Detail items that don’t really fit in on our layouts.

OK, I know just what you are talking about. However, I have committed the same sort of self-indulgence (I have absolutely no contrition whatsoever for it, though) on a far larger scale than you.

First, there is the trolley in this neighborhood.... It has no business being there; even I know that much. Why? Because my experience with real-life trolleys has them servicing long distances among the numerous small towns around Pittsburgh, when I was a boy. None of them simply traveled zip-a-dee-do-dah around one little neighborhood.

Yet, I had no intention of having the track for a trolley reach farther into the layout because doing so would have, at one particular point, had six RR tracks parallel and the trolley rack running right up the middle of them, leaving no room for a roadway I wanted there. So, here is the li'l bugger making its very, very modest route around and within a modestly sized suburban neighborhood, as if it were "needed"  to take pedestrians the distance any normal miniature person could easily have walked.

However, my maternal grandfather was a motorman, in McKeesport, PA, on just such a trolley as seen here,

and since I loved him greatly, there was no way he was not going to have his trolley on a layout built for play and sentimental self-indulgence, anyolways (!)

So, that's one of my sentimental self-indulgences in Moon Township, USA.

I've tried for realism, all along, but always kept myself reminded I was at-play, with the whole shebang.

Thanks for asking. To me, this was a good topic to post, Juanita Guy.

FrankM

I'm more concerned with your traffic and parking problems. There is some serious automobilage around those houses.

What you need are more streetcars, not fewer, to reduce that neighborhood's carbon footprint by getting more people off the road.

Having worked in public transit for more that twenty years, I would say not just more streetcars but multi-section articulators.

I could be here all day. It's part of my style.

But I'll stick to the most obnoxious of the absurdity

"Cars". I  had to have an A-100 van.  A bit small and it moaned a bit when I poked it's eyes out . I should get rid of the red mouth and make it look wrecked someday 

To make up for it being so small, it's partner is 1:24

Almost too fat to do his job without  getting hit.

You might consider this race odd.

Santa and Rudolf cruzin the VW meet 

The Mistfit choo choo gets honorary inclusion, despite being the a huge tie in.

I badly want the Winter Wizard with his first choo choo  

It's a "hippie rock" son. It's not safe to play there! Understand young man?

Water tower buffalo

The king father of Kimba the white lion seems odd but part or a flashback scene of neglectful human progress killing him off as he tried to stop the encroachment.

  Baby Godzilla playing with his first train ..... I claim it's a roof top popart sign for the train store next to the factory I'm tempted to hardwire power and remote button as his eyes glow red and he does a decent imitation of his daddy's screeching roar.

Moonson,

I like your neighborhood.  I see quite a few scratch built homes on nicely wooded landscaped yards. Great scene.

Earl   

I guess mine would be this Lionel 494 beacon. I always wanted one but didn’t want to pay the money for one till one day I did it and bought this one I think it doesn’t fit but I will always keep it here on the layout

Lee:

When I was a kid; I had one of the Lionel beacons that didn’t have a motor.  In theory heat from the bulb was supposed to cause the beacon to rotate but, it never really worked properly. Consequently, when I built my “adult layout”, one of my must haves was a rotating beacon that actually rotated.

Some of the guys in my club have kidded me about having this out of place beacon on my layout.  I tell them it’s there to identify the imaginary airport that lies just off my layout.  😉

 Curt

juniata guy posted:

Lee:

When I was a kid; I had one of the Lionel beacons that didn’t have a motor.  In theory heat from the bulb was supposed to cause the beacon to rotate but, it never really worked properly. Consequently, when I built my “adult layout”, one of my must haves was a rotating beacon that actually rotated.

Some of the guys in my club have kidded me about having this out of place beacon on my layout.  I tell them it’s there to identify the imaginary airport that lies just off my layout.  😉

 Curt

 

Curt

thats a great story I might put a small airport beside it but I doubt it. I leave it there because I think about what it would be like living in the 50-60s and having one on your layout  also I keep there because it’s so neat and the nostalgia reasons. Thanks for the post I enjoy it. 

When my wife was growing up this donkey proudly sat atop of the Plasticville Bank every Christmas. Now it sits above Starbucks year round.

This White truck carry-all better fits Glacier or Yellowstone National Park. 

Very nice Mike. I really like this part of you layout and that 630 Diamond T with the load of trees 

Maybe its only in the world of the crappy basement layout people, but I know there are Minions out there.....  

Great topic. I think I have quite a few things on my layout that look out of place, but are there because I like them for sentimental or other reasons.

This tree house in winter is an example, which is located next to a Department 56 Diner in winter, and my Yankee Stadium with players on the field. I guess they are playing winter ball. LOL

Several of the classic Lionel accessories tend not to fit realistically into a layout.

Doesn't the Operating Dispatch Board belong inside, not outside, the passenger station?

And anyone like me who loves the postwar accessories has got to have the beloved Animated Newstand on the layout, even though it is way too big to fit properly on the layout.

Arnold:

No one would ever accuse me of having a scale layout but; I have tried to keep most things ”believeable”.  Like you though; I have included operating accessories I like such as the saw mill, icing platform, barrel loader platform, forklift platform and milk car.  

When my boys were little, these accessories provided them with hours of amusement.  Now that my sons are grown up; they provide me with hours of amusement.  😉

Curt

If I had an Minions the correct size they would be on my layout, trains, etc. Unfortunately I have only one giant Minion that would look like King Kong amongst my trains. A friend gave me that one when I was once complaining that I didn't have any Minions!

I like this kind of stuff! Makes it all a lot more fun. I know little about the prototypes anyway so it doesn't matter to me.

You are looking at it backwards:

The trick is not to keep inappropriate stuff off of your layout, but rather to design the layout to make the stuff you like look as good as possible. This is actually my favorite part of layout design. I have many, many Lionel postwar accessories, including the outlandish ones. I work hard to try to make them look good. A few examples:

Help I'm a Rock!   Lord-- Frank Zappa.....

 I got that album from a girl entering the local convent to become a nun  

A bit "freaky" but lead to being a long time fan. I'd go see him Thanksgiving Eve in the 80s for his last second, basically unannounced shows in Detroit. He once peeled potatoes for 40minutes till the free corporate seats cleared out with boo's then saying "I just wanted to know who my friends are" pulled off one of the best solo sets I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot. Just found near a hundred ticket stubs just the other day.  AC/DC, Bauhaus, Çlutch, Detroit Symphony to Waylon, X, Young, and Zappa.

Well, I lived in the sticks-- so no Zappa concerts for me, but me and one other buddy had a lot of his music in high school. Zappa got a "little" raunchy at times, but was a musical genius.. 

Avanti posted:

You are looking at it backwards:

The trick is not to keep inappropriate stuff off of your layout, but rather to design the layout to make the stuff you like look as good as possible. This is actually my favorite part of layout design. I have many, many Lionel postwar accessories, including the outlandish ones. I work hard to try to make them look good. A few examples:

Great job, Pete, blending classic Postwar accessories into your layout to make them look as realistic as possible. Arnold

How 'bout tubular 0 track? Seems outa place,(compared to all the new ballisted stuff) kept there for sentimental reasons. 

Someday I hope to have my layout look as good as Pete's

Long story short. Decades ago, being horse owners and showing them. We met Christopher Reeves, (Superman) before his accident. We correspondent and kept in touch. Now we honor and remember him and his friendship and courage, by having him watch over the town

OK. Here's my second misfits, included on the layout purly for nostalgic reasons. They remind me of the steel mills of my youth, in and around my hometown in Pennsylvania, back in the 40's and 50's. To include them on the layout, they got heavily weathered and used, here pretending to be taken to the junkyard for scrapping. Of course, in real-life, such RR-cars would not have been found out among the community, especially not with hot loads, outside the mills' precincts, but here they are as a train consist passing thru a service facility, just to be seen....FrankM, Moon Township, USA

One of the most watched video on my YouTube channel is this one: (17 seconds, total)

https://youtu.be/HPIBMfctrLo

The Gateman is older than I am...and I'm 70.  I remember this accessory on the layout  when I was a kid and also the 97 Coal elevator. Both on my layout...to stay.  

Here are a few of mine.  The Beatles For Sale bus is way too small, but, it's the Beatles.  The yellow VW is way too big, but, I like it.

The Bald Eagle is too big, but, for obvious reasons....

The coal loader is an original accessory we've had for over 60 years.  It's in a corner of the overhead layout, next to my first scratch-built passenger platform from 30 years ago.  I jazzed it up, experimenting with those LED lights, and using only battery power.  Everything up there is just thrown together.  I don't care.

Great idea for a thread, Curt.

Jerry