Extinct beasts?

[HEdward]

In several public layouts that I've seen(even the motion display at the camera shop that I was manager of)they've had dinosaurs on the layout.  I've had a plastic dino since I was a kid and put it on all my layouts as well.  Does anyone know why so many hobby shops, public displays and us not so finicky modelers have them?  It's kinda weird that these long gone creatures have found homes on essentially technology displays.

[jeffrey-wimberly]

On my last layout I had an allosaurus about to make a snack of a switch tower operator. It was meant as a satirical scene and got a lot of chuckles from guests.

[R. T. POTEET]

I had a politicianus pompus on my layout and it was so terrifying that it had everyone clutching their wallet! 

[on30francisco]

I have a couple of Brontosauruses on my layout. I like building to scale but also like to have fun with my layout.

[loathar]

I can be a Grumpasaurus when my trains don't run right.

(note-Grumpasaurus was actually in the spell check dictionary...) 

[twhite]

HEdward--

Many years ago, John Allen on his classic Gorre and Daphetid model railroad in Monterey, CA, as a joke, had a Stegosaurus named Emma that he used as a yard switcher.  I believe her RR number was #05.  She appeared in Model Railroader several times, especially in the old Varney ads that used Allen's railroad as a setting for their products.  Allen had a very quirky sense of humor, and Emma even had her own 'ash-pit' in the yard for when she had to--er--'clean her flues', so to speak.  

Ever since then, dinosaurs have been kind of favorites with certain model railroaders--at one time I had a Triceratops named Malcolm that I used in pusher service on my old MR to help get passenger trains over a very ill-planned sudden 4% grade.  Malcolm has since been retired--his horns kept spearing the observaton car platorm.  In fact, my grandson has probably the only Triceratops that I know of with a tri-color "RIO GRANDE-SCENIC LINE OF THE WORLD" decal on his flanks, LOL!   His loco class was D-27. 

They're fun--and REAL attention-getters

Tom

[HEdward]

So there is some actual tradition and history behind this odd phenomenon.  I'll be saving my dino(a 1964-5 World's Fair Sinclair oil company item)for my golden spike ceremony.  Thanks for your input guys.

[loathar]

It's definitely a tradition of some sort. There's a Children's Hospital some where that has a very large layout. They have about a dozen dinosaurs they hide in different places around the layout for the kids to find.

(Where's Perry at? This is right up his alley!)

[Dallas Model Works]

Hmmmmmn.

My kids have toy dinosaur skeleton. Maybe next time I'm doing rock casting, I'll use it to create a fossil.

Now that would be cool -- anybody heard of anything like that before?

 

[tomikawaTT]

There's a prototype for everything!  Rapid City, SD, has Dinosaur Park, on the ridge that separates the two sides of the city, with 1:1 scale models of a variety of dino-critters scattered around.  The piece de resistance is the brontosaur on the top of the ridge, visible for miles.

There's a smaller dino-critter next to I-90 at Wall, SD, home of the world-famous Wall Drug Store.

Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

[WP 3020]

Hmmmmmn.

My kids have toy dinosaur skeleton. Maybe next time I'm doing rock casting, I'll use it to create a fossil.

Now that would be cool -- anybody heard of anything like that before?

 

Walthers had a seen from some mfg. I can't remember at one time you could get of a dinosaur dig. They also had a crashed saucer craft. Some times, at public displays, a club member or two will put an out of place item on the layout to see if anyone notices it. Sometimes it is a dinosaur or it might be a M113 APC parked by a mountain cabin.

[inch53]

I've had dinosaurs, lizards and what ever else the kids [and now grandkids] wanted at different times on past layouts. They set up one scene in the stock pens with giant frogs waiting to be loaded into stock cars.

inch

[wm3798]

Dinosaurs are so pre-historic...

We get visited on occasion by alien robots!

Lee 

[MisterBeasley]

Hmmm...maybe my next subway video will have something hiding in the tunnels...

I recall a layout at a show a few years back that had a pre-teenage-boy's dream module - dinosaurs and military vehicles, complete with explosions and wrecked aircraft.

[HEdward]

It's definitely a tradition of some sort. There's a Children's Hospital some where that has a very large layout. They have about a dozen dinosaurs they hide in different places around the layout for the kids to find.

(Where's Perry at? This is right up his alley!)

 

Dallas.  It's on one of the DPB videos.

[Texas Zepher]

As a child there were many toys that came and went (stuffed elephant, Tonka Trucks, Tiger Joe Tank, Texaco Fire Truck, GI Joe, bicycles, etc.), but there were three constants that have been a passion and were always more than just toys.   A set of plastic dinosaurs (the kind that used to come on blister packs and in cereal boxes), a set of model motoring (1964) slot cars, and the trains.   While I do not have a dinosaur on my layout now, there will certainly be at least one in the final build out.

[BRAKIE]

In several public layouts that I've seen(even the motion display at the camera shop that I was manager of)they've had dinosaurs on the layout.  I've had a plastic dino since I was a kid and put it on all my layouts as well.  Does anyone know why so many hobby shops, public displays and us not so finicky modelers have them?  It's kinda weird that these long gone creatures have found homes on essentially technology displays.

 

I suppose the majority of us still see the funnier side of the hobby and and I dare say the kid in us comes through and we place funny things on our layout...My claim to fame at one club is 4" Godzilla railfanning complete with  camera made from ABS plastic!

[twhite]

I was having fun with Malcolm my Triceratops one day, when a friend of mine remarked that there were no dinosaurs in the Sierra Nevada, because during the Cretacous Era, the Sierra Nevada did not exist, and California was under water.  "Have you ever heard of a dinosaur fossil being discovered in California?" he asked, obviously enjoying his superior geological knowledge. 

I looked at Malcolm, busily spearing the end platform of my observation car as a rear-end helper and said, "He wandered in from Utah." 

"Um,"  my friend muttered. 

Malcolm didn't much care WHERE he came from, he was too busy pushing my observation car. 

Tom

[jackn2mpu]

In several public layouts that I've seen(even the motion display at the camera shop that I was manager of)they've had dinosaurs on the layout.  I've had a plastic dino since I was a kid and put it on all my layouts as well.  Does anyone know why so many hobby shops, public displays and us not so finicky modelers have them?  It's kinda weird that these long gone creatures have found homes on essentially technology displays.

 

I suppose the majority of us still see the funnier side of the hobby and and I dare say the kid in us comes through and we place funny things on our layout...My claim to fame at one club is 4" Godzilla railfanning complete with  camera made from ABS plastic!

Was wondering when someone was going to mention the ultimate dino/train combo. I understand there is a new Godzilla movie in the works. Wonder if they'll have trains in this one like the first one had?

[Flashwave]

Dinosaurs are so pre-historic...

We get visited on occasion by alien robots!

Lee 

Still cool. But we have a Drop-off Agreement with a community of them. Ever try to watch an 0-4-0 try to push an autorack up the mountains as part of a passenger "Mix" train? Neither have I. But I will when I get things built. (And to get back on topic) Did you know Hasbro put out Dinosaur Minicons?

[fiatfan]

There's a prototype for everything!  Rapid City, SD, has Dinosaur Park, on the ridge that separates the two sides of the city, with 1:1 scale models of a variety of dino-critters scattered around.  The piece de resistance is the brontosaur on the top of the ridge, visible for miles.

There's a smaller dino-critter next to I-90 at Wall, SD, home of the world-famous Wall Drug Store.

Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

One of my favorite spots!  I have hundreds of shots of sunsets and even some trains from up there.  My daughter (who lives in Rapid City) saved her son's first trip to Dinosaur Park for me, knowing how much I love to be up there.

 

Tom

Now back to your regularly scheduled topic. 

[steamage]

Their not exactly extinct, but I have a bad case of THEM! in the Los Angeles River on the layout.

[twhite]

Steamage--

Every time you post that terrific photo, I get these neat chills--that movie scared the PANTS off of me when I was a kid and saw it in the theater.  I think my buddies and myself made 'ant' noises at each other for about a year after, LOL! 

Best "Big Bug" movie ever made, IMO. 

Tom

[concretelackey]

From a commercial standpoint I would say that having oddities on display are an attention grabber causing the veiwer to look at the display closer. So if Mothra was seen coming out of a tunnel it may give reason for more investigation and thereby increase the sales potential.

From a personal standpoint....it is just a conversation peice.

[Walleye]

Since John Allen had one on the G&D, it is OK to put dinosaurs on a serious model railroad, but only if:

 1) they are prototypically correct. (Accurate scale size, prototype color scheme and markings, correct number of teeth, etc.),

2) their fossils have actually been found in or near your prototype road's operating area,

and

3) they have a role in your layout's operations (clearing right-of-way, eating passengers, etc.)

Otherwise, they clearly don't belong. You can't put something on your layout just because it's fun and you like the way it looks.

-Walleye

[alco49]

I was having fun with Malcolm my Triceratops one day, when a friend of mine remarked that there were no dinosaurs in the Sierra Nevada, because during the Cretacous Era, the Sierra Nevada did not exist, and California was under water.  "Have you ever heard of a dinosaur fossil being discovered in California?" he asked, obviously enjoying his superior geological knowledge. 

Yes, i've seen such fossils. Actually, California was only half under water at the time, just FYI.

[twhite]

alco49

That's what I tried to tell him--I know of at least one found in the Coast Range in Marin County, I believe.  He said it was an Icthyosaur and didn't count, LOL!   I asked him if anyone had informed the Icthyosaur about that little detail, and besides the Sierra was a flat coast at that time and it was quite possible that all the Cretacous fossils got swept into the Central Valley and buried when the Sierra started to lift.  We went on for hours.  A musician and an English professor arguing about Historical Geology.  You would have banged your head!

Tom   

[tsgtbob]

I have a velociraptor on my layout, being shot at by the Arrista hunter figure. The dino is in the trees, the hunter is in plain sight. It's amazing how many folks don't see the dino right away, but they do see the hunter. After they sight down his rifle, they chuckle!

[tomikawaTT]

I suppose the majority of us still see the funnier side of the hobby and and I dare say the kid in us comes through and we place funny things on our layout...My claim to fame at one club is 4" Godzilla railfanning complete with  camera made from ABS plastic!

Was wondering when someone was going to mention the ultimate dino/train combo. I understand there is a new Godzilla movie in the works. Wonder if they'll have trains in this one like the first one had?

If it's filmed in Japan or modeled on Japan, It'll be all but impossible to keep trains OUT of it!

Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

[HEdward]

Since John Allen had one on the G&D, it is OK to put dinosaurs on a serious model railroad, but only if:

 1) they are prototypically correct. (Accurate scale size, prototype color scheme and markings, correct number of teeth, etc.),

2) their fossils have actually been found in or near your prototype road's operating area,

and

3) they have a role in your layout's operations (clearing right-of-way, eating passengers, etc.)

Otherwise, they clearly don't belong. You can't put something on your layout just because it's fun and you like the way it looks.

-Walleye

So you're an advocate for the prototype/rivet counting/must be exact to the day's headline folded on Mrs. Jones' doorstep modelers?  My dino is green.  Just green.  He stands around doing nothing in particular.  No interaction with the railroad, populace or livestock.  Does this make me some kind of trouble making rabble rouser?  Should I quit the hobby now since I don't have the correct giant reptile?  I'm right back to being cornfussed.