What personal touches have you added to your layout?

I have a bunch of areas that have special meaning on the layout. One of my Grandfathers worked at Standard Oil so I have an Esso plant. My other Grandfather worked at Phelps Dodge so there is a space for a pipe factory. Both of my Grandmothers were seamstresses so I have a singer sewing machine factory. My Dad who just passed away in November worked for the IRS so one of the town buildings will be the federal building.  I also named the trestle Owens pass after my friend Owen. Every time I run trains I think of all those people.

I have a couple sports related in terms of people.  Have to build the scene this summer and then just add the people.  The first is years back I had a lady who would make personalized people make me a Lebron James figure (this was before he even went to the NBA)  in his high school colors.  Coaching basketball I use to watch him play all the time when scouting and thought it would be neat to have a future NBA player on my layout.  Of course now after he left Cleveland I might break the leg and put him on the layout.

The other is my baseball field scene.  I have two teams 1 painted in my high school colors for when I played with the pitcher being number 9.  The other one is painted in the school colors for the high school team I coached.

I worked most of my career at the World's largest and oldest Denim Manufacturer and with the help of Model Structures for Model Trains, in one layout corner of my 9x16 attic layout, I tried to do a highly compressed representative plant structure and Mill Village of one of the Company's largest operations. The Company was established in 1891 and has supplied Levi Strauss for over a 100 years as well as OshGosh, Wrangler, Calvin, Guess{?} and many others in Europe and Asia.

Every layout, unless a loop of track out of the box running on bare plywood, has

personal touches.  Beyond that, selection of road names, engines, cars, buildings

and how they are arranged or run, is all personal.  The ones covered with Plasticville

have the buildings arranged differently.  Just one of my personal touches is to kitbash

any structure kit so that it is different than any other construction of that kit.  (I have read on here that others do the same).  That is railroad modeling: everyone's approach will differ with their personality, and modeling or creating the scene expresses that individual personality, and none will be the same.

I have two cars for the layout from my younger days: a split window VW bus in light green & gray, and a 1970 Plymouth GTX in medium green.  I wish I could find a 67 Cuda too.  When I get to building the town some of the buildings will reflect family names & interests (as many others have done).  I will also include some vignettes based on personal history.

My son skateboarding in front of my wife's book store.

My daughter was into gymnastics.

This represents my parent's horse farm when I was growing up.

Had to have something on the layout representing my home state.

I have a few wiener dogs around my Texan town, Santa Fe stations and at the Lone Star beer warehouse.  I also like fishing so I have figures with poles on my stream.

Steve, Lady and Tex

My whole layout is an homage to places and people I love.  One pic covers Scranton, comic books, MAD magazine, and my late great Uncle Al who never bought a new car in his life.  Also the 1957 Mercury.

Great thread.  My whole layout is an accumulation of things that have a special meaning to me.  I'm modeling my wife's home town and intend to model a parade down the main street with her riding in a Corvette convertible just like she did years ago.  My home town with the stores that have special meaning to me such as where I bought my first Lionel train and first bike.  The movie theater where we watched ten cents Saturday afternoon movies and etc.

Art

I, too, do it with cars.  I have my grandfather's '53 Cadillac, my uncle's'54 Buick, and am working on my father's '55 Oldsmobile.  I have my trusty '67 Dodge Dart on the layout, too, and my '66 3-liter Healey, etc. 

This topic is a good idea.I have spent many years working in and around the Cleveland Steel Mills.Most of my layout is Steel mill combined with a few other things from my life.Gotta love it.Loved the last few Pod Casts!Nick