Halloween Village

[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]

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.

[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)]

[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!

[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]

[:)]

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