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In some households where Christmas is celebrated, presents arent the only items tucked under the Tannenbaum.
For many families, tradition dictates that a Christmas tree isnt completely decorated until a miniature train track is snapped into place around the trees trunk and a model train car or two make rotations.
The origin of running trains around a Christmas tree is unknown, according to the Charles Ro Supply Co. of Malden, Massachusetts.
Unfortunately, no one knows how and when this tradition got started and the exact purpose of putting the toy trains under the Christmas tree, The company, which bills itself as the worlds largest Lionel dealer and the number one train dealer in America, writes on its website. Still, according to historians, this tradition started about 100 years ago in the early 1900s. It was the time when manufacturer Lionel started making the first toy train.
At that time, children were more familiar with toy trains than all other automobiles, so toy train sets were the most popular Christmas gift request. Lionels electric toy train got very popular and soon became the focus of a new hobby: model railroads. It became natural to assemble the train to make it run under the Christmas tree once you opened a toy train set.Lionel can track its early history to N.J.
According to lionel.com, when Lionel founder Joshua Lionel Cowens immigrant family arrived in New York after the Civil War, the railroads were literally Americas engines of progress.
Cowen, who was born in 1877 just before Edisons first electric light, grew up with real trains, amid dizzying change.
Cowen designed his first train, the Electric Express, not as a toy, but as an eye-catching display for toy stores, according to the site. During Lionels early days, Americans were captivated by the railroads and awed by electricity, still a rarity in many homes.
According to the Train Collectors Association, Lionel Trains were manufactured at two locations in New Jersey: 21st Street in Irvington and Sager Place in Hillside. The association reports that the Irvington site, which operated from 1917 to 1933, was the first facility built expressly for Lionel.
The Hillside location was in operation from 1929 until 1967. This facility was served by a spur of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. According to Ron Hollanders All Aboard!, Lionel engineers made recordings of passing LV trains when developing the air whistle.5 train shows that run in the Garden State.
In Carlstadt, the New York Society of Model Engineers hosts its Winter Exhibition every December. This year, the show concludes Sunday, Dec. 18 at 5 p..m.
The show, at the societys facility at 341 Hoboken Road, features two operating model railroad displays. One railroad, The Union Connecting, models two rail O-Scale (1/4? to the foot). The other railroad, The Union, Hoboken, and Overland, models HO scale (1/8? to the foot).
NYSME, which was organized in New York City in 1926, hosts public exhibitions of the layouts at Christmastime and in the early spring. The society also holds a work session every Wednesday at 7 p.m. Visitors are welcome to come, but there is no guarantee that any trains will be operating.
In Union, the Model Railroad Club Inc.s 2022 Holiday Train Show started on Black Friday and runs weekends through Dec. 11. The club welcomes thousands of guests to its show.
The layout here, at the clubs facility on Jefferson Avenue, included three fictional railroads: the Class 1 Hudson, Delaware and Ohio; the Trenton Northern, an interurban and traction line; and the Rahway River, a short line.
The club, founded as the Summit-New Providence Model Railroad Club in 1949, works to educate the general public and the clubs members about the railroads and the industries they served in the New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania area. The club does this via its scale model railroad displays, interpretive displays on the railroad industry and the hobby of model railroading in its gallery area and by conducting research.
In Woodbridge, an annual holiday train show, now in its 32nd year, runs at the Barron Arts Center, 582 Rahway Ave., through Dec. 30.
In Flemington sits Northlandz, the Worlds Largest Miniature Wonderland. Here, the model train display spans acres. The display features hundreds of structures, bridges and tunnels. This display was imagined and built single-handedly by Bruce Williams Zaccagnino more than 35 years ago.
Northlandz by the numbers: 52,000 square-foot layout, more than 250,000 trees, over 100 trains, 8 miles of railroad track, over 200 tunnels and over 400 bridges. Northlandz is located at 495 Route 202.
In Jersey City, the Liberty Science Center train show, The Great Train Set is on exhibit. This show, most of the 1,700-square-foot display is in 1:32 scale, captures the wonder of the Lackawanna Railroad in the era when trains chugged from the grand Hoboken Terminal through scenic small-town New Jersey to coal country in eastern Pennsylvania.
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Holiday Model Train shows