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Odd things on your layout...

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Posted by mlehman on Thursday, December 12, 2013 4:45 PM

Jimmy_Braum
Oh yeah, and not exactly odd, but I want to put in a 1950's NASCAR dirt track.

Best idea ever for what to do with that otherwise worthless slot car set.

Plus gives you at least two more operator positions to fill when things are kinda slow.

Mike Lehman

Urbana, IL

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Posted by G Paine on Thursday, December 12, 2013 5:57 PM

The dog and fire hydrant are one of the small scenes on my layout

Honest Sams Used Cars with the guy trying to to convence his wife that the sporty coupe is a better choice than the practical sedan

The Ravinous Lab Bisrto is a wall avdvert on one of my buildings

For some reason, women like the pumpkin patch scene on the Boothbay Railway Village layout - could it be that the women in the scene are working while the man is taking a break??

George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch 

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Posted by bigpianoguy on Thursday, December 12, 2013 6:57 PM

Not quite yet but there will be a plasma ball in the end car of the Hogwarts Express, during a visit to my maintenance shed.

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Posted by Alantrains on Thursday, December 12, 2013 10:51 PM

I hadn't thought of that Mike. Now how can I shrink myself so I can get into the Phone booth?

mlehman

 

 
Alantrains

I have a blue British police phone box that appears randomly on the layout. Dr Who fans will know!

 

 

 

Alan,

Great idea! That should make prototype research really convenientBig Smile

 

Alan Jones in Sunny Queensland (Oz)

 

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Posted by mlehman on Friday, December 13, 2013 12:24 AM

Yeah, fitting in we don't quite have worked out yet. maybe send tiny drones with cameras for now?

Clown

Mike Lehman

Urbana, IL

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Posted by glutrain on Friday, December 13, 2013 1:08 AM

Maybe it just because quirkyness is more fun than sameness, oddities just seem to quietly sneak into the portions of my layout that are farther from the front edges. Visitors seem to start humming the same cello based movie theme when they finally spot a very large fish chasing a very small boat out in the middle of Lake Bruce. That might not be as odd as the blue haired trolls that live in Troll Hollow (which is convienently located under a bridge). Up in the hills, the crew working the Lost Sasquatch Mine, excavating for gravel and small amounts of prosperium, just never realize the Squatch was not lost at all- just over the hill- and clearly not a happy camper.

What seems to work best is when the quirky is well camoflaged by a heap of normal activities and familiar items. Then it becomes a game to find police car 54, always parked either near a source of food or where traffic violators are easily found.

Don H.

 

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Posted by Jimmy_Braum on Friday, December 13, 2013 5:27 AM

The club I belong to, has amember who strung up a plane crashing. I was also thinking of on my module (when I build it) of having a buried locomotive being dug up. 

(My Model Railroad, My Rules) 

These are the opinions of an under 35 , from the east end of, and modeling, the same section of the Wheeling and Lake Erie railway.  As well as a freelanced road (Austinville and Dynamite City railroad).  

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Posted by caldreamer on Friday, December 13, 2013 8:38 AM

A friend of mine had a laYout with a house of instant pleasure.  You could see the naked lady and her guest in the window of one of the bedrooms.  I always got a chuckle out of it.  REST IN PEASE GEORGE.

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Posted by GP-9_Man11786 on Friday, December 13, 2013 8:46 AM

On my new layout, I may try to work in Snoopy, in his WWI Flying Ace outfit flying his doghouse...er...I mean Sopwith Camel in pursuit of the Red Baron.

Modeling the Pennsylvania Railroad in N Scale.

www.prr-nscale.blogspot.com 

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Posted by rrinker on Friday, December 13, 2013 9:35 AM

 Hmm, perhaps I'll have an old loco being raised from a lake...

Anyone read Clive Cussler's The Chase? The opening scene of the book has a turn of the 20th century loco being raised from a lake - in the 1950's. So while the locale doesn;t fit my layout, the era sure does...

             --Randy

 


Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's

 

Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.

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Posted by tgindy on Friday, December 13, 2013 9:45 AM

The good 'ole high school HO layout used "an inactive" Gilbert Erector Set to construct highway overpass bridges.

Conemaugh Road & Traction circa 1956

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Posted by tankertoad70 on Friday, December 13, 2013 3:24 PM

Well, from the Mt Hood Club layout, we have polecats invading a picnic.  Too bad for those gents who don't see them comin'!Cowboy

Don in 'Orygun' City
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Posted by tankertoad70 on Friday, December 13, 2013 3:27 PM

 - - and here we have a tiger, lost by the recent in town circus, looking for lunch.  Too bad the dog is looking the wrong way...Cowboy

Don in 'Orygun' City
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Posted by Tracklayer on Friday, December 13, 2013 6:28 PM

That reminds me Tom, I also have a mountain lion up on a hill top looking down on a couple of deer that he's sizing up for his next meal...

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Posted by Southwest Chief on Friday, December 13, 2013 9:58 PM

Kind of odd I guess.  Playboy Bunny inspired servers in this nightclub:

Matt from Anaheim, CA and Bayfield, CO
Click Here for my model train photo website

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Posted by glutrain on Sunday, December 15, 2013 12:21 AM

Maybe things that are odd are mostly things that familiarity is limited in one way or another. My grand kids find telephone booths to be odd items when spotted in town, but have no such concrens when they locate a bronto saurus tucked deep into a swamp. So much of what we do when modeling becomes  just another way (generally delightful) of sharing different aspects of relatively recent history, that would be otherwise overlooked as the future obscures the past at a faster and faster pace.

 

 

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Posted by CSX_road_slug on Monday, December 16, 2013 4:51 PM

I try to avoid purposefully weird things, but on my previous layout, a certain visiting arachnid took a liking to these ingot cars in my steel mill:

-Ken in Maryland  (B&O modeler, former CSX modeler)

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Posted by groundeffects on Monday, December 16, 2013 10:51 PM

I have a couple movie scenes from the movie "Mad, mad, mad mad world".  I have a small park with 4 palm trees that form "a giant dubya" as Jonathan Winters might say.  I also have two yellow taxis parked nearby.  Not movie related, I have a mobile home on the corner of my layout, with a pet pig and a sofa on the front porch with a redneck front yard with abandoned pick up truck and other junk.  On the roof are a couple chickens and a rooster. 

Jeff B

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Posted by tomikawaTT on Tuesday, December 17, 2013 12:05 AM

On my, "To do," list are an operating tunnel boring machine (window in the fascia) and an operating pile driver (the hammer actually hits the BOTTOM of the piling, causing the model driver head to bounce.)

Considering the location I model, the five-tiered pagoda and the sumo ring are mundane.

Oddest of all?  The squirrely gaijin wandering around the tracks, camera and clipboard in hand.

There are things to be said for the idea that modeling Central Japan as it was a half-century ago is odd enough for most purposes...

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

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Posted by Medina1128 on Tuesday, December 17, 2013 6:28 AM

After making some trees, a friend made the following suggestion.

 

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Posted by stebbycentral on Tuesday, December 17, 2013 6:35 AM

MisterBeasley

Hmmm, let's see.  There's the odd goings on at the Burns Oil and Coal company...

Nothing odd at all, they are just contemplating their next aquisition...

[/URL]

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!

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Posted by georgev on Tuesday, December 17, 2013 6:45 AM

I've tried to put a little humor into some of the signage. The old Lifelike kit of the restaurant "Ma's Place" inspired these signs.  

Here's the town of Frostbite Falls.

with directions to the local institute of higher education...

Now I need to find a figure of a moose..... standing upright on his hind legs....  and a squirrel wearing a leather flight helmetl. 

George V.

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Posted by tomikawaTT on Tuesday, December 17, 2013 10:48 AM

Georgev,

Beautiful snow work on Frostbite Falls.

It might be easier to have Boris and Natasha lurking in an alley...

Chuck (Who resembles Bullwinkle, modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

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Posted by mlehman on Tuesday, December 17, 2013 1:28 PM

CSX_road_slug

I try to avoid purposefully weird things, but on my previous layout, a certain visiting arachnid took a liking to these ingot cars in my steel mill:

 

 

Yeah, I leave these ones alone. That looks like one of the wolf spiders. They hunt their food down and don't leave webs all over the place. It's like having a little bug-eating cat on the layout -- and no litter box to changeSmile

Mike Lehman

Urbana, IL

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Posted by Capt. Grimek on Tuesday, December 17, 2013 3:07 PM
The Batmobile (from the Nolan versions) has been known to reside in my abandoned mine tunnel... otherwise no silly stuff in plain view. Trying for realism otherwise (so far);-)

Raised on the Erie Lackawanna Mainline- Supt. of the Black River Transfer & Terminal R.R.

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Posted by SooLine720 on Tuesday, December 17, 2013 4:23 PM

mlehman

 

 
CSX_road_slug

I try to avoid purposefully weird things, but on my previous layout, a certain visiting arachnid took a liking to these ingot cars in my steel mill:

 

 

 

 

Yeah, I leave these ones alone. That looks like one of the wolf spiders. They hunt their food down and don't leave webs all over the place. It's like having a little bug-eating cat on the layout -- and no litter box to changeSmile

 

Last time I saw a spider on my layout, it laid a bunch of webs on the CN SD40-2W and ran away.

-Khang Lu, University of Minnesota Railroad Club

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Posted by Jimmy_Braum on Tuesday, December 17, 2013 5:33 PM

As long as it is not a black widow or a brown recluse, 

Spiders are okay  

 

SooLine720

 

 
mlehman

 

 
CSX_road_slug

I try to avoid purposefully weird things, but on my previous layout, a certain visiting arachnid took a liking to these ingot cars in my steel mill:

 

 

 

 

Yeah, I leave these ones alone. That looks like one of the wolf spiders. They hunt their food down and don't leave webs all over the place. It's like having a little bug-eating cat on the layout -- and no litter box to changeSmile

 

 

 

Last time I saw a spider on my layout, it laid a bunch of webs on the CN SD40-2W and ran away.

 

(My Model Railroad, My Rules) 

These are the opinions of an under 35 , from the east end of, and modeling, the same section of the Wheeling and Lake Erie railway.  As well as a freelanced road (Austinville and Dynamite City railroad).  

  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 90 posts
Posted by shahomy on Wednesday, December 18, 2013 11:53 AM

Am i ever gonna be able to lay any track???

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