Lance Hahn, left, and his brother, Bradley Hahn, show their model train layout in Cranberry Township on Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2022. A third brother, Josh, not shown, helped them assemble the layout. This is the 14th year of building it together; the layout took an entire day to complete. Cary Shaffer/Butler Eagle

Cranberry Township resident Robert Karlik received his first train set from his older brothers 72 years ago.

Now, three of his grandchildren keep the same holiday tradition by bringing a train set alive in their Cranberry Township home for friends and family — and on their YouTube channel for the rest of the world to see.

Karlik’s grandchildren — Lance, 26, Josh, 24, and Bradley, 22, Hahn of Cranberry Township — marked their 14th year of collaboratively setting up the display this December, which comes a month before Karlik’s birthday in January. Karlik will be 90.

“Every family has their own holiday tradition,” Lance Hahn said. “For us it just happens to be trains and the ... houses and the carnival display. And over the past couple of years, it’s just gotten bigger and bigger.”

This 6-foot-by-8-foot display features O-Gauge trains by Lionel and an assortment of carnival rides and scenery in the Hahns’ kitchen. The carnival landscape includes a Ferris wheel, a funhouse, a tilt-a-whirl, a merry-go-round, bumper cars, a pendulum ride, a rainbow ride and a chair swing ride — along with the masses of Christmas merrymakers exploring them.

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