We just got some new TV channels added by the cable company. One of them was the Sci-Fi channel. I’ve been a fan of the genre since I was a kid (at least the good stuff).
So this morning I put it on to see what’s on there and I catch the beginning of an episode of the old series, The Twilight Zone. I used to watch this as a kid in the 1960’s and it was a very good program. So I started watching and there is this man and woman who wake up in a room in a house and don’t know where they are or how they got there. All they can recall is that they were out partying the night before and had too much to drink.
During the course of the program they discover that they seem to be the only people in the town and that everything looks real but is really fake. They thought they came across a tame squirrel sitting on a low tree branch but when the lady tried petting it, it fell to the ground and it turned out it was stuffed. The man mentioned the place was creepy because there wasn’t even the sound of anything to hear, including birds outside. At one point he leaned against a tree and it fell over. Then he lit a cigarette and tossed the match onto the grass. The grass immediately caught on fire and he stomped it out. It looked odd where the grass had burned so the man bent over to check it out and said to the woman it looked like papier mache. Then he said, where the heck are we. My reply was, “You’re on my layout!”
Finally they heard a train whistle and said good, we’ll get on the train and leave this weird place. So they found the train and hopped on one of the passenger cars. Again, they were the only people but they were just glad to finally be able to get out of there. The train started pulling out of the station and you could see the name of the town on the side of the depot - Centerville. They talked a little bit and then they could feel the train slowing down, so they looked out the window to see where they were pulling in
Slightly off-topic but vaguely related,
My dad did a couple of “modified” black and white photos of himself “posed” in some of his OO scale GWR rolling stock back in the '70s - no digital editing then so it involved overlaying negatives in a photo enlarger. Looked very convincing, and I intend to have a go at doing something similar myself, as soon as I can get the darkroom set up again!
I guess the major problem with ending up in HO scale would be that our locos don’t have working cab controls, so driving them wouldn’t be an option. On the plus side, food would become considerably cheaper (think how long a loaf of 1:1 bread would last a HO scale person!)
Remember the scene in “The Day the Earth Stood Still” The little boy was playing with his Lionel trains and the space alien (Micheal Renne ?) says something like “Someday Jimmy I will tell you about trains that run without tracks.”
Gort!
Dave Nelson
Thanks for sharing this with us! Someone had mentioned this episode before in the Classic Toy Trains forums. Out of curiousity, what kind of a train was running on the layout in the show?
Also, I found this picture showing the layout from The Day The Earth Stood Still on the net. I haven’t actually seen the film myself, though.
That looks EXACTLY like the MARX train set I had as a kid, same oval, same switch, same station, even the caboose looks the same. It came as a complete set.
The Day The Earth Stood Still is a pretty good, old time sci-fi flick. I believe it came out in 1953.
Where are you getting these screen capture/movie stills from?
I’ve been wanting to get one from the first Addams Family movie where Gomez is running the trains. He has both hands on the throttle, I believe a cigar in his mouth, and an almost maniacal look on his face. I poked around online once but couldn’t come close.
I got the picture from http://www.toytrainrevue.com/hollywd.htm where there is a list of movies that have Lionel trains featured in them. There are a few other pictures and The Addams Family is mentioned, but unfortunately there is no picture of Gomez. However, in an issue of Classic Toy Trains there is a very good picture showing Gomez with his hands on a ZW tranformer with a cigar in his mouth and the look you describe. I would be happy to scan it and e-mail it to you if you like. You can e-mail me at hsmbiley@sasktel.net .
