Your Layout Vignettes

Here is a picture I found of the Cedar Valley Corvette Club in Cedar Falls, IA outside one of their local Maid-Rites.  This picture combines two of my loves.

Art

And this picture is of a more homey looking local Maid-Rite but I'm not sure where it is.  This would be easy to model.

Art

If we could get our smoke fluid expert to make a White Castle aroma and have it wafting out of this Twin Whistle model.......... 

Art

Art...just reading your suggestion above...I have gained 3 pounds!!..LOL!!

Alan

How about this scene....

Alan

Here is another nice one in Chicago built in 1930....

Alan

Here is White Castle #4 in Wichita Kansas....

Alan

Alan, it's interesting that you selected this particular Castle. I have dined at this Castle many times. Here's a little background history:

White Castle Building Number 8 is a former White Castle restaurant building in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. It was one of the few prefabricated, portable buildings built by the chain, and is now operated as an accordion store.

The building, measuring only 28 feet by 28 feet, has had three different locations in Minneapolis. The restaurant was originally located at 616 Washington Avenue Southeast near the University of Minnesota campus (in the Stadium Village neighborhood) in 1936. In 1950 the building was moved to 329 Central Avenue Southeast when the owner of the Washington Avenue property refused to renew the lease. In 1983 White Castle officials opened a new, larger restaurant a few blocks away from the Central Avenue location.

In order to save a piece of the city's architectural history, the Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission found a buyer willing to relocate the structure and save it from demolition. The building is now located at 3252 Lyndale Avenue South, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.

Porcelain Steel Buildings, a subsidiary of White Castle, manufactured movable, prefabricated structures that could be assembled at any White Castle restaurant site. This design was built on the Washington Avenue site in 1936, replacing its 1927 building. The 1936 building is modeled after the Chicago Water Tower, with octagonal buttresses, crenellated towers, and a parapet wall. The founders later claimed that this design was the first successful use of porcelain as a building material.The success of the White Castle building method also spurred other Wichita-area entrepreneurs to manufacture portable steel buildings as well.

White Castle #1

Later in it's life...

Site as it appears toady...

Do you have any idea where WC #1 was located?  Great pictures especially the interior with all the servers with bow ties.

Art

On the corner of First and Broadway, kitty-corner from this...

Inside the Orpheum...

Oh, by the way, Art...

Jon, you are really bad! 

Art

Yea, but they were really good!

Art, next time I'm in St Cloud, there will be a stop here...

Early Maid-Rite store...

I'm gonna "try" to get us back on track...

"A slice of life at the Grand Station...."

Alan

After getting off the train, it is a short walk under the "EL" and across the street to take the bus downtown....WAIT!!...one can get downtown via the "EL"...just a short walk up the stairs!!

Alan

Well...the walk up to the "EL" is just a little exhausting...but worth it!

Alan

First day of the new mono-rail service departing the "Grand Hotel".....

Alan

Alan; that monorail must be new. I've never seen a picture of it before. It looks fantastic & certainly fits in the scene.

Love the monorail, Alan. Disney, I assume. Is that tape I see on the track?

Thanks Spence!!  The mono rail was the first operating train I had on the layout back in 2009!!  I have moved it from place to place so it really isn't a new feature.  I am not sure I am going to keep it but right now I have almost 150 feet of monorail track and several operating on that track...

Alan

Thanks Jon....yes, they are Disney production.  I looked at the picture and I think I see what you mean by "tape" but there is no tape on the track.  It must be some sort of strange reflection on the side of the monorail track.  One problem about the track is that it is made of shiny plastic....looks terrible....so, if I decide to keep the monorails, I am going to spray the track with a flat concrete color...

Alan

Caution.....they are very habit forming and will increase your trips to St. Cloud.

Art

Alan; I've said it before but it's worth repeating. Your layout is just amazing and the photos are just superb. You need a web site where we can view all of your photos.

This reminds me of the Maid-Rite shop in my hometown of Spencer, IA.  My mom would take me there when I was a good boy.  Of course that meant that I did not get there very often.   

One day the shop had a natural gas leak and the whole shop blew up.  I think a couple people were killed and they never rebuilt it.  That and the local Spudnut Donut shop were my favorite places to eat in Spencer when I was a kid.

Great memories.

Art

Great picture Alan!  Love the framing and the emphasis on the cab.

Art

And you used to promise us a video.

Art

Thanks for the explanation, Alan, I can see that now. 150' of track? My, that's a lot! Are there switches available for this system?

Thanks for the warning, Art. I have never had a 'loose meat' sandwich.

I believe it was closed in few years ago. I stopped by and ate there. Very good! When I grew up in Iowa, used to stop by Maid Rite lots at Marshalltown, Iowa.

Thanks for the update, Patrick. I will certainly call them before making a special trip.

Thanks very much Spence.  I have pictures posted over on our Mid-America 3-Railer group site...but I think most if not all have already been posted here.

Jon...I believe there are switches available...or should I say one type of switch available but it is EXPENSIVE as I have only seen it on E-bay....

Art...there are a few videos posted by Robert Tolley (MoPAC here on the forum) over on his Youtube account which I believe is also "MoPac".  The videos were taken during a Mid America 3-Railers meet here at our home about 2 and a half years ago.  Much has been done since then so I do need to get an update done!!

Alan

Jon, I live abt 45 min. away from St. Cloud. I will check it out when I am at St. Cloud in next time.

Thanks, Patrick.

If it's true that "Art is the act of total attention" (Dorothea Lange), Alan, you certainly have been paying attention to the world around you!!!! This is a wondrous scene (and when added to the whole masterpiece, well, we have magic!)

FrankM