Pittsburgh Independent Hi-Railers at Kennywood Holiday Lights 2023

Hey!  The Pirate Parrot visited!  👍🏻 🏴‍☠️

Construction looks great!

Here are some pix from this weekend.  Saturday, the weather was rather warm, so the crowd was huge.

During this event, we are constantly adding new details for our repeat visitors to find.  Here are some of them -- bonus points for those who get the reference in the third shot (desert scene).

Here are some shot of this years' versions of some of our most popular scenes.  "Santa tangled in the Windmill" seems to be the all-time favorite every year.

And a few more shots from around the layout.

And a few shots from out in the park.

Andy

@Andy Hummell posted:

During this event, we are constantly adding new details for our repeat visitors to find.  Here are some of them -- bonus points for those who get the reference in the third shot (desert scene).

Andy

With all that work, the bunch of you are mad, Andy… mad, mad, mad!!!!!
P.S. great scene from a great movie!!

Kudos for the "Mad Mad Mad Mad World" reference!

John

Here is this week's batch of photos:

Thelma and Louise have been spotted on the layout...

We don't think that the Union Railroad ever pulled a Circus Train, but the colors do match...

We have a number of darkly humorous scenes.  Kids love this scene with the alligators.

Andy

@Andy Hummell posted:

Here is this week's batch of photos:

We don't think that the Union Railroad ever pulled a Circus Train, but the colors do match...

Andy

I see the Batmobile is towing the "Bat Boat"?

@Andy Hummell posted:

nothing like looking into your rear view mirror and wondering if your car will be run over or 'forced into the wall'

as always Andy, the club has outdone itself again.

walt

Any Clark Bar or Alcoa signs?

@MartyE posted:

I see the Batmobile is towing the "Bat Boat"?

Correct.  You can see the tail end of the "Bat Boat" in the Mobilgas station photo.  Maybe he is racing to save some people from alligators with his "Bat-Alligator-Repellent"? 

Andy

@texgeekboy posted:

Any Clark Bar or Alcoa signs?

Some of us have these signs, but not on this layout.

Andy

As to the URR orange and red pulling the circus train; the look like they were made for it!!  Excellent scenes!!

Here is the latest batch of photos, and a little more trivia.  We kept track of our hours during setup and this year setup took 437.25 man-hours over 12 days.

New arrivals, just in time for Christmas.

Merry Christmas everyone! 

Andy

Andy, Merry Christmas to you and everyone in your club. I hope all of you have a great Christmas.

@Andy Hummell, simply magnificent; astonishing; mind-blowing!!!

What an undertaking: 400++ hours to install. Not to mention the labor of loading, unloading, assembly, testing, etc.

How many members did the installation?

Thanks for the many photos, descriptions, and stats.

So many great scenes!

Hopefully, next year I can make the trip to the Allegheny West home tour - fingers crossed that the DeSantis collection will be open again - and visit the Kennywood display.

@Andy Hummell I love the great variety and uniqueness of the loads that your club has created!

walt

Gabe had a great time there on Sunday. He kept diving in when the rain hit 🙂

@Andy Hummell posted:

Here is the latest batch of photos, and a little more trivia.  We kept track of our hours during setup and this year setup took 437.25 man-hours over 12 days.

New arrivals, just in time for Christmas.

Merry Christmas everyone! 

Andy

Andy.......you fellows do amazing work and are great ambassadors of our hobby!

Peter

@Pingman posted:

How many members did the installation?

The majority of the work was done by 8 of us, with some additional help and modules from our remaining members.

We dug out last year's numbers and this year's layout only took an additional 15 minutes to set up despite being bigger.

Andy

Thanks for all the kind words, everyone!

Andy

Andy, Merry Christmas! Thanks for all of the amazing posts, pics and vids! You guys are the masters of the modular Christmas train display.

How awesome is it that you all have four new Vision Line Big Boys!!!

And as a parent of a special needs kid I can really appreciate the quiet crowd event with cool guests! These events have long lasting, positive impacts.

Oh yeah, and you guys have 356’ of mainline! Over 1,400’ total! Man, who on here hasn’t dreamed of having that size layout at home! That’s what’s so great about a modular club, the ability to stretch out those train lengths.

Keep ‘em coming!

Andy the vignettes you guys come up with and even just some of the little scene stealers like Thelma and Louise cruising Main Street are incredible.  The thought that goes into every detail of the layout almost surpasses the amount of time and effort to produce "The Show". Thanks for sharing every Christmas.

"Why that's it! Look!  It's the Big W I tell you.  The Big W."

More pix and videos will be coming soon, but in the mean time, check out THIS VIDEO from PghTrainFanatic.   (Thanks Nick!).

Andy

Nick did a great job capturing the wonderful layout!

Here are the last batch of photos for our KHL season.  From the beginning of November through the first half of January we spent 52 days working on and operating our layouts (this includes the two Greenberg shows we did at each end of KHL).  Every year, we use a counter to tally each night's attendance and present the final totals to Kennywood for their internal use.  This season, we counted 40,303 visits to our layout.

Here are some shots from out in the park, starting with the cafeteria building, which was host to our layout for the first few years of KHL:

And for some last looks, here is a shot of all my scenery, tools,  and two Polar Express consists packed up and ready to leave.

And this was the second to last trailer load about to be hauled off to storage.

Andy

Great pics Andy.  I was most impressed with the model display of Kennywood's Noah's Ark.  How old is that structure?  Do you know who made it?  I have a very nice hand sketched version of the Ark hanging in my house, along with some other sketches from Kennywood.  I don't recall the artist, my sister bought them.

Ooops, never mind.  I just realized that's a pic of the real thing!

Andy, following this thread every year is so enjoyable.  I said it before, so many incredible scenes that deserve comment.  Now that it's over for another year I will comment on the final batch.

Are these Plasticville trees?

This one made me laugh out loud.

His Jeep at a Jeep Rodeo, his pink Cadillac at a motel; like the song says, "Elvis is Everywhere!"

Hawkeye and Trapper John giving Frank Burns to the Aliens.

That's one Mad, Mad, Mad, backdrop to the layout.

Just a fantastic repurposing of the MTH Operating Fire House.

What an incredible model of an incline.

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the shout out about Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.  I didn't pick that up!

The Big "Dubya" was included in one of Andy's earlier posts and was noticed by quite a few Forum members.

@coach joe posted:

Andy, following this thread every year is so enjoyable.  I said it before, so many incredible scenes that deserve comment.  Now that it's over for another year I will comment on the final batch.

Are these Plasticville trees?

According to the owner, they are kitbashed from parts of unknown origin and are made of a very brittle plastic.

Andy

I could tell they are plastic that's why I thought Plastcville.  They do look good in that scene.