Father Matt, Rector of Christ Church, offers up a Christmas Train show featuring his Lionel "O" Gauge Trains that are set up in his basement. The train around the Christmas Tree is an LGB "G" Gauge train. This train show is accompanied by "Joy to the World" and "The Alleluia Chorus" sung the Christ Church Choir and Congregation at Christmas Eve 2024, accompanied by the Modus Operandi Chamber Orchestra, Dr. Justin Bischof, Director of Music and Organist at Christ Church.

A note about the layout from Father Matt: When I was boy in Rosemont, PA, my dad had a train layout made up of three 8 foot by 4 foot boards - it had an excellent Gar Graves elevated bridge section! That layout contained a number of the trains you can see in the video - the silver passenger cars were on the upper gar graves table. My dad had inherited some of these trains and his love of model trains from his dad. After we moved to Boston in the mid 1980s the train tables never got fully set up. When we moved to NYC in the mid 1990s the trains were put on display in the Library - a true layout wasn't possible. After I was ordained, married, and living at Saint Mary's in Times Square, it seemed like a logical time to get a train for our Christmas Tree. My dad got me a Lionel Polar Express set (it is in the video, though it's got a lot more passenger cars now). Soon after I was looking for trains on eBay - the ultimate find remains the PRR steam turbine - and I had my own display in our large hallway.

The current layout began to take shape when I was elected Rector of Good Shepherd, Granite Springs, in 2009. That autumn, Lorne and Pat, two members at Good Shepherd, offered to build me a proper train table in the basement. They built two 14ft x 4ft tables for me to create and build a layout on... and I did! That layout was amazing, but I never could figure out how to link the two tables together in a way that made sense. When my parents retired they gave me the trains that had been on display, and so my set pretty much doubled in size.

When I was elected Rector at Christ Church in 2015 one of the more challenging parts of the move was determining whether there was space for the two train tables in the house. Houses and basements are designed differently, and there was no chance to reset the tables as they had been, but I had an idea and some power tools. I packed up all the trains and tracks, dismantled the tables - piece by piece - and convinced the movers that it really was important to move all this random wood. Pretty soon after unpacking my clothes and the pots and pans, I started to reimagine and rebuild the train set. I was able to build an 8ft x 8ft square. To ensure the trains' safety at high speeds, I added in the guard rails. Over the next year it evolved into something resembling a decent layout. In 2017 I added the second level from the remaining wood left over from the original tables in Granite Springs, which to my mind completes the core part of the layout I continued to add to the set - mostly through gifts from neighbors and parishioners who had old O gauge trains lying around. I am particularly grateful to Alex our handyman and Michael G who lives in Pelham for giving me a ton of great trains, accessories, and power transformers.

As you can see in the video... my train table is far from finished. I still haven't gotten around to painting the bulk of the second level, but I will get to that at some point... maybe after Christmas! Since Covid-19, I've learned how to do some decent video editing. This combines those two hobbies into one fun video. Despite the fact that the table remains incomplete, I hope you enjoy this video! Many Thanks to my dad and my Grampa Mead for their love of model trains - a number of the trains on the layout are inherited from them, and they will be passed o to my kids who both enjoy the trains too! Many thanks also to Pat Mulholland and Lorne Robbins who built the first tables for me in Granite Springs!.