What Do Trains Have To Do With Christmas?

When I was growing up in the American midwest in the fifties and sixties, the train around the tree seemed every bit as important to our Christmas celebration as, say, Santa or Christmas stockings. As an adult, I realize that trains and Christmas have "gone together" for generations in most parts of the country. But it wasn't always so, and it some ways, it doesn't even make sense. It's not like Mary and Joseph rode a train from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Nor was Santa ever sighted delivering packages by Railway Express Agency. But to many families today, a toy or model train around the Christmas tree seems as "normal" as a star or angel on the top. As far as I can figure there are at least three reasons for this (in the United States and Canada, anyway - if anyone from other countries wants to contribute to this discussion, I will most gladly include your comments):

• For over a century, to most Americans, "real trains" exemplified the kinds of "comings and goings," "hustle and bustle," and even package shipments, that increased dramatically during the holiday season. At any time of year, whether you took the "A-Train," or the "Chattanooga Choo-Choo," or whether you drifted home on a "Sentimental Journey," you just assumed that any long trip would involve a train. This was even more true at Christmas time. The greatest examples were in the 1940s, when the railroads helped hundreds of thousands of GI's to "Be Home For Christmas" year after year.

  Let's face it, more people and stuff move at Christmas than any other time of year, and for over a century, more people and stuff moved by trains than any other way. So for many people, Christmas seemed to involve trains.

• In addition, as the importance of toy and model trains in American culture grew, so did the sense that Christmas was an ideal time both to give and to display those trains. This, in fact, will be the main topic of the following musings.

• Finally, trains running around Christmas trees bring back memories of simpler times. Christmas trains are to the soul what "comfort food" is to the appetite - a kind of reassurance that there are still good things in the world, and even good experiences in your own past. More will be said on that subject presently.

The Rise of Toy Trains

In fact, the most impressive line of "push toy" trains was meant to be used during warm weather. Buddy L* trains were very large stamped-metal push-toy trains for which you could buy track. Yes, these often arrived with the rest of the toys at Christmas, but they were meant to be used outside (as long as you brought them in when you were through playing), so there wasn't necessarily a Christmas link.

The First Powered Toy Trains

In 1901, Lionel showed New York City families that it was possible to fit an electric motor into a toy locomotive and power it by low-voltage electric current. A new industry and a new hobby were born.

Really Big Trains Were the Rule at First

These "Standard Gauge" trains ran on track with the rails about 2" apart. Cars seven inches high, five inches wide, and 16" long were common, although some of the cheaper sets used smaller measurements. But not everyone had room for such a large train. Those trains were also expensive. Some of the early sets cost as much as, say, a contemporary automobile. But as manufacturing techniques improved and "economies of scale" grew, the cost of a good set eventually came down to that of, say, a refrigerator or other major appliance. Still, between 1901 and 1950, a name-brand electric train was a major purchase that needed to be budgeted. And since it was, after all, a toy, what was more natural than giving the most expensive toy you were ever going to buy as a Christmas present? THE Christmas present, in fact.

Of course, once the mysterious huge box was opened, it was only logical to route the train around the now-naked-looking Christmas tree.** So between Christmas and the day the tree came down, the train would run almost constantly, with almost everyone in the family taking a turn at operating it. Next year, of course, the train would come out before the presents appeared, and run a week or two before Christmas. And any cars or accessories in the new pile of presents were added to the temporary "railroad" as well.

Christmas Railroads, Train Gardens, and "Putzes" Arrive

In the Baltimore/DC area, these seasonal railroads were called "train gardens;" they had buildings, figures, many accessories, and maybe even multiple trains running at the same time. The train garden tradition became so strong that Baltimore/DC-area fire stations would leave their engines outside until after Christmas and set up large community train gardens in their parking bays. (Note: Several collectors/historians and I have been trying to collect photos of home and fire-house train gardens to post for our readers, with few results. If you have any, please contact us and we'll figure out how to reimburse you for the cost of copying and sending them or whatever - this is an important American Christmas tradition that is on the verge of being forgotten.)

In other parts of the East, the seasonal household railroads and their associated "communities" were called "putzes," from the German word for "put," "set up," or "putter." Starting about 1928, putzes all over the country included a new Japanese import - pasteboard houses with celophane windows and a hole in the back for "C6" Christmas lights. These came to be called "putz houses," and soon, no putz was complete without them.

All of these Christmas railroads and villages were important precursors of the Holiday Villages that were made popular by Dept. 56 many years later, as well as the display railroads operating in many botanical gardens as I write this article. (Even today, certain Maryland fire departments strive to keep the Train Garden tradition alive.***)

Trains Became Smaller And More Realistic

Unfortunately, Standard Gauge trains were too big to leave sitting out indefinitely. Smaller track gauges were tried; the most successful for about 50 years was "O" gauge, which has rails that are about 1.25" apart. Over the same period, the trains began to look more and more like the real trains they were imitating. Soon the hobby of "model railroading" was born. Train fans began building permanent railroads that looked and operated as much like the real thing as possible, often in a basement or attic.

After a while, it wasn't enough to have a single huge train running around the Christmas tree once a year. Rather, hobbyists might own several trains and have a permanent railroad set up on a custom-built table somewhere year-round. For decades Lionel owned the "lion's share" of such railroads, with American Flyer coming in a distant second. But both brands were still large enough to look good around the tree.

Even at half the size of the Standard Gauge trains, O-scale trains were too large to fit into most homes without some compromises. So Lionel and other companies typically made their equipment about 3/4 the size it ought to be. Eventually, American Flyer adopted narrower track and S-scale was born. But a few companies "leapfrogged" S gauge and went right to a size that was about half the size of O scale - HO, for short.

Christmas Railroads Take a Back Seat to Model Railroads

In the 1960s, both Lionel and American Flyer fell on hard times. Model railroaders were buying HO trains, and fewer and fewer Christmas trees were surrounded by working trains of any scale.

Other forms of so-called "family" entertainment also began taking huge chunks out of people's schedules, the biggest single example being television. Later, video games, youth sports, and home computers drew even more energy and interest away from any kind of toy or model trains. Eventually, model railroading of all kinds was beginning to "level off" as a hobby, and many wondered how to keep the next generation interested in the hobby.

Christmas Trains Re-Emerge

Yet several things were already happening, on two different continents, that would bring Christmas trains back from near-extinction.

• Really Big Trains Reappear - In 1968, a European toy company introduced a new kind of electric train - one made to be used outside. LGB trains were big, and they looked dangerously "cute" around the Christmas tree. Other companies followed suit; as an example, Bachmann's a model railroad manufacturer, "Big Hauler" made these "Large Scale" trains affordable for more families. So there were more trains around the Christmas tree, but these trains were too use with putzes or train gardens in most homes.

• Ceramic Christmas Villages Arrive - In 1976, an American company called Department 56 began making collectible ceramic houses and accessories the right size to fit a "Christmas Village" on a table or spinet. Department 56 pieces average around O scale, the scale that suits most of the Lionel trains made after WWI. The nostalgic value of some of the products, coupled with the appeal of creating one's own little community was powerful. A host of other manufacturers brought out their own lines, and a new hobby was born.

  For over a decade, most Christmas Villages got along quite well without a train at all or maybe with an old-fashioned Lionel or American Flyer train. Some were served by inexpensive, battery-powered sets with a lifespan of one Christmas season or so. But eventually Dept. 56 contracted with Bachmann to make trains that would look good with the Department 56 buildings. Bachmann's "Village Express Electric Train Set," was so successful that Bachmann went on to build many other trains in the same scale.

  Bachmann's On30 trains are only slightly smaller than most of Lionel's O-gauge trains, but they run on track made for HO trains, which means they can be easier to fit in some places. Hawthorne Village uses the mechanism from Bachmann's On30 trains to produce limited-edition collectible trains. Many other people began running Christmas trains. So, half a century after the decline of the "train garden," many families are using On30 trains and collectible village houses and accessories to set up Christmas villages in their own home.

• Popular Children's Books and Movies Feature Trains - Trains also reappeared in books and movies that were intended for children but also enjoyed by adults. When a British children's book series was cleverly animated using sets that looked for all the world like a large model railroad, Thomas the Tank captured the hearts of young and old alike. In more recent years, young Harry Potter rode the "Hogwarts Express" to his beloved school, and the "Polar Express" added a distinctly North American Christmas train to our cultural imagination.

• More new model trains appeared. Bachmann, Lionel, AristoCraft, and LGB all added trains in Christmas colors to their lineup. Bachmann also added a reversing streetcar set that could bring action to the smallest Christmas village, even on a shelf or the back of the spinet. Lionel, under new management, improved its track and brought out several new trains, including a very nice model of the Polar Express and a fanciful, heirloom quality, Large Scale Christmas train that was proportioned like the huge Standard Gauge trains of old, but decorated with high-quality modern paint jobs.

• Large Scale public garden railroads began attracting millions of people a year to places like the New York Botanical Garden, the Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia, the Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburg, the Chicago Botanic Gardens, and many more. This gave a boost, not only to the Garden Railroading hobby, but also to model railroading in general, and especially to Christmas trains, since many of the public displays have holiday themes.

In other words, whether it's around the tree, around a miniature town, or around a public display railroad, the Christmas train looks like it's back to stay. Still, there may be one other reason, we are welcoming Christmas trains back into our homes.

Today's Christmas Trains Take You On a Sentimental Journey

Many model railroaders model the most modern trains they can get their hands on. But the most popular Christmas trains are old-fashioned. I suspect that that nostalgia for "simpler times" is part of the cause. Even the collectible villages that those trains serve are old-fashioned and quaint; in recent years some have reproduced scenes from Norman Rockwell paintings. Others have modeled Dickens' London, Andy Griffith's Mayberry, and It's a Wonderful Life's Bedford Falls.

Were those times really simpler? Not for most people, if you think about it. But they seem simpler than our lives today, because for most of us, someone else had to pay the bills, fix the cars and appliances, and make all of the hard decisions.

And for most of us, the best time of all of those deceptively simple times was Christmas. Is it any wonder we feel our spirits lift when we hang our favorite ornament, sing strange old songs, or rewatch that old Christmas special that seemed too cheezy for words when we were young? And when the scent of vanilla extract from the kitchen mixes with the scent of fir or pine in the living room, all bets are off.

As odd as it seems, those of us who grew up with big trains around the tree are affected just as much by the scent of a Lionel or American Flyer transformer that has been left on a little too long, the repetitive thunks and clicks of an endlessly circling train, and the erratic beam that our train's headlight casts around the room when all the room lights are off and only the train and the tree are powered. You can have your "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire." Give me the cheery thunder and repetitive motion of a big Christmas train with a circle of track sitting right on a hardwood floor.

How do you connect with the best days of the best years of your childhood? For my part, I reconnect with some of my best and earliest memories of my mother by making cut-out sugar cookies with my own children. I reconnect with some of my best and earliest memories of my father by running trains. Dad's still around, though not in the best of health, but we lost our mother on September 15 of this year. Because we had to cancel a trip, I've saved up more vacation this year than I meant to, but I hope to spend at least part of our family time at home this Christmas making cookies and running trains. And I wouldn't be surprised if, thirty years from now, my children do the same thing.

Finally . . . .

Most of all, enjoy the time you have with your family in the coming weeks. If big Christmas trains are part of the memories you are forming for the next generation, then our hearts are with you in that as well.

Have the most blessed holiday season possible,

Paul Race
FamilyChristmasOnline.com^TM
FamilyGardenTrains.com^TM
BigChristmasTrains.com^TM

For More Information

In the meantime, here are some web pages that have information related to topics mentioned in this article:

• What Is a Glitterhouse? - A related site's articles about putz houses and the new hobby of building your own.

• About Nativities - An article about another great Christmas family tradition.

• Don't Try This at Home (Anymore) - Dangerous decorations people used to use, includes early electric lighting, lead foil "icicles," "bubble-lites," and more.

• Combining Trains and Towns - What modern-day model trains work with best with collectible villages and related accessories?

• "Papa Ted's Place" - Ted Althof's extensive resource about putzes and vintage pasteboard houses. It includes history and many photos from other people's collections.

Footnotes

*Buddy L went out of business many decades ago. About 2004, another company entirely manufactured some electric trains under the Buddy L brand name. Those cast-metal and plastic trains bore no resemblance to the stamped tinplate Buddy L products, and the company disappeared almost as soon as the trains got into the warehouses. If the "real" Buddy L trains ever resurface in their stamped-tinplate glory, I'll be the first to support them.
**Tony Cotton, a friend from Australia, has reminded me that, in many homes, the tree skirt was the only place there was room to run a train without danger of someone tripping over the track.
***My Marylander friend Mauro Pasquini tells me that the firehouse train gardens in the Baltimore area were so pervasive during his childhood that he didn't realize it was a regional phenomenon. But of course they weren't possible further north where fire engines left outside were likely to get snowed under or iced up before Christmas. On a side note to this footnote, I'll add that I stumbled across the Baltimore/DC tradition of train gardens entirely by accident, when a DC-area reader mentioned his family's train garden as if I should know what he was talking about. I'd love to have more information, and if possible, old photographs to share. If I get enough information and graphics, I will devote an article just to them. Please contact me if you have anything to share.

If you've been reading our pages, you know that we have big things planned, and a lot on our plate, so keep checking back. And contact us with any questions or suggestions you have in the meantime.

Paul Race

www.familychristmasonline.com