This is my Lionel Pennsylvania Flyer O-27 gauge railway!  I started with a basic set from a local store at about $130 that contained the locomotive, tender, box car, open car and caboose (guards van for the English).  It came with a basic oval of track and a power supply as shown below.  Lionel trains are very good quality and the heavy O-gauge size makes them very reliable.
 
What Lionel say about the set Let's open the box and see what's inside!
The loco & cars The track & power supply etc.

Lionel Pennsylvania Flyer at www.loinel.com

To make the train a feature and a component of the room rather than just a layout in a room, I decided to setup the track on metal brackets fitted around the room about six inches under the ceiling.  It looked like our dining room would be the best room for it so I just went round and fitted the brackets in no time!  As we have a wooden frame house with wood paneled walls, it was easy to just screw each bracket into the exact right place.  I made sure they were spaced so the joints in the tracks would lineup with each bracket.  The brackets are just a simple 3 1/2 inch L shape.  I got a box full of three foot straight tracks from the shop and cut them so that there were no really small lengths where the final joint had to be made.  The track cuts quite easily with a hack saw.  The track is secured to the brackets with double sided sticky tape.  Where the train had to pass in front of the stone wall by the fireplace I used 1/4 inch threaded  rods which I screwed into the wooden ceiling and bolted a flat plate to the bottom so the track could rest on top.  Finally, I dismantled the power supply that came with the set, fitted the transformer and the back of the unit into the wall so that the front plate is level with the wall to give a professional finish to the controller.  Once I got it all setup, I added a few extra cars (trucks for the English) to make a total of eleven in all plus the loco & tender.  Now I can play trains any time without any setup!  Checkout the video below to see the drivers view!

Brackets & track Controller mounted in the wall Susan painting the brackets Heading north towards Baltimore
Making the turn heading for the bar! Crossing the bridge behind the fireplace View from on the fireplace bridge Heading past the bar towards the next turn
Over the bar Over the bar Over the window Crash!
The loco D & H hopper car Chesapeake & Ohoi Box car Grand Canyon box car

Please give the video time to load!  If you see black, it means it is still downloading!

Video of train