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.
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.
I had a politicianus pompus on my layout and it was so terrifying that it had everyone clutching their wallet!
I have a couple of Brontosauruses on my layout. I like building to scale but also like to have fun with my layout.
I can be a Grumpasaurus when my trains don’t run right.[swg]
(note-Grumpasaurus was actually in the spell check dictionary…)
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
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.
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![:P])
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?
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)
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.
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
Dinosaurs are so pre-historic…
We get visited on occasion by alien robots!
Lee
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.
Dallas. It’s on one of the DPB videos.
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.
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!
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 [:P]
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?
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?