Parades

I'm very glad to hear the concept of a parade as shown on my layout gave you something useful to consider, Greg, which was my whole purpose in posting the thread. Thanks a lot for saying so!

FrankM

The European Train Enthusiasts have a parade on their layout. It's HO, but has over 600 figures in it.

Hi Frank • I have no parade on my layout, but after seeing what you have found at train shows, I am going to have to add this to my bucket list.

That is cool.  I have thought about a Thanksgiving Day parade at Christmas time, with santa Claus floats, etc.  This is an inspiration for me. 

Love it! Beautiful work! I'd love to have a circus parade for my layout. I know I have the items to make it work even if small area or large.

Excellent input to the thread, Quick Casey! Now, that's some parade! Cool.

Thanks.

FrankM

I never had one on my old layout, but since I joined the Shriners, it's crossed my mind to have a parade on my next layout complete with O scale figures riding N scale cars

Would also have to find a marching band of course.

PS: for the record, I don't drive the little cars, I wear kilt and play drums for the bagpipers

I think it is a wonderful idea. The only time I have used a parade was in a Dickens Village setting where I had a parade of English soldiers that was very impressive.

Your execution of a parade is fabulous.

Looks great.  Please tell me where you found the Wells Fargo coach with horses.

Please, Please.

My plans are to have a Miss Universe parade with banners over the street "1960 Iowa Miss Universe Pageant".  I will have convertibles with bathing beauties on the backs. 

Love your parade Frank.

Art

Thanks for the feedback and approval! Imaginations appear to be getting active with this idea, huh. How 'bout like this scene, Art...

This shot is of part of the parade's spectators and its neighborhood as it passes down Main Street. As you can see, I change it, here-n-there, for a non-snowy Christmastime parade.

FrankM

I found it at a train show, almost a decade ago, in St. Joseph's High School in Montvale, NJ. Seeing your request, here, I went looking for the box but apparently it is long-gone. I'm sorry I can't be more specific. I'll give you these close-up shots in hopes they may help you track one down, as well as to share a little more detail of my parade idea.

Frank - You have done a very good job of capturing the mood of a typical small town parade.  I have had mine mocked up for awhile, this inspires me to get busy on it.

Art

I have worked over 20 parades through the years, and have this to suggest.  I would clear the parade route of cars.  If you have some neat cars to put in the parade, go for it, and possibly make signs to place on the hood or doors.  Some yarn or thin ribbon could act as a streamer along the hood.  As mentioned above, soldiers, cowboys, horses or clowns collected for other purposes could add to the festive look.

How about a Fire Prevention Parade.  Remember those in the 50's with tons of fire trucks

Mike P

don't have any parades, but Ive been in parades!!

Does that count!!??

That whole line would make a fabulous parade feature, Popi. Too bad somebody doesn't make that in 1/43-48.

Here's the best I could discover here-n-there for my parade...

Frank, you started me thinking today about this idea for a parade. I have several English soldier sets and I like the idea of creating a parade down one of the roads in our Christmas in the City portion of the layout.

Thanks for the idea.

The layout as a whole looks GREAT........nice work.

I'm very glad you like it. Thank you very much. And to further read, below, that your imagination has begun to work out particulars about having a parade yourself is especially enjoyable for me.

The basic parade, which is a permanent detail on my layout, does have some of its details changed, esp. at Christmastime. Basically, for that season, the stagecoach is replaced by a Mercedes limousinewhich carries Santa and a few other stars of such a pre-Holiday event. Like the miniature decorations on the buildings, the limo is removed, after Three Kings, and is packed-away for the next year.

I hope these shots give you even more ideas.

Spectacular parade!  I covered a lot of my miscellaneous purchases by having "Railroad Daze" on my layout.  Bill board advertising the weekend event.  Lots of fans  at the the rail yard. Lots of misc equipment on display.  Antique cars and people in costumes.. The most authentic item, long lines at the porta-potties.

I don't have room on my layout for a parade.  Here is one on a local garden railroad.  This a G scale parade.  The plants are real.

Such a nice reply, TrainroomGary! So, just for that bit o' pleasantness, here's another shot of the parade,more toward the front of it...

FrankM (a teenaged parade-float character, back-in-the-day)

Frank: Just beautiful looking. Your craftsmanship is amazing.

It's a lot of fun hearing from you in this regard, Lee, and if I've given you something to consider, well, that's all the more enjoyable for me. A parade does turn out to be a place to display many unique items, all of which can make sense given the wide variety of reasons folks have establishedi for having a parade.

Here's a longer shot of mine shown a bit more in-context, "moving" along its route...

So that's what we can do with all those convertibles the diecast manufacturers keep selling us!  Seriously, that's beautiful work all the way around, and obviously, inspirational.

Precisely. But then we'll be hunting for the waving-figures to populate the cars, too. Good!

(And thank you for saying you like my layout, too!)

Hi H. Michael Pierce, That sounds like a good idea to me, esp. since our real-life little town has a small parade of several pieces of fire equipment, sirens and bells sounding, bring Santa through neighborhoods at Thanksgiving, officially starting the decorating and getting-ready season for many of us at that very special time of year.

If you have some individual pieces of such equipment to show us, that might be a nice way to speak to the imaginations here in a creative way. You might - or anybody else - even arrange what you have in a parade "sketch" (something I do for a lot of my vignettes - "sketching" the arrangement of their elements out on a "base-plate") on a table in a "test-run" before the glues come out.

It might be enjoyable for us to share ideas that way, too, before we ever touch a layout, to get ideas of what looks best and/or the most realistic or effective (?)

Thanks for the input, sir!

FrankM

Thank you, RichO !  How 'bout in these shots?

FrankM

FrankM.

Beautiful. The buildings are excellent too.  I've carried many chairs to parades.  nice to see the ones in the side street,,

Always good to hear from you, Spence. Thank you for your approval, once again.

On another thread, I noticed you completed a cradle project. I trust this indicates you are on-the-mend and getting stronger. Be well.

FrankM.

Back in 1992 for our 50th anniversary of our fire company we incorporated a parate that we had into our annual Christmas train display. It was a chain driven moving parade and here are some photos of it. Who knows our 75th anniversary is fast approaching we may have another one.

Nice job on several of these photos!

God knows I've been in my fair share of parades in my lifetime, growing up as a historical re-enactor. These days, I usually take my WW2 Jeep to parades with my living history group.

But all that said, I would never model a parade for two primary reasons, the second of which is the biggest one:

• My layout takes place in a very rural area, someplace you wouldn't normally see a parade
• I don't model something frozen in place when it should be moving.

Early on, while I was planning the layout, I thought about all the things I see in other layouts that drive me nuts. Whimsical stuff is usually first there, but it puts my teeth on edge when I see figures locked in a moving pose. So, the trains move but the people don't? So while getting, painting and detailing figures, I decided to only get them in statuc poses. I'm modeling a moving world, heace the trains that move. So, as I can't model people in motion, they should be either sitting and standing in a waiting pose.

So, no parades for me...

I'm sure the kids on your 1950s era layout are actually watching the parade. The last few parades I've been to were lined with many kids staring at their hand-helds.