Tinplate or Hi-rail? Yes!


As usual, Bossy's farm was a very busy place. I don't recall a time when there wasn't somebody waiting at the button to make Bossy "do whatever she does".

This trio took turns politely enough. I think this 1st wrangler--calm as he appears here--was definitely a type 1 (worry wart). Bossy was well out of the way by the time that BNSF SD60 entered the block.
 

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Mr. "M8" however, was an ace type 2. The look of satisfaction after a fully completed Bossy sequence was unmistakable...
 

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For some reason, the city area got more attention than it has in the past. We got more questions about the Girder and Panel buildings than about everything else put together. Many people who did remember playing with them as kids, couldn't remember what they're called...

"Girder and Panel building sets..."

"What? Gerber and what?"

Then I would have to run down the cascade of companies which have made the sets over the years. When I got to the current maker (Bridge Street Toys) I would just hand them the box that Di's fire station came in. Most were very interested in getting new sets for their kids (wink-wink).

2024 update: Unfortunately, Bridge Street no longer offers these sets.
 

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Running without any crowd restraints is a bit tough on the outer edge of the scenery. It gets pummeled by lots of fingers and elbows. Much of the edge scenery is "paved", but we couldn't put any vehicles there without them being damaged. Thus, the foreground must've looked a bit deserted.

So, some kids brought their own cars...

"I don't think you're supposed to put that there..."

"It's ok, it's in scale, see?"
 

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Besides wrangling Bossy, this one made sure that all TOFC were duly counted...
 

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The aforementioned fire station (red) takes up the area previously occupied by Jim's kit-bashed Plasticville station. The bank (black) is in its usual spot, but rotated to allow placement of a Tomica pizza parlor (red/white structure at extreme right). The pizza parlor deserves a much better shot, having its own street lights, signs, sidewalks, greenery, interior, even push-button operated sliding doors. Maybe next time. A better view of it shows on its box at lower left.

Jim's Mobile station has only one place to be, and there it was.

Next to the fire station, a Matchbox "Burger Zone" drive-thru serves my favorite food...
 

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Proper gate operation demonstrated:

Note the position of the gates as train passes (down).

Note the gate-master's attention, focused on gates (not on Billy the Bag Smasher).

Note the gate-master's attitude (alert; attentive, but not panicked; yet not too casual).

You can feel the safety...
 

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The train... the train... must keep eyes on the train...

Never mind what those kids are pointing at, it's about the train...
 

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This was the first show we've done that had it's own "diesel sound effects machine", in the form of a real BNSF GE diesel. I never got close enough to #6967 to find out the exact model, but of course the GE features are obvious.

It was idling for the entire show, both days. The constant throbbing was easier to deal with by resorting to the "sound effects" ruse. Yeah, my BNSF SD-60 is GM, (not GE) but, one uses what is available.

Other real train "sound effects" could be heard intermittently, since Fullerton Station is situated next to a very busy route. Though it appears to be a building, the reddish-brown "wall" toward the right (just beyond #6967) is actually a double-stack container train rumbling by at about 45 mph.
 

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"Well, I can keep the gates down, watch Billy, and wave at the trailers at the same time!

Wait... why am I waving at trailers?"
 

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A side effect of expanding the layout has been that waiting times between train passes has increased. Maybe it was the surroundings (a real train station), but there also seemed to be a high number of type 2 operators at the gates. They would insist on waiting for a train to be in sight before they would lower the gates.

This (apparently bored) one kills time by watching Billy work...
 

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Yes, waiting for the next pass-by can be annoying. It can even make the birds on your shirt angry...
 

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As we all know, cool people wear shades.

On the C+D, cool people also hang out at Jim's Mobilgas...

"Hey! Paparazzi! Pan that way..."
 

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Besides the pizza parlor, the other Tomica building we used was the car dealership (at left). It seemed like the perfect piece for Snappy Al's Used Cars. Like the pp, it has sliding doors on its "office" which also has a complete interior. It also has a showroom, with a turntable that turns by a knob on the roof. Someday I have got to motorize the thing.

The diecast cars spread over the layout were noticed a lot, more so than in past shows, it seemed to us. The most noticed car? Amazingly, the drab hybrid at the extreme left of this pic...

"Look! A Prius!!"

Thank you, Matchbox.
 

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The kids at the buttons were not always little...
 

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One thing we tried to do--without success--was to keep people's hands, etc. off the layout. Most parents were making attempts to keep their little one's hands at their sides, but the admonitions were forgotten almost immediately. We gave up eventually. There's something too inviting about being able to see everything without Mom's or Dad's help, I guess.

Elbows and fingers, elbows and fingers...
 

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This group looks happy enough, except for that one little guy at the lower left.

What could possibly have earned such a disapproving scowl?
 

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I know that look, he's thinking "Hey the SP never ran 45' Fruehaufs with double bar latches in that era!"

Thanx for sharing the pics, our O scale club layout gets a lot of attention and similar looks.
 
Good guess, Rico ('tho the trailers are actually 40').

But we have another theory. Let's back up the time a few seconds, and zoom in...

A-HAH!

That polar bear is way out of scale! Who would allow such a blatant anomaly to be displayed publicly?

The audacity!!
 

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