Every layout that I have seen has some special or humorous scene to the owner. On my DeWitt & South Texas RR, the annual Turkeyfest parade is taking place, and naturally, the high school marching band is leading the way.
What special or humorous scenes do you have on your layout?
The best are yet to come. The track worker drinking a beer while the others work fits. Hobo cave is a stretch. John Allen had some great ones. I will never be as good but I am inspired.
Redneck, I’d love to see the parade. Any chance you could post a photo?
And I’m gonna count those trombones and make sure there’s 76 of them.
I also collect murder mysteries. The first special scene on my layout will be an african american sitting alone at the train station, a small town local police oficer will have just entered the station behind him. The first time we see Virgal Tibbs in “In The Heat of The Night”.
The scene where the police have cordoned off Lew(?) Archers murder scene from “The Maltese Falcon” could be transplanted to Cincinnati. The most obvious scene froma mystery to put on a layout would require a winter European setting, “Murder on the Orent Express”
Forgive my spelling, I am borrowing a computer and don’t have the spell checker.
Beasley, unfortunately even though I m part of the younger generation, I am highly Technologically challenged. And unfortunately, the band isn’t that big, in fact the 76 trombones you metion would be the whole band and then some. Besides everyone knows that trumpets are the best of the band.
G’day, Y’all,
Railroad Redneck, the 76 trombones refers to a song by that name in the play, The Music Man, by Meredith Wilson. A play is sort of like a movie but is live and has actors acting then bursting into song and dance occasionally. The song starts out, "Seventy six trombones in the big parade, a 110 cornets right behind.
Incidentally, one of the first scenes takes place inside a railroad passenger car where traveling salesmen, who were known as drummers, complain about a fellow salesman named Harold Hill, who doesn’t know the territory and sells boys bands. The words are chanted so that they sound like the steam chuff of a locomotive as it accelerates away from the station. I saw Bert Parks play Prof. Harold Hill in 1963 when he was playing summer stock in Atlanta. He was about twice as oily as Robert Preston who played Hill on Broadway and in the film.
Jock Ellis
Cumming, GA US of A
I have a 1950s small town movie theater. A couple of pre-teens are waiting in front for mom to pick them up and take them home. A blonde in a tight dress, apparently trying to be the local equivalent of Marilyn Monroe, has walked out of a jewelry store next to the theater and is strutting down the sidewalk, and the kids are staring at her.
Nearby at the gas station, a convertible with three young ladies and their older maiden aunt as a chaperone has pulled in. They are asking directions and both the gas attendant and the mechanic want to talk with the ladies and help them. But the gas station owner is coming out to tell them to get back to work. HE will take care of the ladies in the convertible.
I also have a barn that has a Lionel train layout in the loft, with members of two visiting model railroad clubs in club vests watching the trains.
Hey RR Redneck, where did you get several hundred scale turkeys for your Turkeyfest parade? I once used HO scale pigeons to kitbash into N scale chickens under the porch of a hillbilly cabin.
( http://www.railimages.com/albums/kennethanthony/acp.jpg )
But turlkeys???
Very funny! Acually, it’s not a made up event. There really is a town in DeWitt County, Tx. named Cuero that really has an annual event called TurkeyFest.
And I just bought some old HO band figures (don’t ask what brand, I’ve no clue, they were second hand) and hand painted them to look like the Cuero High
School Band uniforms. By the way, actual turkeys no longer march down the parade route, that tradition ended way before I was even thought of.
Up here in New England, we still have turkeys marching in all of our parades. Most of them are also called “State Representatives.” [(-D]
Down south we prefer to call our politicans what they are, snakes.