Anyone seen one of these in a very long time?
I saw this on the Ebay and just had to bid and won! Its n and all plastic, not the brittle Styrofoam version, and 24" x29". Not so big to be cumbersome. I’m thinking either cover it with scenics or go full on plastic fantastic. Just something not-to-serious to muck around with. More pics as I get into it.
I remember a similar lay out, that was sort of a copy of John Allan’s G&D lines, it was twice around loop, over itself, for HO. It’s looked to be made from Styrofoam. Complete with finished scenery, just add tracks and trains and away you went! I saw this layout at Gagers at the Southdale Mall back in the very early 1960s.
There were several similar products onthe amrket in the 70’s and 80’s, Tyco had a couple in HO - one was the whole package, the other was an add on to the basic train set. And I remember ads in old issues of MR for a pre-formed N scale base. Molded plastic or foam, undecorated, so you had to supply the scenery materials, but the landforms were all there.
–Randy
I remember that over/under layout, it was BIG! at 4’x4’ for a store bought item. It came in 2 halves and IIRC the foam tended to get scrapped up pretty quickly. I think they did a N scale one also. But these are now rare indeed, I think most got chucked into the bin when the kids lost interest.
This set still has the original tracks, two trees and the original station though its a garish orange thing. I am torn between scenicing the begezuz out of it covering all the exposed plastic but then that would make it extremely generic. I am probably going to leave it as is only add more buildings/trees/bushes but keep the original plastic finishes, that will make it more unique. But I may replace the track with Kato or Tomix or some other type of roadbed track. I’m very curious to try adding a siding instead of the crossing point. We’ll see.
If you are good at scenery, I say go full on scenery and take pics of before and after to show what can be done with even plastic to start.
I’ve thought of that but then I would be denying the intrinsic cheesyness that was what drew me to it. If I sceniced the jujubees out of it, what would make it any different than if I had just put track down on plywood and built that out? That’s something anyone can do. But here I am confronted with the proverbial “pigs ear” but its the very pigginess that makes it special, unique…know what I mean?
My first layout was the HO, Tyco version of the square chunk of Styrofoam with a circle of track. It even came with a tube of glue to attach the included lichen and trees. Ah the memories. 
Luke. You know what you must do.
May the farce be with you!
Ed
Yes Yoda, I know…
Looks like I may be stuck with the stock track. I checked last night and the channel in the plastic for the track is only about 1/8" wider than the track on each side. That means most preballasted track bases will be too wide. I could use Fleischmanns easily but the geometry is wrong (too wide). I think I can use Tomix track, its just a few mm’s off R, I have some straights I’ll check the width this weekend. But Bachmann, Kato and the rest may be too wide to use. Its basic 9-3/4" R which also complicates it as some mfr’s don’t make the preballasted stuff under 11"R.
I would guess that the track is the old Bachmann sectional track. Looks a lot could be done to make it into a Christmas train set.
Add one of the small live, in a pot trees in the center, then do winter scene stuff around it. Unless you are down under, then wilted plants and buildings with swamp coolers are needed. As well as people in shorts, T’s, and wide brim hats. [swg]
The existing track is LifeLike, its original to the set.