More Christmas Trains

M&M handcar rides the rails—as my dog freaks out.

I promised to share some videos of our Christmas Village when we finally tricked the whole thing out, with some attention to the larger train set that snakes through the village. I have a number of videos for you in this post. The first two show two different M&M-themed cars. There are few others showing scenes from the village, and there’s a rerun of our mantelpiece trolley.

I’ll link to some of the components of our sets, where possible. Those will be affiliate links. Any scratch I earn from these help pay for this site and my various addictions: stationery, books, and model trains.

Up top, you see the M&M handcar running through the village. Side story on that: my wife is obsessed with the M&M characters and has collected them for years. So it was a cool gift for her one Christmas.

Here’s a quick video of another M&M item—a trolley car—running along the same track.

The M&M Trolley…

Both of these are O-scale trains, which are the classic size of Christmas trains associated with Lionel trains. Only, these particular products were manufactured by a company called MTH, for their Railking line. They’ve been fine trains to have and have served us pretty well over the years. Christmas trains take a lot of abuse, especially if you’re running them under the tree. As I was setting these up this year, I frankly wondered if they would run well or if I would need to clean and oil them prior to use. They started right up, no prob! But I needed to clean them shortly after. Pine needles, cotton snow, and a whole bunch of gunk get into the works as they run. That’s why train pros don’t like putting trains under the damn tree.

The M&M trolley and handcar appear to have been a limited release, which happens with licensed products. But you can still buy similar Railking trolleys: a classic city trolley, a Christmas trolley, a 1940s-themed War Bonds trolley. And there is a cute Christmas handcar out there as well. These are all “bump and go” style trolleys.

Unlike the Bachmann trolley I showed in my last train post, the reversing action of MTH’s handcar and trolley is triggered when the rolling stock reaches the end of the line and strikes a bumper. When that happens, the cars roll back to the beginning of the track. On and on they go, until you shut off the power. At higher speeds they really smack the bumpers hard, slightly moving the entire run of track. Our layout is temporary, so it really doesn’t matter. But if I were setting this up permanently, the track would be screwed down. The reverse is also true; if the trains are running at a slow speed, they might not be traveling fast enough to bump their triggers. When that happens, they just sit at the end of the track, fully lit but unable to go anywhere.

You can get straight pieces and curved pieces of MTH’s RealTrax here, and two bumper ends here. Since these are O-scale trains, they will run on any O-scale track. But I personally have not tested the bump-and-go action on Lionel’s FasTrack and bumpers. I’m tempted to test them one of these days. I have Lionel track as well in the basement, but I’d have to buy the bumpers. Unless you already have Lionel track in your home, I would stick with MTH’s track.

You will see in the videos that we have a ton of different worlds going on here. That’s the fun of creating these villages—inevitably they become a mish-mash of pop culture. In our village, Ralphie from the film A Christmas Story hangs out with characters from Elf, A Christmas Carol, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the Harry Potter books and films. Over the years, we’ve collected pieces from Lemax and Dept 56. (If you are into doing these villages, you will recognize these names. They are leaders in the field.)

Everything is augmented with heirloom pieces from our two families, primarily Barclay lead figurines.

Some other quick scenes of the village:

Sasquatch buys hot cocoa, Victorian tree vendor, Ralphie and Randy…

Town Square: chestnut vendor, Scrooge tormented by ghosts, Ralphie dreams of his BB gun…Batman!

And if you need a refresher, the mantelpiece trolley:

This trolley set is the Bachmann Trains Village Streetcar "Christmas" Auto Reversing Set. It’s ON30 scale, but it will run on HO track. The only catch is that you specifically need the auto-reversing track, which sends a signal to the trolley that it’s time to stop and go back. If you want to add curves or bends to your trolley’s run, you need a few pieces of Bachmann’s curved auto-reversing track.

Well, folks, that’s it for a bit. Despite the season, I have a few tasks remaining before the year ends. Today’s job: watching the three-hour version of A Christmas Carol starring Guy Pearce. It’s certainly not the story you think you know, but terrifying in its own way.

Before I dash off, let me remind you that I wrote a Christmas time travel story about a model train geek named Preston. It’s a sweet story that I’m proud of. Preston gets to build the subway train display that I wish I had the know-how to pull off. He also gets to travel back in time.

Anyway, I should go because TV, trains, and Christmas gluttony beckon. Check out the videos and my other Christmas books, why don’t you?

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Here’s the vintage image of a subway tunnel in the Preston book.

My holiday writing amounts to a whopping three books, if anyone’s counting. There are another three sitting on my hard drive waiting to be designed and pubbed. Maybe by next year?

Books 1 and 2 in my ongoing Kris Kringle series are out now. The main title, Sorceress Kringle, is about the time in the 1600s when Santa Claus saved a young New York City. The prequel, The Icemaster of New-York, tells Kris’s backstory, how she was rescued as an orphaned infant and adopted by the nefarious father of winter, Jack Frost.

The Kringle and Frost books are available in ebook, paperback, and hardcover. Preston’s in ebook and paper only. Even at novella-length, it’s too short to mess with a hardcover.

Click to check out your Kringle buying options.

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Thank you for stopping by. I hope you like them all.

Click image to see buying options for Preston the Provider.