What's the coolest/craziest thing you've seen on a layout?

Probably the double helix track tower at the NJ Hi-Railers layout.  I remember the first time I visited the club I hung out at that end of the viewing area for a heck of a long time just waiting for another train to enter and begin winding its way around the cityscape it surrounds.  It's a truly impressive sight.

- Mike

Tom Groff's Choo-Choo Barn has a rollback truck that loads and unloads a John Deere tractor. It seems simple enough. But the motor. gears, pulleys and cables extend about 3 feet under the layout. The tractor stays in places as the bed rises. Then it is pulled onto the bed. The bed moves up and forward. The tractor moves with it, though it appears stationary. The tractor is held by a cable, not by wheel chocks. Then the bed lowers, and the tractor stays in place. The process starts again to unload the tractor.

Tom also has a man coming out of a manhole in a street between rails of a trolley line. He goes down when a trolley rolls over the manhole. After it passes he comes up again.

Tom Groff has a LOT of cool animated scenes...all in one place on the layout.  If you ever have a chance, it is a must see!!

Alan

The graveyard thing sounds neat! 

I've been to Choo Choo barn too.  I love how he has the Strausburg train automated to come into the station, stop, run the engine around, hook onto the other end of the train, and go out for another run.  That function is actually one of things I like best about his whole layout.  O- like the gas station sign too!

Question - has anyone every attempted a turntable that also lifts up?  kinda of a display, showcase thing?

Any layout with a working catenary. 

What we did on our O-gauge is take a N-gauge and make a Kiddie-Land.

When I was a kid growing up in Chicago we had an amusement park called Kiddie-Land.                around the park ran a small gauge train with an engine that looked like an F-3.It was a lot of fun and when Kiddie Land closed a few years ago those engines are now running again in Indiana at Heston and all my kids have had the fun-pleasure of riding the trains their Daddy rode when he was a kid.

So to make a memory lane we made a N-gauge rendition of Kiddie land on the O-gauge and it does get attention!!

The "Magic Mountain " is a cool thing to watch !!!

Hand stand man at the Carnegie Science Center's Miniature Railroad Village.  He's hanging on to the top of a 12 to 18" pole and his legs rise above his body so he ends balancing on his hands on top of the pole.  Amazing!

Jack

Now I have an additional thing to do next time I get back to the 'Burgh.  Last time I was at the Carnegie Science Center my oldest son was about 4, so you spend much more time chasing and watching him than anything else!!

A very mean hombre showed up at Munoz Station.

Turns out to be by wayward cousin, Malo Scher.

Can't remember if it was OGR or CTT. The guy had a couple of scenes, one was a guy rowing a johnboat pulling a water skier, and the other was a sign saying "WARNING!! DO NOT TOUCH THE EDGES OF THIS SIGN!! THE EDGES OF THIS SIGN ARE EXTREMELY SHARP!!" then on the bottom in little tiny letters it said "By the way the bridge is out ahead." I had asked about this layout in a thread before, still haven't had a chance to look through my old OGR's for it. But one layout that always stuck with me was this one I saw where the scenery was gray painted foam. He powered the layout with a car battery charger. Had to disconnect the e-units, and horns to keep them from constantly sounding. The only way the guy could control the trains speed was to add or subtract cars. 

Bill

I think I remember reading about the sign once...don't remember where.

The car charger thing is a good example of using what you have on hand - it reminds me of the layout I read about that was AC powered but straight from the 115 v outlet.  Speed was controlled by twisting lightbulbs on and off.

I believe that is/was on Jim Policastro's layout. It's a pretty neat sign.

Gilly

Coolest thing - the operating rotary coal dump on the NJ Hi-railers layout.

Craziest thing - a nudist colony with folks getting busy everywhere.

--Greg

BIGFOOT, Aliens, and the Loche Ness Monster on my layout.

We're not alone?

laz57

I always kid people that if I built a house I'd want a moat with a "moat monster" to keep invading hoards of out-of-town relatives at bay. While driving in the Dallas area, I saw a house where the [like-minded] owner had landscaped the area between the front fence and the street with (you guessed it) a large white plaster serpent-like moat monster similar to "Nessie" in the photo. Couldn't get a photo.

I love the clever animations on the Choo Choo Barn and Carnegie Science Center's layouts, but I'd also like to mention fellow Pittsburgh Independent Hi-Railer Dave Neumann's "UFO Crash Site" module.  I've seen it dozens of times, yet it still fascinates me.

Andy

NSBill, I the last water skier I remember being pulled by a boat on the forum was modeled by Lee Willis.

Jack 

The Petticoat Junction Water Tower on Frank53's old layout.

At the time, thought this was.

that was fun Charlie!  Thanks for posting!

Terry Johnson's layout (OGR DVD #7) when seen in person.  A light/sound/trains extravaganza for sure!  Tornados, lightning, star-studded heavens, low-flying jet fly-by (be sure your dentures are well in place for THAT one!), and some mechanical wizardry that is truly inspiring!  'And that's a fact,...Jack!' (With apologies to Jack Rogers, who arranged for me and my wife to see Terry's layout, and Sy Robertson!)

But, the earliest layout I saw some 60 years ago...and it's still around...that became seared in my brain was/is Roadside America.  And the coolest/craziest thing about it was, what I call, the 'switchless switches'...fake turnouts that led to spurs loaded with appropriate cars parked by appropriate structures.  For a kid who treasured his two O22 switches on his layout, and felt empowered every time he threw the lever to activate them, these 'fakes' were, well, a dumbfounding disappointment....later in life to be recognized as a brilliant, economic alternative.

Then there was a G scale layout set up on the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA, for the annual G show back in 1997, I believe, that featured a dismembered soul lying across the railroad track complete with pools of blood and gore front-and-center for all the squeamish to see!  It was just fun to stand aside and watch as the show folks discovered this one....particularly the gals!!

+ Lots more.

KD