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2009 Christmas-Themed Open House on the NB&DC![]() Planning for this open railroad started in early October, when I got a phone call from Nick Folger, who was scheduling open railroads to coincide with November's NMRA train show. I was out of town when I got the call, which only gave us about three and a half weeks to get things going. Fortunately, I had run trains in the summer of 2009, so I knew I wouldn't have to do any major rebuilds like I did in 2008.
This article is a report on the subsequent planning and execution of this year's Christmas-Themed open railroad, including many of the non-train activities that went into it. We hope you find the lists of ideas and projects helpful if you ever take anything like this on yourself. And we especially hope that the photographs (almost all of which get bigger if you click on them) help you get into the Christmas spirit. Note: To learn about other Open Houses in our region, or to sign up to be notified of the NB&DC's next open house, click here
Planning a Christmas-Themed Open Railroad for 2009Having done this before gave us ideas for things that worked out well and things that could have worked better. As it turned out, this year's open house was "bigger and better" than last year's but if we'd started off this big in 2008, it would probably have been a disaster.
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About a week before the open house, I set up the oval and little posts I had used to display Thomas in two clinics near Cleveland in 2007. I also added rope lighting, as discussed in our recently published feature article about this little display railroad.
The rope lighting on that little railroad, plus the rope lighting I had already installed on my back porch gave the scene a sort of carnival atmosphere. So I got to thinking about carnival-style snacks. And that led me to tracking down a big theater-style popcorn popper I could borrow.
To make Thomas' railroad more visible after dark, I added a few lamps from a 12-volt LED garden lighting set I experimented with this summer. They are pretty bright for garden lighting, so I set them a few inches "out" so they wouldn't cast a bright glare right on the posts. The photo below shows the rope lighting and landscape lights, though I took it with a flash, so you don't get the whole effect.
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I had other lighting planned for this railroad, but didn't have time to add it. When it was too late to do anything about it, realized that I could have used my old microphone stands to hold spotlights way up in the air and provide better "zone" lighting for Thomas.
Once again, the little railroad was a success. And as it turned out, the last child to visit the railroad left well before dark, so lighting wasn't that critical.
As of this writing, this little railroad has stood in our yard for an additional three weeks. The viaduct, cheezy as it is up close, is so impressive from a few yards away, that I'm thinking that it would be worth building extensions to go all the way around the railroad. That would make the railroad useful, not only for Thomas, but also for the Polar Express and the Hogwarts Express, which also run over impressive viaducts.
I had already been experimenting with a set of Brinkmann low-voltage LED garden spotlights. Although they were a little cumbersome to set up I thought I'd try using them to light some of the otherwise dark areas of the railroad.
Since the open house, I've updated my article on the Brinkmann spotlights to include ways I used them for this. I didn't have time to do everything I wanted with them (like concealing the lights and the cords), but they made several areas of the railroad that had been invisible after dark "come alive."
An example is this trestle in the photo to the right. These days the trestle is getting harder even in daylight, thanks to a rapidly-growing but otherwise desirable tree. After dark it's usually invisible period. But with one concealed spotlight, it became an area of interest this year. Other photos of areas lit by the Brinkmann spotlights appear elsewhere in this article.
When it looked like most other things were under reasonable control, we set aside one evening to make cookies to go out on the treat table. I made the dough and cut out the cookies, and Tess decorated with colored sugar (a task our kids used to do before they fled the nest). We made about eight dozen small train-shaped cookies. Folks weren't shy about taking them, but we still had about four dozen left at the end of the evening, a very nice side benefit.
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By the way, if you want to know our not-so-secret family cookie recipe, it's provided, along with a very detailed list of instructions in our Family Christmas Online(tm) article The Best Traditional Rollout Sugar Cookies
The real hit, however, was the borrowed popcorn machine. We went through several pounds of popcorn, distributing a few dozen lunch bags full, and, as the kid photos show, it was very much appreciated.
In addition to supervising the "food services" part of this operation, Shelia also made lemonade, and we had warmer drinks available. The weather was very nice, however, so most people were satisfied with the lemonade.
I started out with a list of songs I "had to have,' for the sound track, and a stack of Christmas albums. Burl Ives' "Holly Jolly Christmas" and Andy Williams "Most Wonderful Time of the Year" topped the list. To that I added the Polar Express theme song, "Its the Spirit of the Season," and two of the instrumentals from the sound track. ("Believe" and "When Christmas Comes To Town" didn't make the list, because they're not all that upbeat.) Then came other upbeat favorites, including Emmy Lou Harris' "Christmas Times a'Comin'," Nat King Cole's "Caroling, Caroling," and so on.
As I worked my way through the stack of CDs, I noticed that a lot of my favorite Christmas songs were more devotional in nature, such as Emmy Lou Harris' "The First Noel," Kathy Mattea's "Mary Did You Know," and Bing Crosby's "Do You Hear What I Hear?" Such songs would be out of place accompanying a Christmas train display, but they would be perfect if I ever set up a Nativity outside.
Also, many Christmas "standards," such as "Let it Snow," "I'll be Home for Christmas," and "Silver Bells" are not especially upbeat. Still, they have a nostalgia value that brings back good memories for lots of folks.
So as I went through CD after CD, I found myself sorting the songs into three "folders," on my computer:
Finally I burned a CD of the nostalgic songs and put it into a boom box hidden near the end of our driveway, so folks coming in would get that effect. Then I burned another CD of the upbeat songs, and played it through high-quality portable speakers on the railroad itself. The effect, coupled with running trains, and eventually with the brightly lit trees, really was magical. On the other hand, I only had time to set up a two-speaker system. If I do this again next year, I'll try to set up a system that provides better coverage.
If I get a chance I'll post the song lists, with the proviso that I never did get every song I wanted, and that I will try to resort them and get into a better sequence before I use them again.
As a final note on the music side of the event, I even toyed with the idea of getting live entertainment, such as paying young friends to play violin or piano "live" for at least part of the afternoon. Live Christmas music outdoors is a very special experience. If I knew we were going to do this next year, and to get bigger crowds, I might be tempted to go that way, and just use the sound tracks during the musicians' "down time." Of course that's a lot of "ifs."
Since we moved Thomas to a roomier railroad, our well cover would be open. It is almost table-top flat, so I thought it would be possible to install an O scale railroad on that just to show what else is available.
I dug out a bunch of ceramic village houses that I had bought at thrift shops to use in scenery articles for our Big Indoor Trains site. I also dug out one of my On30 trains, a Bachmann set that I also bought mostly for photo sessions and article research, but which runs like a Swiss watch. If I had a Lionel set in working condition, I might have set that out, too, but I didn't think about that early enough to do anything about it.
I had a piece of 4'x4' white styrofoam and a bunch of smaller pieces that I thought about using to make a "landscape" for this railroad. But, since I couldn't set up most of it until a day or so before the "big day," I ran out of time, and wound up setting the train and town right on the concrete. Still, several folks who own ceramic Christmas villages were very glad to see it and to ask questions about On30 trains.
It also helped folks put the size of the "big trains" into perspective. When you see Large Scale trains and buildings outside, the size of the setting can trick you into thinking they're about the size of Lionel(r) trains and Dept. 55(r) buiildings. Seeing O scale trains and buildings in the same setting as the Large Scale trains reminds you just how big the "big trains" really are.
Finally, the little town was pretty when it was lit up, even though it didn't have the landscaping and detailing of the other trains (or even working lights in all the buildings, as I discovered after I took this photo). :-)
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On the other hand, she discovered that I have a whole collection of Lemax firemen and no fire house. So she decided to stage the Donnels Creek station as though it was being saved from a fire. Pretty clever, don't you think? Even if the 1:32-ish Lemax figures are a tad short compared to the 1:20-ish station doors. (For information about figures for your garden railroad, click here.)
As you click on the photos below, notice the instinctive tendancy of small children to make themselves into bridges for toy trains, a very good reason not to let them get too close to expensive toys. Also, notice the ongoing popularity of the popcorn.
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Other model railroader visitors included Nick Folger, the fellow who organizes open houses for the Dayton-area NMRA chapter (National Model Railway Association).
Several members of our Sunday school class at church stopped by. (Our class is called the "Faithbuilders" and meets at Southgate Baptist church, in Springfield, Ohio, in case you wondered. We have a fairly broad demographic and some very interesting conversations. I'm teaching on Psalms this month - contact me if you'd like directions.)
Several other friends of the family, mostly from our church or from the Tecumseh school district, also stopped by.
The rest of our visitors came around because they had seen the notice in a handout at the Dayton-area NMRA club's train show at Hara Arena a week earlier. Several of those families and individuals were interested in starting garden railroads and had lots of questions. Some questions were very basic, like, "does the track really stay outside all year?" and some were pretty complicated, showing that folks had been reading up and thinking things through. I hope we were an encouragement to everyone who attended.
Above all, I hope that we injected a little Christmas warmth into each life, and that each reader gets at least some Christmas cheer from seeing our photos.
This is also an object lesson on how getting your railroad ready for visitors will cause you to do improvements and repairs that you might otherwise keep putting off indefinitely. And Christmas music and colored lights aside, much of what we did for this event will have lasting effect on our railroad.
Above all, we wanted to give you ideas and encouragement for your own Christmas season, whether it involves trees, trains, cookies, or anything we've mentioned at all. Please accept the Race family's wishes for a joyous Christmas and a blessed New Year!
Once again, if you would like to ask questions, be notified of future open houses on the New Boston and Donnels Creek, or learn about other Christmas-themed open houses in Southwest Ohio this year please visit our 2009 Christmas Open Houses sheet.
Best of luck, have a great holiday season, enjoy your trains, and especially enjoy any time you have with your family this season.
Paul Race
Your article on a Christmas open house was great this month as I've been asked to open my layout out in the future during the communities holiday home tour. Lots of things to think about, but lots I already have in place after reading your article. (FYI, strings of LED lights are $5 at Walgreens in this area. Very inexpensive and as you noted, they look great in the layout.)
Antoinette S writes:
Paul, what a seriously interesting article; I read every word of it . . . . Your coulda/shoulda remarks were edifying, your photos charming (loved the trestle spotlight), and your encouragement inspiring.
Your blog itself was inspiring! (When I get an idea for the next year's putz, I scratch something down on a 4x6 pad and throw it in a drawer. My idea of organization is putting a paper clip on a given year's loose sheets. But then, that's how I've written all of my novels, so I guess it works, at least for me.)
Just a beautiful effort from start to finish. Kudos!
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Note: If you arrived at this article by clicking on the "Next" link in our New Boston and Donnels Creek series of chronological articles about our garden railroad, you can continue the series using the links below.
Next - Proceed to our next article "April, 2010: Landscaping Rehab and Idiot Tools," which describes big maintenance tasks we had to perform eleven years into our railroad's life span. Some of them were caused by my mistakes, some of them were caused by following bad advice from "experts," and some of them were caused by a neighbor's use of the cheapest possible materials in his privacy fence.
Previous - Return to our article "Fall Has Fell," which outlines our early plans for our 2009 Christmas-themed open railroad.
Note:The following articles are listed in reverse chronological order, so if you want to start at the beginning and work your way through, please jump to the "About New Boston and Donnels Creek" article near the bottom of this list.
Return to our article "Refurbishing Garden Railroad Track."
Return to our article "Planning a Christmas Open House, Part 5." This is the last in a sequence of articles that describe our preparation and eventual execution of our first Christmas-themed open railroad in 2008.
Return to our article "Planning a Christmas Open House, Part 4."
Return to our article "Planning a Christmas Open House, Part 3."
Return to our article "Planning a Christmas Open House, Part 2."
Return to our article "Planning a Christmas Open House, Part 1."
Return to our article "Refurbishing Garden Railroad Roadbed," which describes how we used cement roadbed to addressed the massive burrowing animal and weed growth problems caused by following the track-over-gravel-on-a-dirt-pile instructions of the desert-dwelling garden railroad experts and GR editors.
Return to our article "About the Owner/Author/Lead Editor," which describes Paul's circumstances and approach to garden railroading in the early 2000s
Return to our article "NB&DC Rolling Stock," which lists the sorts of cars I was running on my railroad in the early 2000s.
Return to our article "Motive Power, which was written in 2003, and updated in 2008. It describes the locomotive we were using most of the time to pull trains on the New Boston and Donnels Creek.
Return to our article "June, 2003 Photos, to see what our railroad looked like four years after we broke ground, and one year after the 2002 convention.
Return to our article "Layout So Far," which describes the track plan, plants, etc. of our garden railroad as of the early spring of 2003.
Return to our "January, 2003" article, which includes photo of our railroad caught in a 6"-8" snow right after running trains at Christmas.
Return to our "June, 2002 Photos article, which contains photos of our garden railroad as it was set up for the 2002 National Garden Railway Convention in Cincinnati.
Return to "What to Do When a Tree Eats Your Railroad."
To return to our article "Stress Testing on the NB&DC RR," click here.
To return to our NBDC 1998-2000 Pictures page, click here.
To return to Landscaping and Pond Construction, 1998-1999, click here,
To return to our page About New Boston and Donnels Creek" click here.
To return to the New Boston and Donnels Creek Index Page, click here
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