Halloween Village

[Brutus]

[:)]

Got the Haunted Coal Car today. The outer box was pretty beat up, but the actual D56 box was in good shape and the kit is fine. It took about 3 minutes to put it up - I'll do a pic this weekend and post it. The bumper at the end of the track and the actual handcar are plain plastic, but the hill, bats, pumpkins, and skeletons are nice. The track sits up on a plastic base about twice as high as fastrack. It is 2 rail, By eyeball it looks like it's about the same width track spacing. It's not HO track, that's for sure. I'll measure it as well.

TTYL

[Anonymous]

I read these last posts right before I had to run out of the house with the baby because they were testing the fire alarms today. Since they would be working on this for a while we went to see if we could visit this City Lights place.

What a great place. I am surprised and a little sad I've never seen this in the 3 years I've been here. It's really close to the Toys are Us where I build on my other hobby / obscession. They actually had several really well done layouts that were actually closer to model villages which I actually like alot anyway. Not every town gets to be on the mainline. The workers were so nice to the baby. They were making faces and showing us all these animated things.

Because I was holding him and on a budget I didn't end up buying anything. But I saw a few that I liked. The "coal car" was very nice I will definitly go back for this one later. The size seems closer to 1/32 but so is that K-line Porter.

Oh and at the Toys are Us I found some nice pre painted figures that fit well into a halloween theme. There is a game called 'Heroscape" that has add on figures that seem o-scale. I found some that look like lava men, warewolves, revolutionary war solders, Sceletons with spears, winged devils, Celts, Knights, centars, dragons and other various demons. I really like the detail and they are very well painted. They were on sale for $14 for two packs. There seem to be between 5 and 7 per pack. Keep an eye out for these. They seem to be in the games section of W-mart and Target as well.
Thanks for the tip

[Brutus]

It moves! I saw one in a Hallmark. I bought from citylightscollectibles, which has free shipping and handling - you might end up paying tax though if in the same state. The handcar just goes back and forth, but it's pretty cool looking.

Per UPS email, it should be here on Friday, which is a work at home day for me, so I'll probably post Friday or Saturday morning on it.

Hope your trip to FL goes okay - sounds like a rough patch coming up! God bless!

[dougdagrump]

emmaandy, jim ordered the haunted coal car from "City Lights" rite here in San Diego, they are just off I-5, east side, across from Mission Bay if memory serves me right.
I leave early tomorrow for Fl, hopefully I'll be back before halloween so I can complete the layout. [:o)]

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the tips.

I am interested in seeing that dept 56 Coal Car. No stores seem to carry it so I can't really tell if it is animated and moves or it is stationary. Could you say a little more here about it when you get yours.

As far as that "other holiday" I have seen that Lionel has repainted it's saddletank switcher in holiday colors. I have this one in Santa Fe and it is a great one for the price. Can't recommend highly enough. I hope it comes out in Halloween scheme next year. A nice "Eerie RR" or "Satan Fe" would be fun. CTT even pushed a B&O&O RR in thier halloween themed layout a few years ago. Fun stuff for the Gomez Addams in us all.

[Brutus]

Thanks - the Hauntington sets are my wife's. The tall building is Hauntington Hall, the town hall, and then there are the 3 shops in the strip mall building. They are the same set and next year more buildings are expected. They are not really in scale. The Theater in the middle is part of the Department 56 Halloween Snow Village set - I think it came out last year. The lights on the sign flash and it has a sound chip that makes sounds like horror/sci-fi movies are playing (circa 1950's). The Dept 56 buildings appear to me to be in about the right scale for 0 gauge, although the people are oversized.

I just bought 2 new buildings on ebay last night - Dept 56 Haunted Tower Tours, which is an accessory for the LaGhosti Theater, and Blackstone Castle. I previously ordered The Haunted Coal Car from citylightscollectibles due to a link on this web site. Once they show up, I'll post a few more pics.

I'm really getting into this Halloween theme - I might just make a whole layout with this sort of theme, or have it connect to a larger layout....

She also has the Halloween sets from Hallmark for the past 2 years, I think, but they are still stored in the basement.

Charlene wants to pick up a set of buildings based on the old Rudolph animated special from when we were kids, so she is hinting that we will need a Christmas train set as well (I guess that will come out of my allowance?)

[Anonymous]

Very nice town.

I saw that row of stores for sale at Hallmark. I really liked the wry humor in the names and I liked the interiors as well. I was debateing wether to get it because it seemed a little on the large side. Recently I got one of the K-line porters and some superstreet tracks (was excited about both and really like both of them). Anyway the Porter is a bit on the large side as well so now I think maybe my porter and town could be in the same area set off from the other loop a bit so it is not as jarring.

I've seen the movie theater but not the other large building. Is that from the same series as the Hallmark stores? Do you know if there are other items in that series?

Again, it looks good.

[Brutus]

[:-^]
Um - I forgot to take that down before I did the pics - that's my new K-line KCC handcar set with ore and tool cars - I found it online and set it up to run to make sure it is working alright - it's pretty cool and I have a plan to have it running through a mine sort of off to the side of my permanent layout - one of these days!

[wrmcclellan]

Spanky - great pics and nice job.

Jim - I like your setup. What are you running on the inner loop (looks like K-Line Shadow Rail)? We have the Dept 56 first Haunted House and additional figures we put on the mantel each year - no room for a train (but a real toy train railroader would never say that would he/she?).

[Blueberryhill RR]

I agree, Jim. Very nice. What runs on the inside track?

Chuck

[spankybird]

Very nice Jim,
I like your town folks.

[Brutus]

Here's some pics from our first Halloween layout - hope they post correctly! [:D]

[Brutus]

Got my Spooky Sound Car today!

I've got a Lionel CW80 transformer hooked up to an oval of fastrack. When I slowly ran up the power, the sound kicked in. At low power, not enough to run the train, the sound is like static or something, but when it gets up to the level of power needed to drive the train, the sound evens out into wind etc. The first time when I had it in neutral and held down the whistle button, the train engine sort of moved up a little and then stopped, but after I ran the train around a few times then stopped and ran it up in neutral, while working the bell and then the whistle and alternating, it didn't move. Af ter that it worked about as I hoped it would - the howl is pretty good, the scream is very good and made my dog very excited indeed!

[dougdagrump]

I tried one small area with the moss that I put thru the leaf vacuum/blower and it worked real good. It didn't chop it up but it did break it up and fluff it to where you could put down a layer of thinned out white glue sprinkle a thick layer of moss and pat it down for a good contact and adhesion. After it dries thouroughly I'll just lightly vacuum off the excess again with the leaf vac, about a third of it is done. [^]

[Brutus]

re chopper - you might be able to find an old hand food chopper (I think pampered chef makes one) where you could have good control over the results....

Man - that layout is looking nice!

[spankybird]

Things are coming along well on the years village

[dougdagrump]

Well, I tried the leaf vacuum. Unfortunately it didn't chop it up very much but it sure did make it light and fluffy. [(-D] Maybe tomorrow morning I can check some of the thrift stores for a really ratty looking food processer.

[laz 57]

TOM,
WELL DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
laz57

[Anonymous]

Great idea! Nice work too! Thinking about incorporating a little bit into the layout I'm building.
choochoo52

[Anonymous]

Interesting.

Do you have other newer sound cars. If you do try them with your transformer set up. If they work then it's the sound car that has the problem. Maybe the newer transformers are better able to do this delicately. I don't have any $ound cars so I have no idea. Maybe a new thread is in order for a quicker solution.

Dougdagrump, I went by your museum today for the swap meet and hopeing to meet you. The nice people at Frank The Trainman now have some of my money because I broke down and finally got the matching caboose for the Halloween General. They also had the bobbing Vampire car from a few years ago. If anyone in the San Diego area wants a General and caboose they have some at the Valuecraft in Escondido.

[dougdagrump]

Looking for some info.[D)]
When I first tested my halloween 4x4x0 with the spooky boxcar the horn/whistle lever, for boxcar sounds, on the Lionel TW transformer it would make the loco actually spin its wheels and accelerate although the sounds did work. I tried the K-Line whistle/bell activation device wired into the transformer per instructions and it was a little better but still not acceptable results. I have a 1044 transformer that I actually plan on using for the halloween layout but now I am begining to wonder if the results would be the same.
It tested perfectly on the club layout yesterday but it was powered by an MTH transformer which makes me wonder if one of the smaller MTH units would be better. [%-)]

[spankybird]

HI Sunshine25, welcome to the CTT forum [#welcome]

For instructions on post photos, click here

Photo Posting

hope this helps
tom

[Anonymous]

Love your village. We did something very similar this year. We built a platform similar to yours with an HO train oval on the bottom. Then we made a platform in the center about 12 inches above the first level and put an N scale track on that. We ran purple and orange rope lights around it. I love yours though...we are missing the trick or treaters...just beginning to get into this. How do I attach a picture to a message? Sunshine[:)

[Jumijo]

Doug, I'm not sure about the leaf blower cutting it up fine enough, but you might try running some through a food processor, blender, or even a paper shredder.
Jim

[spankybird]

QUOTE: Originally posted by scratch b rules

Tom you still amaze me with all you have, cant wait for Halloween

So is my wife [^]

This weekend we are starting on both, the Halloween and Christmas layouts.

[Anonymous]

Tom you still amaze me with all you have, cant wait for Halloween

[Brutus]

LOL

So, you don't like chunky style margarittas?

I am seriously thinking of doing a "real" layout with a halloween/monster theme - I was checking out some of the different Dept 56, Lemax etc stuff and also thinking of some stuff I could build with the kids - I think it would be really cool!

[dougdagrump]

But then I wouldn't have anything to make my Margueritas in. [:(]

[1688torpedo]

If Vincent Price was alive and well; He would most likely become a collector and set up a Halloween layout yearound after reading this thread[;)][:)]