Hey gang.
As some of you already know, my buddy Steve is bringing his new bride by to meet me in a couple of days and of course I want to make a good impression. Anyways, once I get that behind me, I'm thinking about scratch building an old 1950s drive in movie theater. It's been years since I've been to one of these, but from what I can recall they were made of mostly tin and consisted of a ticket booth, a sign showing what movies were playing, the big screen, the combination projection building and consession stand and speaker poles. I've got about ten extra automobiles I can use for the patrons cars so I'm at least that far ahead on that.
Any help on this would be very much appreciated.
Tracklayer
Depending on your scale, you could get one of those small screen DVD players and disguise it with some trees and scenery... A drive in with real movies! I'd suggest "The Last Man on Earth" with Vincent Price, or "Attack of the 50 foot Woman" Classic 50's camp!
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
Take a look at the new video picture frames. You can download music, photos and videos on them from your PC.
Blair Line has a Drive In Theater Kit in N, HO and O scale. Their web site has photos of prototype drive in theaters which may help with your project.
Jim, Modeling the Kansas City Southern Lines in HO scale.
wm3798 wrote: Depending on your scale, you could get one of those small screen DVD players and disguise it with some trees and scenery... A drive in with real movies! I'd suggest "The Last Man on Earth" with Vincent Price, or "Attack of the 50 foot Woman" Classic 50's camp!Lee
Hello Lee.
Sorry, I forgot to mention that I'm an N scaler. Oh well. Maybe I could use an Ipod for a screen huh?...
Tracklayer wrote: wm3798 wrote: Depending on your scale, you could get one of those small screen DVD players and disguise it with some trees and scenery... A drive in with real movies! I'd suggest "The Last Man on Earth" with Vincent Price, or "Attack of the 50 foot Woman" Classic 50's camp!Lee Hello Lee. Sorry, I forgot to mention that I'm an N scaler. Oh well. Maybe I could use an Ipod for a screen huh?...Tracklayer
Sounds like a fun project. My wife and I visited a drive-in theater outside of Jefferson, Wisconsin a few years ago while on vacation - very enjoyable and good memories. I seem to remember that some of the drive-in's had playground equipment for small children right near the screen but you would want to verify that as my memory sometimes fails me. This seems to be an interesting website for drive-ins:
www.driveintheater.com/index.htm
Looking at that website I was surprised to learn that drive-in's started in the 1930's.
Mike B.
Don't forget the kids lined along the fence getting a free view. I used to.
Paul
There was a drive-in theater near my home town in the 1950's and into the 60's that had a kiddie-land right in front of the screen which included an electric train ride, manually-pushed (okay, kiddie pushed) merry-go-round, slides, sand boxes, etc.
Finding toys that could represent this in N-scale would really be a challenge.
For the long-term...
The terrain of every drive-in I've been to is a very gently down to the movie screen with a bit that is level for the cars and the speaker poles.
Conemaugh Road & Traction circa 1956
There was a modular n-scale exhibit a couple of years ago that had avery small (b&w) tv playing old cartoons; the tv was set into the background, framed as if it were the projection screen. The effect was very good. Sorry, I don't remember the name of the club or where they were from.
A favorite drive-in in my past sat right next to a railroad right-of-way, so the movie was usually interrupted by the wail of the whistle.
A lot of drive-ins had very tall board fences to prevent onlookers from outside the property.
Kenfolk wrote: There was a modular n-scale exhibit a couple of years ago that had avery small (b&w) tv playing old cartoons; the tv was set into the background, framed as if it were the projection screen. The effect was very good. Sorry, I don't remember the name of the club or where they were from.A favorite drive-in in my past sat right next to a railroad right-of-way, so the movie was usually interrupted by the wail of the whistle. A lot of drive-ins had very tall board fences to prevent onlookers from outside the property.
As a matter of fact I was thinking about building it near the tracks... I have a blank area on the layout about 9 X 5 inches that I was planning to squeeze it into if possible.
The old Starlight drive in over in Brenham Texas was built back in the 1950s, and was real popular back in its day, but as indoor theaters took over, they began showing adult movies in order to make up for their losses. The city got so many complaints from people passing by on highway 290 that could see all that was going on that they finally took them to court and shut them down.
Here is the ultimate challenge:
Use an iPod (or some screen) under the layout and use fiber optics to project the image up into and out of the projection house and onto the drive-in screen.
Circuitron has fiber optics.
I don't know if this would work, but it would be damned cool if it did!
Craig
DMW
Don't forget the wires and the electric heaters on the speaker poles, cars with kids making out in front seat & uh, reclining while making out in the rear seat (a lot of cars with really fogged up windows in winter). Some of our drive-ins here in Illinois had horizontal rows going across a hilly incline and at the same time frequently had sloping parking spots in the rows so that a car in a row behind another row was slightly looking over the car in the other row rather than through it (we often bottomed out the cars going from one row to another) .
Some nights were "car load" nights where everyone in the car got in for say a 2 person charge. Don't forget the friends in the trunk. Usually there were signs in the driveway leading to the ticket booth advertising it.
Ken
Kenfolk wrote: A favorite drive-in in my past sat right next to a railroad right-of-way, so the movie was usually interrupted by the wail of the whistle. A lot of drive-ins had very tall board fences to prevent onlookers from outside the property.
There's a classic O. Winston Link photo of a small rural drive-in, with a screen that would scale to about postage stamp size in N scale. There was a Korean War flick on the screen (F-86 in flight) and a Class A 2-6-6-4 stomping by right outside that tall board fence. I'm willing to bet that nobody could hear the jet!
If you're modeling the transition era, a drive-in doesn't have to be huge.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
pcarrell wrote:Two words......The Blob!
Johnnny_reb Once a word is spoken it can not be unspoken!
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Tracklayer wrote: Hey gang.As some of you already know, my buddy Steve is bringing his new bride by to meet me in a couple of days and of course I want to make a good impression. Anyways, once I get that behind me, I'm thinking about scratch building an old 1950s drive in movie theater. It's been years since I've been to one of these, but from what I can recall they were made of mostly tin and consisted of a ticket booth, a sign showing what movies were playing, the big screen, the combination projection building and consession stand and speaker poles. I've got about ten extra automobiles I can use for the patrons cars so I'm at least that far ahead on that.Any help on this would be very much appreciated.Tracklayer
Blair Line actually offers an N scale drive-in theater kit. http://www.blairline.com/di/
Andre
andrechapelon wrote: Tracklayer wrote: Hey gang.As some of you already know, my buddy Steve is bringing his new bride by to meet me in a couple of days and of course I want to make a good impression. Anyways, once I get that behind me, I'm thinking about scratch building an old 1950s drive in movie theater. It's been years since I've been to one of these, but from what I can recall they were made of mostly tin and consisted of a ticket booth, a sign showing what movies were playing, the big screen, the combination projection building and consession stand and speaker poles. I've got about ten extra automobiles I can use for the patrons cars so I'm at least that far ahead on that.Any help on this would be very much appreciated.Tracklayer Blair Line actually offers an N scale drive-in theater kit. http://www.blairline.com/di/Andre
Thank you Andre. Yes, I was aware that the kit was available, but wanted to try and build it from scratch. I did however copy the page you offered - just in case...
Tracklayer wrote: Hey gang....I'm thinking about scratch building an old 1950s drive in movie theater. It's been years since I've been to one of these, but from what I can recall they were made of mostly tin and consisted of a ticket booth, a sign showing what movies were playing, the big screen, the combination projection building and consession stand and speaker poles. Any help on this would be very much appreciated.
...I'm thinking about scratch building an old 1950s drive in movie theater. It's been years since I've been to one of these, but from what I can recall they were made of mostly tin and consisted of a ticket booth, a sign showing what movies were playing, the big screen, the combination projection building and consession stand and speaker poles.
Tracklayer - Are you aware of the Miller Engineering operating drive-in theater that was reviewed in May 2002 issue of MR? While I'm certainly not suggesting you consider buying one (they go for $700 !!!), the illustrations accompanying the review do show just how a typical small drive-in theater's grounds and structures are laid out. I suspect that these pictures would be of use to you as a source of ideas for your own project.
CNJ831
I've seen at least two operating drive-in theatre setups, both on N-track modules at Midwest train shows. The first used a small television set, which had been placed behind a vertical backdrop and heavily disguised by scenery. The other employed a small flat screen device, I believe it was either a notebook computer, or a portable DVD player. In the former case, of course, you have to have a playback device mounted under the table or somewhere nearby. In the latter case the biggest issue would be disgusing the player with scenery while still maintaining the critical clearances for cooling vents; etc.
As for selection of fare, I would think anything with Godzilla in it would be appropriate...
I have figured out what is wrong with my brain! On the left side nothing works right, and on the right side there is nothing left!
There are still 2 operating drive Inns both within 90 minutes from my home and both have two screens on opposite ends of a field, don't forget the humps that the cars park on in order to see over the next row of cars, and the field slopes down ward towards the screens, there is a play ground at every drive in I've ever been to, and of course the concession stands, they no longer use speakers on poles as you tune into a AM radio station to listen through your van radio but since your basing yours around the 50's they still used them.
And you can't forget the blankets that the kids use to put out around their parents cars so they could be outside the car sitting on a blanket watching the movie.
There is another working drive in about 65 miles from my home and that one has one thing the others do not, they have a pop corn wagon that roams the lot and if you honk 3 times or put your flashers on they will do car side service....very cool, they carry soda and pop corn and that's it, for everything else you have to go inside the concession stand, and it wouldn't be a drive in with out the public men's/gals rest rooms and the signs pointing the way.
Now if you could only add the mosquitoes you'd be golden.
Hope my memories of the drive Inns have been of some help.
Happy Rails.
Mark,
FWIW: In view of this thread and the other thread that you started, it seems to me that you're going way over the top just to impress someone whom you haven't even met yet. Relax, tidy up what you do have, and let the "ballast fall where it may". What someone thinks of you as a person should have no bearing on (and is far more important than) what they think of your layout.
My ...and I probably crossed the line in doing so...
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
tstage wrote: Mark, FWIW: In view of this thread and the other thread that you started, it seems to me that you're going way over the top just to impress someone whom you haven't even met yet. Relax, tidy up what you do have, and let the "ballast fall where it may". What someone thinks of you as a person should have no bearing on (and is far more important than) what they think of your layout. My ...and I probably crossed the line in doing so... Tom
Yes Tom, you did cross the line. How dare you... ()
Actually, I think you may have missed what I said about waiting to do this project after I've met Steve's wife. It's been on the back burner for a long time but I don't want to start it and only be half way into it when she comes over - know what I mean.
Thanks anyway for trying to help keep my stress level down.
You can always get an LCD screen that is designed for automotive headrests and connect it to a DVD player located under the layout. Much easier to blend into the scenery.
you can now get a projector the size of a deck of cards. turn that into a concession stand. mount the dvd player under the layout. this way you wouldnt have to disguise an lcd screen.