does anyone out there have an odd name or display for a business on their model railroad? i am thinking if creating a tavern on my ho scale leelanau county railway called the drunken monkey. the only thing is what size of a monkey would i use for outdoor sign out front. i know the big boy’s restaurant chain that has the big boy statues are probaly the height of a man. does any one know what size of a monkey i would see for business sign? nothing is definite yet about the tavern. i will wait and see
I am building Lumberjack Cookhouse which is across the road from this school…
Not an unusual name but a display-- old time 2-man saws, whipsaws and giant buzzsaws displayed as curiosities, historical pieces outside Hervil’s Saw Shop and Hardware…
A lot of it depends on the neighborhood in which the saloon is located. A neighborhood place on a side street or less-trafficked through street might only have a small beer sign with the establishment’s name on it. An establishment on a busier street may have a larger sign with a 6-10’ tall fiberglass inebriated ape between the parking lot and the sidewalk. If it’s located on an arterial street with lots of other businesses around it and the proprietor has deep pockets, it may have a large animated neon sign.
I think rather than a monkey statue they’d probably go for an animated neon sign of a smiling monkey tipping a beer stein up to it’s mouth and back.[;)]
BTW Bob’s BigBoy statues were usually quite a bit bigger than lifesize - in fact, wasn’t one used as a spaceship in one of the Austin Powers movies??
You could use a G scale monkey. Jason
If you could animate the G-monkey to spin around a couple times a minute, that would be neat - especially if you put him a leaning over a little so he’d seem a little off-kilter from the beer.
does anyone know where i could find scaled model of monkey if i wanted to have a drunken monkey tavern on my railroad? would G scale be just the right size?
I’m going to disagree with my wife here and say that size doesn’t matter. You are likely going to want to go for an overall “look”. The actual size of a display figure is pretty random in the real work because they are typically custom made. I would look in a toy store for bags of rubber animals. You’re going to find monkeys, elephants, etc. in there. Take a look at the monkey in the pack (better if they sell them individually) and make a subjective determination if it “works” on your layout.’
You are probably going to want to repaint it. I’d avoid the porcelain and glass stuff as it is too expensive and difficult to repaint.
My [2c]
Getting off the monkey business and back to the original question -
Bella DiBoll Cosmetics, a giant (five carlengths long, three stories high) building flat on a club layout I visited. It was right on the edge of the layout (aisle edge) but clearly visible across the generously wide radius curve that carried the double tracked main line through town. (It was actually the back of the town control panel.)
Ardhover Controls (misspelling deliberate) in honor of a former Johnson Controls employee.
S.S. Ronald McDonald, another ‘edge of the aisleway’ (non) industry. Actually, the McDonald was only one of several imaginary ships that docked at the quay served by a track running along the aisle edge of the benchwork. It served as a point of origin for incoming cargo and a destination for outbound shipments. Cars had to be held in the adjacent yard for the arrival of the ‘right’ ship.
My personal modeling has a few beauts, but they’re in jokes understood by my family and opaque to anyone else. (They also require a working knowledge of Japanese.)
Chuck
The bar is Moe’s. The lawyers are Dewey, Cheatham and Howe, in addition to Dave Kelly from the forums. I’ve got the R. Crumb Trucking Company (after the 70’s cartoonist) and I’m working on Motley Fuels. Once I get the old mill built, it will have a small “Digital” sign outside, in honor of the original corporate headquarters in Maynard, MA.
Oh, and the best restaurant in town (yeah, the only restaurant in town) is the House of Haggis.
Finished composing computer graphics file for signs this weekend for some of the businesses on my layout, and had them printed out.
“Lumberjack Cookhouse” with signs every block or so on way…
“Creotex” wood preservation. " Wood made Texas Tough!"
“Dixie Darlin” peanut butter plant- almost two-story-tall sign on roof of plant with Dixie Darlin girl…
The Paddock Bar in east Toledo Ohio on Oak street had a life size horse on it as an advertising devise. I suppose a scale life size monkey would be to small. If you are happy it can’t be wrong.
Paul
Dayton and Mad River RR
I just kit bashed a Walthers passenger station into a restaurant named Chew Chew Mamma’s. Nothing spectacular about sigange though. Maybe stylized letters across the roof top in the form of a train?
I have a building (a generic DPM storefront) which I call Mario Bros. Plumbing- a reference to the Nintendo mascot.
Also, Once I get an airbrush (need a new car first), I’m painting up an N scale F40PH and two superliners to look like the “Brown Streak” from the game San Andreas. For me, it’s not as much scatalogical humor as it is paying an homage to one of my favorite games.
Dave
A couple roadside icons -
Superdawg in Chicago
Paul Bunyans - Wisconsin Dells
Another odd name, though off layout. I bought a Texas Mexican boxcar because the TM runs in Corpus Christi where I live, I have had fun riding their passenger train in late 1980s. My new layout is based on Galveston, some 200+ miles up the Texas coast from Corpus Christi and the Tex Mex. What commodity could originate in the Corpus Christi area to be transported by boxcar to the Galveston area?
The area from Corpus Christi to Laredo (route of the TexMex) was the Wild Horse Desert. I am thinking of a ficticious “Wild Horse Desert Chili” brand that is so popular and special ! it would be shipped to other cities even though they have their own generally sim,ilar local products.
I used to live in Oskaloosa Iowa and worked at a window factory in a town about 15 miles from me. I really disliked that company, so on my layout a naturally had to have a window factory, which I named Schtuck Window. This was a way of showing my feelings for that company. I also have a beauty shop that I call Popazits Beauty & Figure.
I think I am going to name a newspaper plant for the “Weekly Double Standard”… course receiving boxcars of paper every so often. I think naming places and businesses is one of the interesting parts of building a layout.
I call my Warehouse “VollKasten’s” German for Full Box. It may not be a precise translation but close enough using a online translator.
Next to the BNSF mainline in Cottage Grove MN is a store called “G.WILL LIQUORS”. [:o)]