Model Train Resource: Online Videos of Great Winter- and Snow-Themed Track Plans

© 2011 by Aurelio Locsin

Even when Arctic conditions rage outdoors and snow is falling, the trains must roll to deliver passengers and freight to their intended destinations. Bearing witness to those intrepid vehicles are the following online videos of model railroad layouts in several scales dedicated to winter scenes and snowy landscapes.

With cars barely bigger than snowflakes, this N-scale layout enthralls visitors at the Warley National Model Railway Exhibition in Birmingham, England. The video focuses on a three-car passenger consist that winds its way through a double-tracked main line past pine trees, mountains, rocks, deck bridges and a small town. Click any of the links in the right column of the website page for examples of non-winter layouts at the show.

It doesn’t matter if you travel to locales that never experience winter. If you carry your layout in a wooden briefcase, you can always bring a snowy landscape with you. Here’s a Z-scale pike that uses two US locomotives to pull German freight cars through a German landscape with a folded loop. Lights and a very loud horn allow running in the dark.

You can’t get any more realistic than actual snow. But even that isn’t enough to stop operations on this LGB garden layout. A steam loco with sound pushes a snowplow to clear the track on this large backyard layout, which includes several small structures, a windmill, miniature trees, iron and stone bridges and a tunnel. The cleared route allows four-season running for the passenger consist. You can check the pike sans snow in this video.

There’s some question as to whether Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg, Germany, is indeed the world’s largest HO layout. (The other contender is Northlandz.) But there’s no doubt that the German wonder boasts a spectacular effort through highways crowded with moving miniature cars, an airport where planes fly, rivers with moving ships, and replicas of Switzerland, Austria and even Las Vegas. Not surprisingly, its snow scene concentrates on the Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Norway and Sweden. Check out the first video for wide shots of this layout section, and then ride along behind some locomotives in the second video.

Josh Clark of Flat Rock Custom Models specializes in Norfolk Southern diesels. He shows off a realistic-looking HO example pulling a long train of freight cars through a snow scene. Sound effects enhance the vision. He then continues with video instructions on bringing such scenes to life in part 1, part 2 and part 3.

This garden railroad in the Czech Republic received at least a foot of snow. But a working snow blower mounted in the front and then in the back of a steamer cleared a path. It looks like a scratchbuilt effort with brass blades.