When I was in the designing phase of the town on my layout, I realized there would be a large vacant triangle area out in front of the school between what I call School Street and Main Street, so I decided to put in a baseball field with kids playing ball. I’ve had several people comment on this saying how it added a touch of realism - especially when the layout is set up for the 1940s and 50s back when kids played ball a lot more than they do today. It also gives a clue to the fact that it’s not a school day…
I’m planning to put a Motorsport Racetrack on my new layout being planned. With either F1 cars, or go karts on it. Just depends on what i find first in HO scale…
Forget that foreign F1 stuff!! I just picked up a few NASCAR’s at the local Wallymart! They have pretty good detail - curtain on drivers window, roll bar, full decals, etc. I doubt if I will ever have space or inclination to make a race track, but they can be used elsewhere. The Home Depot I work in has had #20 as well as the DeWalt car in the parking lot for promo’s. My grandson likes blue, so I even got a #48 Lowes car!
WS & Preiser also make golf figures, which could be used on an otherwise un-scenicked area of the area - just add grass & a few figures.
If you add a snow scene, or a tall mountain, ski figures or ice skaters on a frozen pond. Of course the baseball figs are great too!![:D]
Yeah, it really was more fun to go out and play baseball before the grown-ups got involved and ruined it all, huh? Colin, your field, with all the kids in street clothes instead of uniforms, shows the “citizen athelete” as his best. (Sorry, ladies, back then the girls didn’t play baseball.)
I’ve got a few guys (Preisers, I think) riding racing bikes through the streets of Moose Bay. Only one is on the layout right now, because I just don’t have that many streets yet.
My son has been asking for a football scene, but I haven’t been able to find any football figures. If anyone knows where I might find some (either HO or O), please let me know.
I saw a set of Woodland Scenic football players yesterday in my LHS. If I remember right, they were in red and blue uniforms. I didn’t look closely but it seems to me they were in late 1940s or early 1950s attire. I don’t recall the players having facemasks although I could be wrong about that.
The problem with modeling any sporting event is that the fields are space hogs. I don’t know how anyone could model even a small racetrack and have it look believeable. I have plans for a Little League baseball field when I build my branchline but even that will eat a lot of space. It’s going to require one quarter of a circle with a 32" radius. It will fit inside an end of table curve of the branchline. I also intend to have a baseball stadium as part of the backdrop of my urban area. It will appear to be several blocks away and be visibile between and above the other backdrop structures. I just haven’t found the right picture yet. The above picture of kids playing a pick-up baseball game is a good way to do it since these could and were played on vacant lots.
I built a little league ball diamond with game in progress on my previous layout which I am moving to my new layout. Here are some pics of it on the old layout (remember, I’m a modeler, not a photographer).
I would like to have some “tough guys” pressing weights in back of some of the slightly run down stores on my next layout plan. Anyone know of any H0 models? Possibly (If I can’t find that) I’l seetle for street types shooting a hoop tacked on a wall or a half-dead tree.
If I had the cash I’d like to be able to put in a crowd headed to/from a game… football? Basketball? Ice hockey?
I work a location that was two parallel twin track mainlines with a space between. The tracks next to a parallel faiway have been lifted.
What i would like to know is just how we end up with golf balls on the live track??? I picked up three on my last visit without even looking for them [%-)]
They have professional hockey teams in Southern California and in Florida. I was flying from Alabama to Georgia, and I was kind of surprised that the locals next to me on the plane had kids in the youth hockey program there. It’s pretty popular among the kids.
I’ve got a few figure skaters my wife gave me a long time ago, but I don’t have an ice rink or a pond on my layout. Also, all my trees are green, so it would look out of place. On the other hand, I have a lot of lift-offs on my layout for access to the trains below (subways) and after I’ve got all the scenery done, then I might start “doubling up” and creating alternate lift-offs. Maybe one of them will have a skating rink.
