Anyone know the track?
Anyway… I’m thinking of designing the new exhibition scheme to be totally generic so I’m wondering what you would feel were the things (per decade) that would shout “anywhere in the USA”… coke adverts and Ronald McD obviously… what else?
Pics are always great for us foriegners. [8D]
TIA [:D]
You specifically ask for per decade but didn’t specify decades for the two you mentioned. McDonald’s are not even close to being Americana before the mid 1960s. And today they don’t look anything like they did back then, there have been a few new McD that have at least added back the golden arches to the building. The first McDonalds had no inside seating area. McDonalds didn’t reach western Kansas until the early 1980’s. I remember being surprised by them suddenly appearing at both the Colby and Goodland exits on I-70 about 1984.
I would have said A&W and maybe Dairy Queen are much more anytown America than McDonalds. They are a Johnny come lately.
1950-1960 Sears, Montgomery Ward, & Penny’s on main street. Corner Drug Stores, Western Auto, Woolworths, and always a Kodak store.
1970-1980 Sears, Montgomery Ward, & Penny’s in Malls. Kmart & Woolco (the for runners of Walmart).
I think this is going to be a much harder project than you think. Coke and Pepsi advertising has changed so much through the years.
A string of 2 story brick buildings for a downtown area. Thw Walthers Cornerstone series has them along with DPM and a few others. Virtually every midwestern town has this style of buildings.
Here are some examples from Kansas, Nebraska and I think Iowa
Rick
[:O] i thought Ronald came over on the Mayflower?
I’m looking for the 80s… preferably with a good chunk of industry - which i guess is going to reduce that from absolutley anytown USA to Any industrial Town USA [:I][#oops]. I should know that.
I thought that I would make the question very general to draw in as much information as possible [8D]
Thanks for the good stuff so far [:D]
Well Dave, that’s still a lot. First off, it depends on the town size, Mac Donalds per say, didn’t put up restaurants in every town, there had to be a certain population.Ditto most chain restaurants.
Grocery stores are regional, same for discount department stores( K-Mart,Ames, etc), same for drug stores which started being corporate.
Gas stations were still popular, but starting to decline, convenient stores were using old gas stations. Industrial buildings were both old brick (dpm/walthers modulars, factories) and metal (micro engineering).
Shopping plazas (strip malls) were common, usually next to a name store. Bigger towns had indoor malls.
Downtown was usually an eclectic collection of mom and pop shops, restaurants, druggist, tv repairs, doctors, lawyers, clothes stores, the police, fire departments, town hall, barbershop, and maybe a small department store, sometimes with three stories. If you were lucky enough your town still had a movie theater, bakery and butcher shop. Bigbox home improvement centers (Lowes/Homedepot), were still years away, so small lumber/building supply businesses were still around, although regional- ly,a Rickels or 84 lumber and others started in many areas.
Coke, Pepsi, 7-up, they’re common just use right year color schemes. Beer advertising still popular, ditto cigarettes.
Basically alot of depends on what region you’re modeling as to specifics, I hope this helps,mike h.
As earlier posted, 2 story brick buildings with mostly “mom & pop” name businesses. Gas stations had names like Esso, Mobilgas (with a flying horse symbol) Sinclair, Tydol/Flying A. Car dealerships were all American before the '60’s!! In the '50’s we had a Ford dealer in town that was actually in a large Gulf gas station. 5 & 10’s were around for years, Woolworth & Kresge’s were big in the northeast where I grew up. As an aside, I was shocked to see Singer Sewing Machines, Shell, Esso, and Coke, among others, when I first arrived in Vietnam!!![:O][:D]
Dave,
Here’s some pics of my home town…which looks like most Northeastern mill towns.
Main Street down the hill toward the mill:
Note that the mill buildings are right in town, at the far end of the street. Turn right and there are a couple more mill buildings.
Main Street looking up the hill from the mill:
Typical residential street:
On street parking. Some blocks have an alley down the middle, behind the houses. Mine does, I park out back rather then on the street.
Every town has a fire station (nearly all are volunteer), which also doubles as a social hall. There’s also the local hardware store (mostly Tru-Values or Service Stars), corner grocer (yes I still have one), pharmacy and post office.
The McD’s, Wawa’s, and the like are in strip malls outside the town center.
For the longest time, gas was limited to Sunoco, Gulf, or Sheetz, with the rare Amoco station.
Don’t forget Church St. For some reason most of the churches seem to congregate on the same street.
Nick
I am afraid that your question is tough to answer, since we were a lot less homogenious than we might appear now, and there were many regional differences. We had a chain of restaurants that had a “Big Boy” as the “Golden Arches” symbol but the “Name” varied by region, in Cleveland they were known as “Manners’ Big Boy’s” . Grocery chains varied by region but “A&P” was repesented in several midwestern and eastern areas. Some “names” that come to mind have been mentioned like Western Auto, Sears and to a lesser extent Montgomery Wards, but there were also drug store chains like “Rexal”, and every town had a Ford, Chevrolet, or Chrysler/Plymouth car dealership in a wide variety of styles and sizes, but all with service areas for their automobiles usually 8 to twelve bay shops. The era you are refering to was populated by “Service Stations” that also sold Gasoline, usually at least two stall since people had their cars repaired before the industry required a much higher level of technology to even diagnose the “problem”. There were also Firestone and Goodyear tire stores, which also serviced also serviced vehicles.
By the 1980’s the green “Railway Express” trucks and signs were soon to disappear if they were not already gone, but the UPS brown trucks showed up everywhere very day. FedEX had not yet become as prevelent as they are today( it may not have been until the '90s that they even made an appearance). There was a seasonal presence of “Good Humor” ice cream trucks vending treats to the neighborhood kids.
Hopefully some one will post more pictures or can reference a number of the historical sites that can give you some more reference shots. Nbrodar’s photos are pretty representative.
This post has me humming Bruce Springstein, My Home Town. I’ve been looking at the Woodland Scenics all in one city/town kit they have for the Grand Valley layout. I think that looks pretty generic American small town. 15 buildings and 200 details for around $150.
Not Springstein! ('least I’ve not heard him do the track) better than Springstein IMHO [:D][}:)Thanks for all the great stuff so far! [8D] Great pics Nick.
More pics and links please… PLEASE!
I just recalled … someone said “The past is a different country”… or something like that. So this could be useful to the youngsters…
What on earth is a “Strip Mall”? Ribbon development of stores?
Maybe churches congregate to set an example? Has the US gone to adopting industrial building as churches like here?
Thanks again all [:D]
A strip mall is a long building divided into different smaller store fronts. Generally 5-10 different stores, but the building was built as one building and then divided into the various stores. Sometimes they will be connected to a large “anchor” store such as a grocery store to draw traffic in.
PS- http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/bruce+springsteen/my+hometown_20025016.html
Oops, Had the spelling wrong.
Strip mall, usually a series or block of stores, outside of town. started showing up in sixties, with the likes of a restaurant, druggist, hardware, barber/beauty shop, bank. dry cleaner, etc. Usually a concrete block or metal single story affairs, with more parking the in town. Sometimes located next to new chain store(grocery or discount department store.
I forgot in my other post, in the 80’s hardware stores still common in town, selling everything from basic tools to appliances and bikes, some even sold model trains. Many midsize or smaller towns also had a catolog store(sears/wards), where you ordered from catolog and picked up at store.
Amtrack had passenger bussiness, larger cities had there own systems(Metro North, etc),government regulations allowed railroads to shut down or sell off little used or redundant lines.
Two things that any post-1980 Anytown layout would need, and which there isn’t a good supply of…
a) yes, strip malls. (done by a quality manufacturer)
b) 7-11s. These outlets are ubiquitous, and are the telltale signs of America’s on-the-move culture. has anyone seen models for this?
c) japanese cars. It is frustrating that one cannot find a Honda Civic or a Toyota Carolla or virtually any japanese cars, especially since they are increasingly dominating the American highway. The Toyota Camry is today’s Chevy Impalla…an “everyman’s car”. Can’t find it in MR. Japanese cars are the norm, methinks, whereever you go…from the smallest towns in rural quality model maker come up with one? Why must we populate our layouts with endless varieties of VWs?.. Why must there be so many hyper-expensive-type sports cars models? Why?! Why?! Why!!! (End of rant)
Great rant Shawnee! [bow][#ditto][bow] Totally agree! [:-,]
Esso stations became Exxon stations in 1973.
This is one of my streets. Although my layout is set in 1967, many of the scenes here would work equally well for decades on either side of this.
These are both DPM buildings. I added the awning and Woolworths sign. Woolworths was a department store chain which used to be everywhere. There were also referred to as the “5 & 10” or “5 & 10 cent store” because many items cost a nickel or a dime. By the 80’s they were starting to be pushed out, but there were still some around.
Of all the things you could do to say “American Town,” I think the most significant is the automobiles, and the car culture. Gas stations are everywhere, and you’d probably do best to select a name that really doesn’t exist in Europe.
Region matters. If you’re modeling a mill town in Massachusetts, or a “Rust Belt” industrial town (think Sheffield), the manufacturing base is in the process of contracting, the buildings are often older brick structures, and the layout of the area more closely resembles a traditional town. There would be a city center, albeit increasingly seedy as its business migrates to the first big package stores, like Kmart.
In the South/Sun Belt, where industry was relocating, it was a different story. Manufacturing facilities look like big airport hangars: large steel buildings, and the employees are living in planned developments (trailer parks, too - another topic for another time) and shopping in strip malls. Older town centers are starting to get preserved, and are often well-scrubbed, with boutique shops replacing the older, traditional businesses.
How about a huge mega Walmart store with ten acre parking lot. And a little downtown with all the stores boarded up. [swg]
And a darn good thing!! I have American cars on my layout except for a Jag or two and a VW and Mercedes or two. Don’t need no Jap [censored] or Kato on MY RR!! Remember Pearl Harbor!![}:)]
Oh puh-leeze. I know I’m gonna get flamed on this, but it’s time to move beyond Pearl Harbor. News flash: The US won the war. Honor the past, but live in the present. In any case, it’s probably best to keep the negative epithets off the forum, IMHO.
Sounds like where I live.(literally)