destroying toy trains

That there was funny.  I loved it and very prototypical of Chicago!

OH...THE HUMANITY!  

 

ROTFL! That was FUNNY right there.

Some of the Plasticville stuff is considered to be collectable. I hope this doesn't give my wife any ideas.

Scott Smith

I couldn't stop laughing. I remember that song from the 80's That was perfect for this video. I have seen these type of videos before on youtube and although I'm shocked at people crashing some really expensive trains, But hey, it's their money not mine. I use to know a guy that could drop a whole paycheck in the casino and walk out with nothing.

Love it! 

Destroying things is all the rage on TV. Rather than building stuff on the Home and Garden channel, we see people "re-modeling" houses by bashing-in cabinets, walls, and floors with sledge hammers. The "building" part is just shown as a "after" shot.

People, young people especially, get bored very easily these days.

Fun!!!  It was so long ago that I don't know if they were Plasticville, but I did something about 50 years ago, only instead of fire, there were about 1,200 Black Cat firecrackers involved . . . .

Some of the demolition can often be done by the homeowner and saves some $$$ in the remodeling process, whereas the building is often done by the craftsmen.  To some degree, many of these shows are also about the folks whom homes are being remodeled.

 

Jim

I totally agree.  They have a somewhat similar event at the Cal Stewart meet in Southern California.  It is a demolition derby where they take two engines traveling at max speed towards each other and crash them together.  They generally use the cheaper postwar trains, but still I hate to see them destroyed.

 

Earl

Funny?  Meh...

 

Sign of "larger" issues?  Maybe yes, maybe no.  I remember burning up a few AMT and JoHan cars when I was in my teens and I didn't turn out a pyromaniac today.  Maybe they just built better kids back then.

 

Stupid?  Yeah.  People, kids especially, do stupid things, even before there was an internet.

 

The burning of Atlanta in "Gone With The Wind" it's not.

 

My overall opinion: So what...

 

Rusty

The video is date coded Jul 4 1985.  Instead of celebrating the Fourth with fireworks, looks like someone decided to do it with fire.

I am with Lee. Melting and blowing up Army men and blowing up model boats was part of my childhood. Modeling and filming a fire is an legitimate form of creative expression in m eyes.

Do you have any idea of how many people might question unresolved childhood issues in our hobby. 
Since I never had toy trains as a kid, maybe melting the Army men  caused my late found attraction to this hobby.
LOL

Does hiding the Army Men in the Pop Up Toaster count, when you parent decides to use the toaster unaware of them being in the slot not being used? (1959)

 

Little bits of plastic floating thru the air....

While I am turned off by "acres of Plasticville", as noted, some is collectible and I

have kitbashed some (common) severely, and would not burn it, but if overstocked

with it, would offer it for sale.  Me too with Lee, too, to blowing things up....paper and

balsa rubber band powered model planes sent off the garage roof, lit by a match, with

a firecracker in the cockpit....Lincoln log buildings set up in the ditch when they were

putting city water into the house...firecrackers...kapow...flying logs...and the Lone

Ranger was sent it to collar the bad guys..

It just makes you shudder to think how many old trains and other toys are rusting

and rotting in landfills, so destroying them....?  uh-uh..their youthful original owners,

including me, did enough of that....

Just before leaving for the service, I was told that I had to dismantle my HO gauge train setup in the basement as my parents had other plans for the space.  The layout was a "U" shaped layout of 4x12 connected to a 4x8 area.  On the larger portion, I had constucted a 3 foot high plaster mountain that took up most of the 4x12 area.

 

So, one Saturday I called my best friend and asked him to come right over as my parents had gone grocery shopping.  After removing all of the valuables, the demolition bagan.  We couldn't see simply bashing the mountain with a hammer so we poked a small hole in the top; lit the fuse of an M-80 and dropped her it.

 

The entire mountain lifted off of the trainboard about 6 inches, the top caved in and through the resulting large hole erupted a huge mushroom cloud that began to fill the ceiling above - visions of a nuclear attack...  IT WAS AWESOME!!!

 

As luck would have it; my parents had just pulled into the driveway when our excitement was at its pinnacle.  My father came running down the stairs asking if the furnace had blown up.  Needless to say, the word HE used to describe the incident was far from awesome...

 

Had I been any younger, I would have once again enjoyed dinner standing up.

 

Best,

Dave

 

BTW, it WAS awesome!!!   Where were you Cecil B. DeMille???

Nowhere near as bad as all the great classic and contemporary automobiles that have been destroyed for the sake of a good action movie.

Of course the whole video was low-brow dumb; I didn't finish it. If you are 13, maybe -

who hasn't "crashed and burned" a 3-in-1 car kit at that age? At that age.

----------------------

Speaking of cars: Flash is profoundly correct about all the irreplaceable autos

sacrificed for a shallow and meaningless flash-in-the-pan movie or TV show.

 

I've read that something like 200 68 - 70 Chargers wee sacrificed to you-know-what-show.

 

We save every log cabin in which George Washington might have sneezed or blown

his nose (do I care?), but the really important things, the industrial products that made us who we are, we, as a nation, barely respect.

 

RR guys do show some respect to some of the right things. 

 

Several folks have mentioned that some Plasticville is collectable. Of course I may be mistaken, but I thought that in order to be collectable, the Plasticville had to be 100 percent complete, no glue or paint, and in the original box, with the box in good shape. Is that not so?

Why destroy when you can create?

All the best,

Miketg

What some people are willing to do for entertainment. To me this was senseless.

Dave - that is a funny story.  Thanks for sharing.   I remember doing the same thing with some friends to a large beehive which was built in one of the bushes in my friends front yard.  Let's just say we ran for our lives once the bees came out of shock.    Luckily, none of us got stung.  Not a good move on our part but we all do some pretty dumb things in our youth.   If only our brains fully developed before the age of 25.

 

--Greg

Poorly filmed, poorly burned.....but to each his own!

When we were kids we blew up automotive dealer promos with firecrackers.....worth more today than any of those Plasticville buildings......so I can't say much.

It was a bad video camera.

 

BACHMANN now makes all the Plasticville. They have to spend more and charge more to make all the Plasticville buildings currently. Time for everybody to run to the hobby shop to buy up all the Plasticville to prevent this carnage from happening again.

 

 

Andrew

...yup, the cow did it over by the barn...the goat did it for the team.

...and all those beautiful Fury's for Christine...

When I was a kid in the late 60's we burned and blew up several models. In an effort to simulate a prototypical crash. I would only be upset or offended if it was My plasticville being burned. It's just kid stuff. But for the collector............ the more they burn the more your stuff will be worth.............

The op vidieo was disturbing, not fun. Police just caught a arsonist here that is responsible for about 30 fires over the last six or seven years.  

Perhaps he burnt little buildings as a child, who knos?

fred

SICK!

Just about everyone of us has burned or blown up or crashed or "disassembled" things as a youth. To read anything psychological into this video or the things we did is ludicrous. Was the burning of the buildings a waste? Yes! Is it a sign of deeper, darker issues? I'd bet my eyeballs it's not. Now if he were burning a cat or a box of mice, yeah he's got problems. 

 

Jerry

Or maybe the creator of this film became a master Hollywood pyro technician.

The crappy titles and the low res video and the song used (not to mention the date on the video) , show that this video is about 28 years old. Somebody burned down some cheap plasticville houses and we are just now worrying about it

 

Somehow I doubt this person grew up to be a Psycho Killer, perhaps he grew up to be Alan H.

I don't condone the activity but Burning Down the House and Psycho Killer were good tunes in their day, and not so bad even today. 

Frankly, this thread's on the Road to Nowhere.

 

Rusty

hello guys and gals..........

 

That's too bad because I NEEDED some small plastic buildings for my small 4 by 6 layout which I cannot afford to buy them new but would really be GLAD to accept used ones and put it in good use. I think its DUMB to set it on fire like that, I guess you cannot fix stupid.

 

the woman who loves the S.F.5011,2678

Tiffany

I am sure the guy who burned them had a Wild Wild Life

"I wish you wouldn't say that"......but, at least it's with a sense of "eyes wide open"

..ok, I'm stopping now..{flame on!}   

What a waste.  All that perfectly good Plasticville.....

I have made cracks about Plasticville, but had it on my kid layout, and

if I wanted to duplicate that 4 x 8 from out of the past, would have to chase some down.  No train shows in your area? People give away old MR and other model railroad magazines by setting them on their table and sticking a "FREE" note on them. I would do that if I was desperate to get rid of them.  There is a guy who sets up in a local show who deals in Plasticville.  Somebody must buy it.  Heck, there is the guy at that motel (Days Inn?) outdoor open show between the Billy Budd and and the "Holiday Inn"? at York who deals in it.  Isn't there a separate meeting at York for Plasticville collectors?  (my only complaint with it is that some people use way too much of it,

and it is deja' vu all over again everywhere you look on a layout, including one in

a museum not too far from here...well, and that it isn't really O scale)  Some months

ago there was a thread running on here about kitbashing Plasticville, and there were

some really creative and unrecognizable models shown on the forum.  So I have mixed

emotions about it, but would not trash or destroy it.