Train Layouts on TV

[overall]

How many TV shows have used Lionel or AF layouts? Here are some examples I thought of;

Addams Family- This is probably the most famous TV layout. Gomez Addams would stage head on collisions augmented with explosives under his bridges.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E- Agent Napolen Solo has been captured by Thrush (again) . He is tied down to a chair facing a Lionel layout. The only controls he has in front of him are switch contollers. The Thrush people are controlling the train speed. Two trains are running on the layout, each with a load of poison gas. Agent Solo must keep the trains from colliding and thus releasing the gas and killing him as the bad Thrush guys keep increasing the train speed from the safety of an adjoining room. They stop the trains when they say they got the information they needed from another source.

The Twilight Zone- A man and woman find themselves in a really strange little town. It looks typical enough but all the trees are fake, the ground is made from papier mache' and the houses are empty shells. There are no real people to ask quetiosn of. Finally, they hear a train whistle. They run to the station to find a train pulling in. They board it hoping to pay the conductor for the ticket to ride and get out of town. But there is no one on board. The train runs for a while and comes back to the same station it just left. The couple gets off. They look up into the sky only to see a giant little girl looking down and laughing at them. They figure out that they are on a toy train layout somewhere in ......The Twilight Zone.

Captain Kangeroo- The captain did have a layout but very little is known about it.

The Today Show- I remember years ago as a kid one of the hosts ( Hugh Downs?) demonstrated a Lionel train that carried a bowl of Kellog's Corn Flakes on a flat car. The train would stop in front of a water tower that poured milk. I have always been curious about this layout and the captain's layout above.

What examples can some others think of?

George

[gvdobler]

Chicago Hope.

The main doctor had a big Lionel layout in his office.

Dudley Moore Movie (rich guy with snooty butler) -Can't think of the name.

[CSX FAN]

Don't forget Mr. Rogers

I'm sure there are many of them.

[CSX FAN]

it was Aurther.

[Anonymous]

"The Twilight Zone" episode "Night of The Meek", broadcast 12/23/60 featured a Super O Lionel layout that was later used on " The Addams Family" in 1964.

Photo:http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/lionel_supero_track/vwp?.dir=/&.src=gr&.dnm=1964+Addams+Family+Layout.jpg&.view=t&.done=http%3a//photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/lionel_supero_track/lst%3f%26.dir=/%26.src=gr%26.view=t

Lou

[Anonymous]

Twilight zone the movie, the little boy had a lionel set in his bedroom, thier house was built on a abandon railway bed and in the middle of the night a ghost train goes crashing thru the house, stoping to pick up his granddad as he was responcible for the trains derailment on that very spot as a little boy. While not lionel or af, there were several shots of LGB trains in the movie The Santa Clause. Cheers MIke

[cnw1995]

Wasn't the main doc in Chicago Hope Mandy Patinkin? - he's one of 'us' - I've seen a video of his trains.
There was the Lionel TV show itself - and I think AF had one as well - or do they not count?

[artyoung]

I remember Lionels on the Paul Winchell/Jerry Mahony Show in the '50's, and Lionel commercials on the "Casey Jones" show starring Alan Ladd,Jr. also from the '50's. Brrrrr ! Suddenly, I feel old ! Captain Kangaroo's layout was a Lionel display layout (don't know the model #, but I remember seeing the ballast tamper and the tie - jector units riding on Super"O" track. A little closer to the present (late '80's - early '90's) there was ALF, a puppet alien with a borscht-belt delivery that lived with a human family. You sometimes saw a Lionel layout in the garage.

[Anonymous]

Rev. Lovejoy on THE SIMPSONS has an elaborate layout in his business. He puts on his engineer's cap and has a great time. One time, though, if I recall correctly, his wife interrupted him with some typically bad news from the Simpson family and he got so addled he set up a headon crash!

[Kooljock1]

LGBF7,

I believe that was an episode of "Amazing Stories", the Steven Spielberg TV show from the early 80's. And if I remember, the boys' trainset consisted of the MPC Chessie Steam Special cars pulled by a Post War 675/2025 type engine.

Jon [8D]

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cnw1995

Wasn't the main doc in Chicago Hope Mandy Patinkin? - he's one of 'us' - I've seen a video of his trains.

Indeed, it was Mandy--a devoted Lionel enthusiast.

Otherwise, there are too many shows to count or remember. Truth is, I have a hard time recalling any show that didn't feature toy trains in one way or another at some point in their run.

[zwbob]

Leave it to Beaver - June found Beavers train set and was going to give it to some younger kid in the neighborhood. When beaver took it out to clean it up for the kid he and Gilbert set it up and were running it. Beaver didn't want to give it away now but Ward told him it was a childs toy and he was getting to big to play with trains. Beaver changed his mind and gave it away.

[LionLMan]

I remember a couple of episodes of Dennis the Menace where he had a floor layout in their living room.

Neal Jeter[:)]

[Anonymous]

I can remember two more. "Ozzie and Harriet" and "Leave it to Beaver"

Opps! Beaver was already mentioned. Sorry!

[Anonymous]

>>>Beaver didn't want to give it away now but Ward told him it was a childs toy and he was getting to big to play with trains. <<<

And then June chimed in, "Ward, don't be so hard on the Beaver!" [:)]

Lou

[Benjamin Maggi]

Cheers, my favorite show of all time, as Lionel Trains in two episodes.
1. The teaser (short part before the credits)... Norm and Cliff are talking about how Cliff is going to clean out the attic or some such thing and get rid of his old trains. They start reminiscing about the cattle car and before you know it they run out of the bar fighting over who gets to play with them first.

2. I remember this episode "A Stork Brings A Krane).... also in the teaser, Norm brings his trains and sets it up to run around the bar. Sam puts a beer on a flat car and uses it to deliver it to the customers. Norm wired in a switchtrack that automatically rerouted the train to his stool. I was always amazed the train didn't tip over from the high center of gravity.

Long live Lionel trains.... and Cheers... where everybody knows your name! [:)]

[Anonymous]

The Jackie Gleason s Show. A Lionel train comes rolling out on the bar with a drink on a flat car. Stops in front of him and he grabs the glass and takes a gulp and says " Booze goes swell with Lionel." I read someplace the brass at Lionel were not amused with that take.

[Anonymous]

I can think of several examples of toy trains on television.

Perry Mason: In the episode "The Case of The Deadly Toy" an American Flyer layout is featured. It includes a large mountain, a barrel loader and a talking station. For trains, there is a steam freight set and Super Chief Alco PA passenger set. The layout is only shown briefly and the trains aren't run. Don't worry-the layout is not the "deadly toy" of the title!

Seinfeld: In the episode "The Merv Griffin Show" Jerry is dating a girl who has a large collection of vintage toys she inherited from her father. Jerry wants to play with them, but she won't let him because they are all in mint condition. Jerry (and later George and Elaine) end up drugging her food so they can play with them. The toys are displayed on a large set of shelves in her apartment. Among them are two green Lionel standard gauge passenger cars, an early Lionel standard gauge caboose and a Marx signal tower.

Matlock: There are a few episodes where you can see that Ben Matlock has some trains displayed in his office. These are a prewar Lionel crane on top of a smaller bookcase, a prewar Lionel caboose sitting on a board with a piece of track on it on a table next to his desk, an LGB Stainz 0-4-0T on a shelf on his wall bookcase and (the most easily noticeable) a G scale model of a Colorado & Southern steam engine in a glass display case sitting on top of a cabinet. The decorations in his office changed from season to season, so they weren't always there.

Murder in Small Town X: This was the only reality show I ever liked. I wish it was still on and I could be a contestant on it! The premise of the show was that the contestants (who would gradually be eliminated) went to a small town in Maine where a serial killer was claiming victims. They would find clues and try to discover who the killer was. In one episode, two of the contestants investigated a suspect's house while he was away and found it to be filled with toys. There was a 2-second clip of a cheap plastic Lionel starter set steam engine (without a tender) pulling a yellow gondola car rushing past the camera. Later, someone went back to the house at night and you could catch a glimpse of a slope back tender and some O27 track sitting on a counter.

The New Addams Family: Unfortunately, I haven't seen the original show from the 60's yet. In the new version, there is a large Lionel layout on which Gomez runs New York Central Flyer freight sets. There were also some O27 passenger cars. Often, an engine pulled a train without its tender. The crashes were always the same. Gomez would blow up a bridge in front of the control panel (with plenty of smoke) and the the trains would plunge down. The credits of the show mentioned "Trains Provided By Lionel Trains."

The Polka Dot Door: I remember seeing an episode of this show as a kid where a collector brought some prewar trains to show. All I can recall are these long rows of tinplate trains sitting on a table and this guy telling the host about them. The only specific trains that stick out in my mind are an all-blue set (probably a Blue Comet) and some streetcars. How I wish I had that show on tape!

Dennis The Menace: To elaborate on LionLMan's post, the one epside I remember featuring a train (never saw another one he referred to) was about a soapbox derby. The prize was an electric train. Dennis' father ended up making a $50 bet with another boys father over whose car would be faster. On the day of the race, there was a mixup and Mr. Wilson accidently ended up riding Dennis' car down the hill. He won, but since he was too old, was disqualified and the other kid won the train (an HO set with an ATSF freight F7, reefer, gondola car and Reading-style caboose). However, since Dennis' car was the fastest, his dad won the bet and with the money bought Dennis a Lionel set. I had an A-A set of Warbonnet PA's, O27 passenger cars, some tunnels and buildings and enough track to go all around his living room.

[Bob Keller]

An epidode of the short-lived sci-fi series VR5 has a rather long segment where one character uses a Lionel layout to explain the difference between mechanical control and artificial or human intelligence controlling a process.

A Christmas episode of 'Frasier' has a train around a tree in the background during a conversation between Frasier and his dad. It was funny to notice that when the camera cut to a scene where you could see the train, it had usually been moved - as though they were playing with it between shots.

The 1990s remake of Gene Barry's 'Burkes Law' has an episode, I think it was "Who killed the toymaker" and at the very end of the show, they brought out the "old" train set Amos Burke had given his son, the detective, as a child. I think it was a NYC Flyer set.

At least one episode of the BBC series 'Monarch of the Glen' had a large pre-war Hornby layout set up on a pool table. I never did see the episode where it was set up, though I imagine there was a small storyline about it.

[pbjwilson]

"That Seventies Show" had an episode where Red sets up a Pre-war Lionel in the living room.

[Frank53]

I recall the really ground breaking tv commercials for a new Lincoln of a few years ago, where a man and his son are playing with trains, the scenes seemlessly swicthes from one to another where they are setting teh trains then they are in teh trains and a Lincoln roars by. Those commercials were so incredibly advanced they were highly praised in the industry for absolutely seemless merging of moving images. Scene changes are so fast in video that you don't pick up on the blank spot from one scene to the next. These had no blanks and were shot in Europe at an astronomical cost.

[Anonymous]

Two that I think were movies but have not been mentioned.

-The begining sequence of Betelguise has a camera flying around a town then up to the house on top of a hill over looking town.
A huge spider crawls over the roof then an even bigger hand comes down a grabs it reveiling the whole thing to have been a model.
Later in the film the characters are shrunken down to be in the model as Punishment. In those scences every thing is clearly fake like
having green egg crates as the grass.

- Another movie that has toy trains in it is pretty bad. "Nothing but Trouble" with Demi Moore and Chevey Chase along with Dan Ackroid
and John Candy playing multiple roles. It is a gross out comedy / lite horror movie thast has a few scenes in a huge ramshacke dining
room with a table so big it has filth encrusted toy trains to deliver condiments in tank cars and gondolas.

[pbjwilson]

Frank53
I remember those Lincoln ads, they were great. Still love the "See the U.S.A. in a Chevrolet" ads from the 60's. Wi***hey'd bring those back with a Chevy on top of that mountain/plateau.

[BNSFNUT]

The show Captin Kangaroo in the 50's and 60's had Lionel trains from time to time if my old memory dosn't fail me.
It seems to me I remember trains on some other childrens shows of that time frame but I can't remember which ones.
Today we have trains on the RFD and DIY network.

[Anonymous]

Oh I forgot in the 80's there was a show called "Silver Spoons" that had a rideable live steam train that ran through the set of the mansion they lived in. The idea behind the show was that they were incredibly wealthy. Characters would ride in and out of scenes on it. One joke I remember was two charactors talking about the train and one saying that the Railway was so big they had never seen it all... "once it came back with snow on it."

Also the childrens show Mr Rodgers had a trolly that ran through the set and interacted with the host and took the audience through the wall to the "Land of Make Believe". It also had a model town that was featured at the begining and funtioned as a transition if they moved to another location in town this model featured Plasticville buildings prominantly. Mr Rogers himself supposedly lived in a Plasticville bungalow.

[zwbob]

The seldom scene Christmas episode of I Love Lucy. Little Ricky wakes up on Christmas morning to a bunch of stuff and a good size setup of a SF F-3 with aluminum passenger cars with the set box in plain view. There might have been a zw powering it too.

[Anonymous]

My favorite toy train layout is on TV every year after Thankgiving into March. Of course it is my layout with live action (or recorded on VCR) from my homemade X-10 camera car. Very exclusive and by invitation only.

Charlie

[Boyd]

I think there was an episode of Dallas that a killer was mezmerized by a lionel train layout and was held at bay until the cops got there.
The silver spoons show had some trouble with that ride on train creating smoke and I think two fires.
What show was it that Gary Coleman was on. For the life of me I can't remember the name of that show.
A detective show from the 70s. An older guy has an HO layout in his detached garage. There is a tube ran underground between the layout in the garage and goes into the house. He has a single track running through the tube into the house and he sends notes on the train into the house to his wife and she replys back with another note and sends the train back into the garage.

[riverrailfan]

Department store window display on A Christmas Story.

[Anonymous]

Gary Coleman = Diff'rent Strokes