Christmas Train

About a year ago I started building a train for my Christmas Display. This blog details the process and some of the things I learned along the way.

The inspiration came from a talk I attended at a Lone Star Holiday Lighting Academy 2014 put on by Matt Brown. A picture of his train is below.

Matt Browns Christmas Train - The Inspiration. 

This was a little more of a project than I realized it was going to be. I had a rough idea in my head of what it was going to look like and about how bit I wanted it.

My finished train waiting for Christmas.

I started by building a straight piece of track that I could use to build everything on and make sure it all lined up. I went with a 10" gauge track. Which made the train 14" wide and 24" long and stood 20" tall.

Assembled track for building the train.

For the wheels on the front of the engine and on the train cars I went with solid hand truck wheel with bearings. I used aluminum rod from the hardware store for the axles.  Casters on the inside of the track are for guides.

The base of the engine and cars is made from a 2 X 6 that I carved the sides out to make lighter. For the trucks ( the part that keeps the train on the track) I used a 2 x 2 that was notched to hold the axle and mounted casters on the lower part of the 2 x 2 to hole the car on center. I used PVC brick 

molding to mount the casters. In hind site it is too flimsy and I ended up having to fix a couple of the casters half way through the Christmas season. I plan on upgrading everything to aluminum or steel at some point.

For the rear drive wheels of the train I used 7" Dia lawn mower wheels. These gave me the right speed but didn't hold up to well over the season. the main drive wheel was warn smooth by the end.

Basic wheel layout- Top View

Basic Wheel Layout.

Truck Assembly - Front View

Engine and car bases. 

For the Boiler on the front of the engine I used a 5 gallon bucket from Home Depot. 

Building the Engine base. 

 I added some 1 X 2 framing around the outside of the base to give me an idea of the space I wanted to work in for the train cars and add some support for the car bodies.
The bases of the cars and engine I painted black so they would blend in and not be noticed.

Painting the base of the engine. 

 

The base frames for the cars 

The first car is my candy cane log car. It is 1" PVC with red electrical tape for the stripping. To keep the wight down I used 1" spacers on the either end to support the outer layer of PVC. 

Candy Cane logs assembled. 

Candy Cane Log car test fit. 

For the Caboose and cab of the Engine I used 1/8" paneling.

Building the Caboose. 

I Covered the windows of the caboose with white Coro board so that the light would shine through but you cant see the wires and lights inside the car. I added a small LED light for the back porch of the caboose and 1/2" red LED's to the back of the caboose to show that it was the end of the train.

For the Candy Cane log car I used LED strips on the sides.

Lite up Caboose and Log Car. 

Figuring out the drive system was fun. I ended up going with a windshield wiper motor from Fright Props and there mounting plate. The motor has two speeds depending on how you wire it. I ended up going with the low speed.

Drive motor. 

I decided to go with a chain and sprocket set up. After a ton of searching online I finally I found a sprocket and hub that I could mount to the motor drive shaft. Vex Robotics out of Dallas had the parts I needed. I did end up ordering a few extra parts because I wasn't sure the gear ratio I wanted just yet for the right speed of the train.

Sprocket mounted to the drive wheel

Sprocket order

Motor Test fit. 

I did have to go with a slightly longer chain to be able to have room for my battery on the inside of the engine cab.

Motor mounted in final position. 

For the battery's I used 35 amp hour power chair batteries off Ebay. Nothing fancy. It got the job done.


The Track was a challenge in and of itself. the straight parts where easy. I made those before even starting the train cars. For the corners I used 10' pieces of PVC brick molding. In hind sight I thing I will go with 12' pieces in the future because they will give me a better radius for corners and the way I built the train.

The way I assembled the corners it didnt quite come out to a 90 degree turn so I had to add some spacers when I assembled the track. These gave me fits all season because the cars never quite went over them well and I had to constantly tweek them to keep the train running smooth.

I leveled the track when I built it in the yard using standard garden stakes and larger 2" X 2" that I cut at angle to be able to get the height right.

 All in all I would do a few things differently and I have some tweaking to do, but it was a blast to watch people admire and talk about.