it can't be seen through the windows and tape it in place.

Ideally, I should have had something small and opaque to screw the wedge sockets to, like wooden poker chips. Then I could have simply glued the assembly inside the building. I still may do that. But by then I was more or less out of time, so I just used electrical tape to tape the wedge sockets where the bulbs wouldn't lay against the plastic or glare right through a window.

Finally, I used pieces of recycled road spam (fluted yard sign plastic) that I had already painted to make backs. I "tacked" them on with a few drops of glue.

When the buildings were ready to go back outside, I wired in as many as I could without overloading the 12volt circuit I was using. Of about 21 buildings that should have been lit, about 16 were lit by the time folks started getting there. And that was a nice enough effect, as you can hopefully see from the photo to the right, taken two days exactly after the Christmas Train Day.

The New Boston Bijou Goes to a Better Place

This year, the above-ground swimming pool came down, so I tracked down a big pile of bricks cheap and started a patio on the sandpile where the pool had been. An article describing that process is here. I mention this now because:

• Though it didn't quite get finished before we ran out of bricks, the little patio area seemed like an ideal place to have people sit to watch the movie.

• Molly and I moved the movie screen around to a good viewing location.

• I spent a lot of time laying bricks in August and September. So even though the railroad was running fine in June, I had to move pretty fast in October to get the weeds back under control, etc.

Lights, Jumpers, Weeding and Cleaning

I know that sounds like a lot, but it's a lot less than I usually do for this, since the railroad was still basically functional from my June open railroads.

The day before the Christmas Train Day, Molly and I set up the little raised railroad that we've been putting Thomas on since 2007 and made sure the battery-powered kids' railroads were ready for the next day, including fresh batteries.

Then Molly and Emily (home for the weekend) helped me by putting out a bunch of little figures. Shelia made lots and lots of cookies. I cleaned the popcorn popper. The lights on the trees and in the buildings were looked great, and the track was clear. We were as ready as we were going to be.

Stay tuned for our report and more photos.

Conclusion

If you ever think you might be coming near Springfield, Ohio, let us know and if there's any danger of us getting trains on the track for you, we'll let you know.

In the meantime, enjoy your hobbies, and especially enjoy any time you can spend with your family in the coming season.

Paul

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