Kenn Goutal's Home Page

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Mine

N Scale
Christmas Train

For many years, my wife Martha had expressed a wish that we had a Christmas train. Nothing fancy like a full-fledged "layout", just a loop of track and a train, maybe some holiday-themed cars, to go around the tree or on the sideboard.

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas of 2001, with the help of my daughters Abby and Betsi and my son Tim, I constructed just such a train in N scale. The result is shown in the picture below.


View the cards using this page of thumbnails.

locomotive boxcar snack car tree car gift car caboose

Updates: (in reverse chronological order)

2008/12/15:
  Discovered a 3-axle tank engine that I purchased at some time in the past as a replacement for the burned out engine. Although it has no manufacturer's markings, and although it is marked "A.T.S.F", it appears to be of Japanese manufacture and Japanese prototype. However, since this is for the North Pole RR and not the ATSF, this is not a problem. It requires a high voltage to run, but it runs smoothly, and does not seem to overheat. I am midway through painting and equipping it.
  Have stripped the paint from the livestock car.
  Have purchased a number of tiny wire-and-plastic candy canes, and I have begun to straighten in order to cut them to length and put on some sort of "log" car.
  Have found two or three models (from different manufacturers) of 36', "old time" livestock cars. Having just spent money (however little) on a car (however inappropriate), I don't feel justified in spending more money just to purchase one of these. However, the pictures available are clear enough that I should (in some future year) be able to model one from scratch.
  Have spruced up the existing cars: removed paint that I previously put where it didn't belong (just being sloppy); painted the coupler trip pins black so that they look like brake hoses; gave an extra coat of white to the "uppers" of the gondolas; added some green to the bottoms of the trees, where they appeared white or grey; removed old lettering, in preparation for adding "N.P.R.R" or "North Pole R.R.".
  Martha gave the gondola "uppers" yet another coat of white, using a somewhat transparent paint, and has begun painting white the window frames of the caboose.

2008/12/09:
  Implemented this web site. It uses a combination of Perl and JavaScript in addition to HTML and CSS.

2008/12/06:
  Purchased a stockcar in which to put reindeer. Would have preferred to get a "shorty" or "old-time" version, of a length and height similar to the other cars. Perhaps in the future.