Utopia

My "utopia" model RR is a modern day tourist/museum line , powered mostly by restored Fairbanks Morse locomotives ....

All trains are either passenger dinner/excursion trains abd the freights are staged freight train photo op run-bys ...

I love this thread! The walk down memory lane is fun! I don't have those kind of stories, trains have never really been part of my life, but model layouts have always intrigued me. I agree, as we build our layouts, we cannot help but think (fantasize? ) about what it would be like to be there. Some my not admit ut, but I think we all have some back stories for our layouts, and the people there. Utopia is usually described as a place of perfection, of Eden or Heaven. While nice, not really practical. I do not have near the talent of all of you, my layout is full of imperfections and mistakes, much like real life. But as Arnold says, It's my little world.... At this point with new layout I would not want to live there or even visit, there is way to much work to do! Maybe once there is a town, with a restaurant or bar, and a liquor store I will change my mind. Remember my imagination and inner 10 year old run wild with this hobby. I do have an Ogre and grizzly bear on my first layout, that I would want to meet in person! But the mesa pond is a place I would visit.

@Arnold D. Cribari posted:

I appreciate what you say, John and Joe, but one of the cutest things I've ever seen is a Facebook post showing a rat carrying a slice of pizza down a subway stairway in NYC. LOL, Arnold

rat sensei Splinter is taking pizza to Michaelangelo !

still haven't built my utopia yet and with everything going on idk if its gonna happen but

my utopia is an old wrought iron metropolis called Allegheny city that is in an Arizona alternate dimension that looks more like Pittsburgh and New Hope PA

the main line that serves Allegheny City is the Allegheny and Willow Point railroad that connects to the northwest with the Seattle Northwestern aka the iCarly Route. the A&WP has currently 4 locomotives -a former rock island gp7, a northern Pacific 85 ton centercab a gp39-2 in a hotwheels livery and a retired chessie 4-4-2 Atlantic. we hope to add a few more engines in the future including a turbine and some more diesels . i hope i can also get some long distance passenger cars like  sleepers because the trip from Allegheny city to willow point may be only 30 miles but if you decide to take the icarly connection from Allegheny to seattle and then seattle to toronto you are looking at over 95 hours in roomette and parlour cars on board the overnight Alleghenian that will be pulled by the turbine which might be an S2 but who knows what the future holds as i'm trying to stick to lionel engines so i only have to buy the cab3 for control and not the DCS stuff

wish me prayer and luck because my health anxieties and world fears are really making it seem like my dream is a waste that it will never happen

I don't think dreams are ever wastes. They give you a reason to raise your sights and look beyond to a better future (a "utopia"?), making you better able to deal with current situations. I think you should always have dreams.

Some fascinating thoughts have been contributed here. Thanks to all for sharing.

CR Cole, assuming you like the photos of my Popsicle Stick Yankee Stadium, I can almost guarantee you have sufficient talent to build your little Utopia like I did.

If I can do it, you can do it.

I subit that you don't need to be a highly skilled Scale modeler to build your perfect little world.

Many of you folks have already seen it, but my Utopia includes the ball park in Manhattan across the Harlem River from Yankee Stadium, known as the Polo Grounds where " The Shot Heard Round the World" occurred in 1951:

The call from the broadcaster was shouted out: "The Giants Win the Pennant," "The Giants Win the Pennant."

What many of you don't know is my family (the Cribaris from Mt. Vernon, NY) socialized with the great Brooklyn Dodger pitcher, Ralph Branca, who gave up that home run to Bobby Thompson.

I recently read Ralph Branca's autobiography, A Moment in Time, which is very interesting. I highly recommend it.

The Polo Grounds was also where "The Catch" was made in the 1954 World Series by arguably the best player in baseball history, Willie Mays:

LOL

All I did was glue and paint some wood, cardboard and Popsicle Sticks together, sprinkle some Woodland Scenics Fine Turf on the ball fields and affix it with diluted white spray glue.

Again, you don't need to be a Scale modeler; all you need is to do is make a caricature of something you love to create the idea of it, in order to make your Utopia. Arnold.

One more thing to keep in mind for those of you who doubt whether you can build your Utopia.

Some of us, including me, have spent decades building, revising and improving our perfect little Worlds. It's been a labor of love for many years for me.. The ideas for building my layout germinated in my mind for many years.

Key thing is to get started, have fun, and keep at it. You will be amazed at what you can accomplish over a long period of time.

I particularly loved developing the design of my current layout back in the mid-1990s when I started it. Guess I am an engineer at heart, who gave up pursuing that career goal back at Columbia College when I was befuddled by Calculus. LOL, Arnold

Very true Arnold and sometimes we (me) can get caught up in the details as opposed to just doing it and tweaking it later on. Thank you, because this has helped to refocus my agenda.

Arnold, thanks for sharing those great Polo Grounds memories.  Fantastic because I was a Giants fan when everyone else in the neighborhood seemed to root for the Yankees or the Dodgers.  As a very young kid during the 50's I recall  thinking that baseball teams play against each other during the season to see who plays against the Yankees during the World Series.  I don't the stat's, but I think the Yankees were pretty commanding at that time.  The other childish 'conclusion I made' was that the United States was Irish Catholic...I was neither, but my friends stayed with me.  Good times, plenty of friends, and most of us had parents who had Lionel trains in the basement too.  I still have all of the trains, and great memories to boot!

My utopia in one quarter inch is both an attempt to recapture a happy childhood, and to capture a vanished historical period, that ended about the time l arrived.  That would be the steam era which was parallel with the era of choice and variety in automobiles.  To me this is caught by the photo of an Auburn auto waiting for passengers outside a Rio Grande Southern "Galloping Goose" station.  I did begin grade school watching steam on the Southern, so l caught part of my "good old days".

My utopia always has something to do with a cold one

As the old advertisement jingle used to sing,” Baseball and Ballantine, what a combination, clear across the nation “. I’m not a beer drinker but obviously their marketing strategy worked; some 60 years later.

@bluelinec4 posted:

My utopia always has something to do with a cold one

Who is the Ale Man? He could be you! A man with a thirst for a manlier brew...

Fantastic! I especially like all of those Atlas Ballantine Reefers. If you every think you have too many, drop me a line

Bryce

For me, it’s not “Utopia” more than it is recreating the things I remember from my past.  I have to admit that there is a lot of rose colored filtering, but my layout has its share of bums, graffiti, rats with wings (otherwise known as pigeons), assorted “other side of the tracks” scenes, etc.  , like this one from a place in the village of NYC that I fondly remember, even though many have written about how putrid it actually was, LOL!

So very cool for you to include that on your layout. I went there once in my "salad" days. Sat near the stage next to one of the speakers. Took an hour or so after I left to recover my hearing. And yet, years later, I drove one of my daughters there to an event she wanted to attend, because I know that's the stuff memories are made of.

bluelinec4,

Please tell us about Night and Gale Brewing. The paint job/weathering is well done. What did you do to achieve that look? Who makes/made the building or walls?

Dave

@Chuck242 posted:

Arnold, thanks for sharing those great Polo Grounds memories.  Fantastic because I was a Giants fan when everyone else in the neighborhood seemed to root for the Yankees or the Dodgers.

Chuck, athough I'm a lifetime, die hard Yankee fan, if was born 10 years earlier (around 1941) and know what I know now, I would have been a Brookkyn Dodger fan.

I love their scrappiness, how they played with heart, great team spirit and played Jackie Robinson style baseball, stealing home, etc. Jackie Robinson transcended baseball, profoundly making our nation a better one, paving the way for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others. He is a hero. Ken Burns' documentary on Baseball, a great work of art IMO, beautifully explains this.

The Polo Grounds is on my layout because of its proximity to Yankee Stadium, at the Southern- most stop along The Put. I enjoy tweaking my layout to make it more like The Put.

Also, the Giants had the great Willie Mays, arguably the greatest all round baseball player of all time. I remember an All Star Game that he dominated with such boyish joy, stealing bases, hitting home runs, making great catches. He was a force to reckon with on the baseball diamond in his prime.

Yes, I love baseball and O Gauge trains, a great combination IMO. Arnold

@Tranquil Hollow RR posted:

As the old advertisement jingle used to sing,” Baseball and Ballantine, what a combination, clear across the nation “. I’m not a beer drinker but obviously their marketing strategy worked; some 60 years later.

I love this.

@Oscale_Trains_Lover_ posted:

Who is the Ale Man? He could be you! A man with a thirst for a manlier brew...

Fantastic! I especially like all of those Atlas Ballantine Reefers. If you every think you have too many, drop me a line

Bryce

No. drop me a line first! LOL, Arnold

PS: better yet stop us both a line. Bryce is a great friend of mine. Arnold

@Strap Hanger posted:

For me, it’s not “Utopia” more than it is recreating the things I remember from my past.  I have to admit that there is a lot of rose colored filtering, but my layout has its share of bums, graffiti, rats with wings (otherwise known as pigeons), assorted “other side of the tracks” scenes, etc.  , like this one from a place in the village of NYC that I fondly remember, even though many have written about how putrid it actually was, LOL!

Oh, but Strap Hangar, those bums, rats. etc. belong in Utopia IMO. LOL

I already g.j ot the bums on my layout. now I got to get an O Scale rat carrying a slice of pizza. Better yet, an animated O Scale rat doing that.