Layouts with TV or film references

[Listerboy]

Has anybody had a layout that featured references to TV or films? I intend to build one, however at the moment all I have is 3 wheel van with 'Trotters Independent Traders' om the side. I do intend to have a Grace Bros department store, a totters yard, Steptoe, not I M Foreman, a Police Telephone box and many more as they say! 

[MarkSG]

A Tardis is so common it's almost a cliche.

[Listerboy]

22 minutes ago, MarkSG said:

A Tardis is so common it's almost a cliche.

So if I was modelling Earl's Court tube station I shouldn't include the one outside as its a cliche? 

 

 

[Rugd1022]

I've not built a layout but often have idea's along the lines of this topic... Randall & Hopkirk, Jason King, Ed Straker, Regan and Carter, Steptoe's yard in Oil Drum Lane and Simon Templar (or his alias Sebastian Tombs) all get a look in somewhere. George Spiggot (the 'devil incarnate' from the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore film Bedazzled), Harold Shand (The Long Good Friday) and Vic Dakin (Villain) have cropped in an idea or two and if I ever do get something built, the graffiti that once graced a wall outside Paddington 'far away is close at hand in images of elsewhere' is sure to appear.

[Listerboy]

7 minutes ago, Rugd1022 said:

I've not built a layout but often have idea's along the lines of this topic... Randall & Hopkirk, Jason King, Ed Straker, Regan and Carter, Steptoe's yard in Oil Drum Lane and Simon Templar (or his alias Sebastian Tombs) all get a look in somewhere. George Spiggot (the 'devil incarnate' from the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore film Bedazzled), Harold Shand (The Long Good Friday) and Vic Dakin (Villain) have cropped in an idea or two and if I ever do get something built, the graffiti that once graced a wall outside Paddington 'far away is close at hand in images of elsewhere' is sure to appear.

When I commuted into London many years ago I was always taken with that graffiti, being of a more profound nature than most. 

[Steamport Southport]

42 minutes ago, MarkSG said:

A Tardis is so common it's almost a cliche.

 

Depends on what you mean by cliche....

 

There was about 1000 of the Mackenzie Trench design!

 

Quote

The Metropolitan Police (Met) introduced police boxes throughout London between 1928 and 1937,[11] and the design that later became the most well-known was created by the Met's own surveyor and architect, Gilbert Mackenzie Trench, in 1929.[12][13] Between 1929 and 1938 around 1,000 examples of the Mackenzie Trench police box were installed. They measured 9 ft 4 in (2.84 m) tall, and 4 feet 6 inches (1.37 m) wide.[10]

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_box

 

Here are some of the known locations around London. 

 

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1VfXgZHgesy-kzoBoYRH9jeXeVIY&msa=0&ll=51.513898801267516%2C-0.11227740967648447&spn=0.447096%2C1.352692&z=12

 

 

 

Jason

[Welchester]

2 hours ago, Rugd1022 said:

if I ever do get something built, the graffiti that once graced a wall outside Paddington 'far away is close at hand in images of elsewhere' is sure to appear.

 

2 hours ago, Listerboy said:

When I commuted into London many years ago I was always taken with that graffiti, being of a more profound nature than most. 

 

One newspaper writer of the time (I forget which) referred to the artist as 'the Master of Paddington'.

[MarkSG]

2 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Depends on what you mean by cliche....

 

There was about 1000 of the Mackenzie Trench design!

 

Yes, but they were almost all in London (and some in Glasgow, but they were red). So a blue Mackenzie Trench police box anywhere else is an interloper, and hence a Tardis.

[009 micro modeller]

3 hours ago, Listerboy said:

Has anybody had a layout that featured references to TV or films? I intend to build one, however at the moment all I have is 3 wheel van with 'Trotters Independent Traders' om the side. I do intend to have a Grace Bros department store, a totters yard, Steptoe, not I M Foreman, a Police Telephone box and many more as they say! 

I haven’t personally had a layout like this but I did once see an N gauge layout at an exhibition that had lots of Midsomer Murders crime scenes on it. I think they were all based on actual cases from the TV series rather than just being generic. I remember finding it perhaps a little bit gimmicky but quite well done.

 

Wasn’t there a round in one of the series of the Great Model Railway Challenge that worked a bit like this?

 

In a related vein, rather bizarrely I did once include a tenuous reference to the MPs’ expenses claims scandal (which dates this to around 2009/10) on a 1:32 scale narrow gauge layout (not as serious/political as it sounds - it was a castellated duck house, on an island in a pond where my Schleich ducks lived; unfortunately the water didn’t set properly and shrunk to the contours of the pond but that’s off-topic).

 

Not quite the same thing as I don’t think the layout has any overt references to the series itself, but the Walmington/New Walmington Pier layout obviously derives its name from Dad’s Army.

[Bernard Lamb]

My German, former GDR area, layout has a station called Rode.

There is no such place, but there is a childrens TV program that features a staion with the name. It became a cult program and is known as The Little Sandman. 

Bernard 

[Danemouth]

Well my layout Danemouth is a fictional seaside town in the Agatha Christie novel Body in the Library with a rather nice TV adaption starring Joan Hickson.

 

I was looking for a suitable south coast name for a layout when I saw the programme - as they say the rest is history.

 

It was only years afterwards that I discovered that Agatha Christie had based it on Bournemouth which was not a GWR station 😁

 

Dave

[MarkSG]

A few years ago was working on a layout set in Stoke-on-Trent in the 1950s, with a working title based on a placename from Arnold Bennett's "Anna of the Five Towns". The reason for picking a fictional placename was so that I could have a fictional location in an otherwise realistic setting, with the usual modeller's licence to create a station in a location which, in reality, didn't have one.

 

Unfortunately the baseboard was damaged beyond repair in a house move, and I cannibalised it for a different project rather than reconstruct it, so it never got finished. I do still have several of the buildings built or acquired for the layout, though (which survived the move due to being carefully packed away), including a bottle kiln scratchbuilt for me by David Wright, so if/when I get the garage converted to give me a bit of extra space I'll probably revisit it on a new baseboard.

[Pete the Elaner]

I have built a model of Fawlty Towers for my London based layout. I know it was based in Dorset but the real building was in south Buckinghamshire & Andre's restaurant (from Gourmet Night) was in Harrow. It will go on top of a tunnel, which is useful because if I get a derailment, I will be able to remove the building & the land it is on, rather than the entire tunnel.

I also have a rake of dark green wagons which I intend to brand as Hawletts & fill with Ballast. Anyone who has seen the 1957 film Hell Drivers will understand that.

[009 micro modeller]

Just now, Pete the Elaner said:

the real building was in south Buckinghamshire

It was a golf club I think, which ironically burnt down in the end.

[Steamport Southport]

2 hours ago, MarkSG said:

 

Yes, but they were almost all in London (and some in Glasgow, but they were red). So a blue Mackenzie Trench police box anywhere else is an interloper, and hence a Tardis.

 

Liverpool, Wales, Yorkshire, ISTR Manchester as well. Still in use well into the 1970s.

 

They were everywhere.

 

It's people thinking they are TARDISs that is the cliche.

 

 

Jason

[wombatofludham]

My old exhibition layout was "Kings Oak", the village where the fictional "Crossroads Motel" was located.  I added a section featuring "Crossroads" with Adam Chance, Jill Harvey and the Ghost of Meg Mortimer* stood outside whilst being filmed by a TV crew, with trucks and extras waiting out of shot.  We even wore T-shirts claiming to be sponsored by Crossroads.

"Wednesford" is the name of the fictional Black Country town in the book "My Brother Jonathan" by Frances Brett Young, which was made into a film in 1948 as well as a 1985 TV series on the BBC

*The ghost of Meg: The layout was set in 2006 long after Noelle Gordon had died in real life.

Edited September 22, 2023 by wombatofludham

[t-b-g]

One of my all time favourites was a layout set in the USA that referenced song lyrics.

 

There were two premises next door to each other. One had a sign that read "Trailers for sale or rent" and the one next door had "Rooms to let 50 cents".

 

I thought it was a brilliant use of popular culture on a model railway.

[Steamport Southport]

4 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

One of my all time favourites was a layout set in the USA that referenced song lyrics.

 

There were two premises next door to each other. One had a sign that read "Trailers for sale or rent" and the one next door had "Rooms to let 50 cents".

 

I thought it was a brilliant use of popular culture on a model railway.

 

I do hope there was a sign for cigarettes!

 

 

That's one for the youngsters.....  🤠

[KeithMacdonald]

Buggleskelly Station?

[Geep7]

My HO American layout 'Bad Aston' had a couple of industries named after fictional movie companies. Namely a manufacturing company called Nakatomi Industries and a packaging company called Universal Exports.

[Phatbob]

I have a short private owner coal train livered thus; Huw, Pugh & Co, Marney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble & Grub. ;-)

[KeithMacdonald]

The Merioneth and Llantisilly Railway.

With Ivor and Idris.

 

[Steamport Southport]

I suppose it's something that only really works on exhibition layouts or ones made for publication/videos.

 

The jokes/puns would get tiresome very quickly on a home layout IMO.

 

 

 

Jason

[MarkSG]

Here's a classic triple play from a layout at the Stafford show today (sorry, I didn't make a note of which one, so I can't name it - I'm sure someone else can tell us, though). A city street featuring a department store named Grace Bros, a tardis on the street, complete with flashing blue light (and yes, it is a tardis in this context, because the location and timespan is wrong for a working police box), and, finally, a cinema which, in a nice nod to much debated events here on the forum, is showing The Titfield Thunderbolt.

 

 

Phone image, sorry - I didn't take my DSLR to the show today - so the quality is a bit poor, but I think you can see all you need to.

[PaulRhB]

 

 

Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble & Grub
 

 

 

 

In 16mm scale . .

 

 

 

and 4mm scale
 

 

 

 

Sunnydale, with Beck Bottling, the Bronze club, Chase Enterprises & Sunnydale Produce. 
 

 

That’s all mine so far