The holiday layout at the Brandywine River Museum has one. I checked all their videos to see if they featured it but couldn't find a clear detail view of it. It can be done, though!
I bought a few different "Drive-In intermission" ads DVDs on eBay. I recorded the best of them between showings of the "Our Gang" movie "Railroadin". Perhaps some of you saw this when our modular group was set up at York about 5 years ago. You want to get a short "train movie" that has a lot of action. Remember, the person doing the viewing will not be standing there more than a few minutes.
Originally Posted by John23:
Originally Posted by dkdkrd:
I always thought it was a dandy way to make use of the over-abundance of diecast convertible models of autos. The only thing lacking was a variety of PG-13 to R-rated (or ?-rated 
) couples 'enjoying' the movie (
) in the convertibles. I mean, Dennis (Arttista) could create a whole new series for this concept!.....eh??
KD
Arttista does have a couple engaged in behavior that is not approved by their parents.
I put a full interior in some passenger cars some years ago and in one sleeper car put some folks engaged in activities that would make them parents.
On my layout, I also have a couple engaged in "woodsies" who are about to be interrupted by a bear wandering by . . .
And I certainly, positively, would not make a drive in movie theater without at least one or two couples engaged in heavy PG or R rated behavior - I mean, that's drive in movies they were for, right? As to the figures, one has to get creative with the figures you have, bending and adjusting, filing and re-painting, etc.
There's a very large Lionel layout in Edgerton Park, in Rochester, NY. (Years ago the postwar trains were donated by Lionel & it's been open for many decades.) A small TV is built into the side of a hill with autos parked facing it. I saw the layout many years ago & I assume it still exists. (The layout featured 4 segments representing the seasons, with trains running between the sections.)
the Lower Susquehanna Valley Modular RR has a drive for one of the corner modules. Its a simple portable dvd player. the base is covered by a u-shaped scenery build up and then topped with a thin board that has grass and weeds on it. We usually play something black and white or polar express.
One of the members of the Pittsburgh Independent Hi-Railers has a drive-in module. He uses a laptop and a wireless mouse. The laptop is buried in the module with an insert to cover the keyboard. Works very well. Below is a shot from our setup at Kennywood. You can't see it in the picture, but one of the funny little details he added are feet sticking out from the trunks of cars going into the drive-in to represent people sneaking in. It is a great way to use the feet he amputated from figures he put in the cars and in passenger cars.
Andy
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There is a perfect kit available in HO....soon in "O" scale...for your layout! From Blair line LLC.
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I helped my friend Andy (a fellow member of the Southern Adirondack Railway Cartel) acquire some of the bits he needed for a drive-in theater on his 027 version of the FJ&G (which already has working versions of Fonda Speedway and Royal Mountain Ski Area).
Used a RCA/GE under cabinet mount 5" TV (which i was ready to put in my next yard sale) with a Radio Shack antenna wire to cable adapter attached to an old DVD player (mounted under the table). TV was backed against a mountain so only the screen showed. Found some O scale parking meters which with careful filing became speakers to hang on the car windows, and added some Arttista couples in the backseats of more than one car. If Andy will send me a pic i'll post it here later.
jackson
my layout is a temp layout sitting on the carpet (with Homasote as a base). SO my drivein solution couldn't be as elegant as some. I made a false, removable base to look like a stage of sorts to hide the guts of the personal DVD player.
- walt
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Originally Posted by Dick Kuehnemund:
There's a very large Lionel layout in Edgerton Park, in Rochester, NY. (Years ago the postwar trains were donated by Lionel & it's been open for many decades.) A small TV is built into the side of a hill with autos parked facing it. I saw the layout many years ago & I assume it still exists. (The layout featured 4 segments representing the seasons, with trains running between the sections.)
Originally Posted by ADCX Rob:
Originally Posted by dkdkrd:
Second thought...re B/W TV scene recalled... I believe that was in the infamous, ubiquitous Bantam book "Model Railroading" from the 50's showing pictures of the Rochester Police Boy's Club layouts (sic)....you know, the four seasons layouts, one of which had an ol' B/W boob-tube TV buried in the side of a mountain with an array of autos before it....voila!..a drive-in theatah!
Famous, and still there:
Originally Posted by ADCX Rob:
The Rochester P.A.L. Fall Layout(as featured in the Bantam books) has had a working drive-in since the 1950's.
The Rochester P.A.L. Fall Layout(as featured in the Bantam books) has had a working drive-in since the 1950's and it's still HERE(and here: Rochester P.A.L. Fall Layout)
The Edgerton club has modernized the P.A.L. layout drive-in though, it has a flat screen instead of the old B&W tv buried in the mountain. I get over there once or twice a year.
Originally Posted by Lee Willis:
Within the last three of four years someone posted pictures/video here of theirs. It was compressed - only a few rows for cars, but nice looking. You could have a lot of fun with a drive in, beyond the screen and movie you could show. I gotta think about this, almost too much fun not to do one . . .
Sounds like a crime scene waiting to happen on your layout. 
Joe Hohmann's is pretty cool and he did his over5-6 years ago.
This is a cool thread. I definitely have to do one - a modular removable pallette one, yes, but I will keep it on display somehow even when not on the layout. A drive in is such a great idea: part of the '50s culture and (at least my) growing up, presenting so many opportunities for humor, modeling fun, and display of a lot of diecast cars.
A number of years ago, Lionel made a flat car with a small picture frame on it.
The frame and mounting could be removed from the car and mounted like a
drive in. The frame would show slides from a memory card. The manual had
something about video clips which I could not get to work.
That manual was the worst manual Lionel every made with so many errors
and features that were not there.
The screen looked very good and was a nice size if it worked.
I have seen several drive-in theaters in the HO, N, and even Z scales at various train shows and I think they work better in those smaller scales. They probably look more believable being able to spread out cars, etc.
Originally Posted by Lee Willis:
Originally Posted by John23:
Originally Posted by dkdkrd:
I always thought it was a dandy way to make use of the over-abundance of diecast convertible models of autos. The only thing lacking was a variety of PG-13 to R-rated (or ?-rated ) couples 'enjoying' the movie () in the convertibles. I mean, Dennis (Arttista) could create a whole new series for this concept!.....eh??
KD
Arttista does have a couple engaged in behavior that is not approved by their parents.
I put a full interior in some passenger cars some years ago and in one sleeper car put some folks engaged in activities that would make them parents.
On my layout, I also have a couple engaged in "woodsies" who are about to be interrupted by a bear wandering by . . .
And I certainly, positively, would not make a drive in movie theater without at least one or two couples engaged in heavy PG or R rated behavior - I mean, that's drive in movies they were for, right? As to the figures, one has to get creative with the figures you have, bending and adjusting, filing and re-painting, etc.
Lee, have you seen the Arttista couple? They are made for a convertible or back seat. A heavy PG-13.
This is one I built , the white frame was done to be able to have it stand on the legs like the real ones . This is a screen from a company that has just the screen and then they make it up with a video in and out plug , so you can feed it to a cheap $30 dvd player .I think I paid $150.00 for it I bought 3 at the time , still have one left and will get a picture of it .Even comes with a mini remote to adjust everything on the screen to fine tune the picture quality.
