Those animated autos and trucks. Don't go There..

MarkInLA Apr 15, 2017

  1. MaxDaemon

    MaxDaemon TrainBoard Member

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    I owned a '79 Tenth Anniversary TransAm - last of the big blocks. But by then it was so loaded down and watered down that it barely topped 200hp. Nice car until the leather seats split, paint fell off and the big Bird decal rusted the hood, and other minor things.
     
  2. Mike VE2TRV

    Mike VE2TRV TrainBoard Member

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    You've got me hankering to get a peek at your garage... ;)

    Ford fan here too, though late '60s Mopar VERY high on my list... ('69 Newport, for one... as big as an aircraft carrier and about as fast as the aircraft it carries... :cool: ).

    Anyhoo, animated or not, it's all up to the modeler, who shouldn't give a bleep about what other people think (Rule #1 of model railroading).
     
  3. acptulsa

    acptulsa TrainBoard Member

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    The size of an aircraft carrier, but handles like a speedboat.

    I hate Lee Iacocca. No American cares about handling, so I'll convert everything to coil springs just like Fords. No American cares about gauges, so I'll replace them with idiot lights just like Fords. Gee, these torsion bar spring, rear drive cars are still our best sellers, but I won't update their styling, or fit them with fuel injection, or develop overdrive transmissions for them, even though some of these things would help us in the hot truck market, because I only care about the minivans that Ford wouldn't let me build. No one cares that those funny sounding gear reduction starters still start the car when the battery's three quarters dead, so I'll...

    Whoa. No one's buying Chryslers, now that I've made Fords of them, because people who like Fords are still buying Fords. But millions of Americans suddenly decided they like decent handling, and gauges on the dash, and they aren't buying Chryslers either--they're buying imports, because Chrysler was just where the market was headed but I ruined it. I think I'll retire before anyone notices this company's going broke again...
     
    Last edited: Apr 21, 2017
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  4. Carolina Northern

    Carolina Northern TrainBoard Member

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    And for my favorite nerd joke...
    What do you get when you cross Lee Iacocca with a vampire?
    An Autoexec bat
     
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  5. acptulsa

    acptulsa TrainBoard Member

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    Well, I think Iacocca is a vampire.

    But old Lynn Townsend certainly made his share of mistakes, or Iacocca would never have gotten the chance to muck things up worse.

    I wonder if Max would ever have bought a Trans Am if Townsend hadn't axed the 1975 Plymouth Barracuda before it could go into production...

    [​IMG]

    Now that doesn't need a bird on the hood to look good. What do you think, Max?
     
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  6. jpwisc

    jpwisc TrainBoard Member

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    Wow, this thread sure has wandered!
     
  7. acptulsa

    acptulsa TrainBoard Member

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    That's the problem with cars. They have steering wheels. Can't keep the damned things on track. You never know where you'll wind up!
     
  8. MaxDaemon

    MaxDaemon TrainBoard Member

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    Well. I'm a GM fan, although not so much anymore. Pontiac and EMD were my watchwords.

    It was summer, and I was in love:

    10thTA.jpg
     
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  9. Mike VE2TRV

    Mike VE2TRV TrainBoard Member

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    This is a thread about animated things, right? :D

    ..groan...:confused:

    ... droooooollll.....:cool::)
     
  10. Jim Wiggin

    Jim Wiggin Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Fortunately I model the 1960's when GM vehicles ran lol. As a Jeep/MOPAR guy, I don't like GM. And as a Jeep guy, I really like Fords. Only Jeep guys know why. Every time I hear one of the bowtie fan boys spout off the Ford jokes I always reply with "the only thing that runs is a GM guys mouth". Now back in the 60's era, GM made some great vehicles, big fan of the GTO and Bonneville and who doesn't dig a 1967 Impala?

    So I guess if I were to model the City Job in the BNSF era, all those modern day GM products should be static. Hmmm.
     
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  11. MaxDaemon

    MaxDaemon TrainBoard Member

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    S'funny thing, isn't it? In the 50's GM was king. They had busses, trollies, trucks, locomotives and all kinds of overseas investments. But something happened along in the early 70's and they started losing their mojo - seemed everytime you turned around GM was selling off another one of it's core abilities. Even recently they sold off two more foreign car companies in the name of "focusing on our core".

    It's a political world, and GM is fully invested in the politics of it. They seem to have forgotten that .. they sell cars. To people.

    Couple cases in point - what police department didn't own a fleet of Caprice's or Impalas? So - GM stopped making vehicles the police could use so police turned to Ford. Same with the Astro van. My company owned 10 or 15 of them - but GM stopped making them and didn't replace them with anything. We started buying Fords.

    Wow. Maybe we should ask the admins to move the tail end of this thread to it's own thread!

    Slightly back on topic - I'm considering putting lights in the cars on the highway - I suppose you could even have them blink for signals and brake lights automatically. But in the end, yes, they are static even if they appear to have animation. They're just stuck at the intersection making a left turn for eternity. And really, that's the case with any animation too - it only APPEARS to be in motion. Even a moving Ferris wheel is full of frozen people being shuttled by a frozen operator. His feet are probably killing him ..

    Maybe the OP was right. :LOL:

    .
     
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  12. acptulsa

    acptulsa TrainBoard Member

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    *Raises hand*

    Funny how our memories make everything nicer than it was, isn't it?

    Um, Corvair? Aluminum Buick V-8s that the British had to fix? The Turboglide?

    GM has been making junk for years. Admittedly they got better at it in the 70s and 80s. Vega, Olds diesel, V-8-6-4, Citation and other X-cars--they really got on a roll, there...

    But, yeah, we might as well put self-driving cars on our layouts. We're about to have them in our garages. Whether we want them or not!
     
  13. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    True. The Safari does get overlooked. :(
     
  14. r_i_straw

    r_i_straw Mostly N Scale Staff Member

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    I recall an NTRAK convention in Orlando, Florida back in the early 1990s. One guy, who had modules set up near mine was big on animation. There was a scene where heavy equipment was moving about, back and forth. That was kind of cool but the sound FX timed to go with the action was distracting. The bulldozer sounded like an elephant with severe flatulence every time it lurched forward. And he had large speakers and an amplifier under his modules to ensure everyone heard it. Whenever he would leave the layout room, someone would reach under and turn the volume down to a more "scale" level. When he returned he would get mad and turn it back up. The layout organizers would not speak to him about it until we had a revolt and everyone stopped running trains. But even at low decibels it got on your nerves.
     
  15. Mike VE2TRV

    Mike VE2TRV TrainBoard Member

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    Well, anything on a layout has to be in proportion, reasonably. Some enthusiastic fellows might be turned on by bulldozers and love to crank up the volume on construction equipment. I may have a cure for them... make them stay in an apartment on a street where there's construction 24/7 with nice, loud equipment, including bulldozers. There's plenty of that in Montreal over the last several years.

    As with anything else, too much is a bad thing. Except Alcos - that's entirely another matter. You can never have too many Alcos. ;)

    '67 Impala? My Dad once had a '68 Bel-Air, 283 V8, an indestructible tank. When he finally got rid of it, the engine and tranny were sold before he drove it to the salvage yard.

    One of the main reasons police turned to Ford for their cruisers is that when Ford redesigned the Crown Vic in the early 90s, they did it from the ground up as a cop car. The civilian version is the same vehicle without the police options. I'm on my third Vicky... :)

    Cars of the 50s and 60s had character. That's why it's my modeling era of choice. Plenty of variety on the rails and on the road.
     
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  16. MarkInLA

    MarkInLA Permanently dispatched

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    Fine, but I am just trying to warn the hobby that it stands becoming diluted and robbed of its former self, its dignity on the high iron; the obvious focus on all things RR now only playing out a secondary scenic 'everything bagel' role in a huge animated diorama of life in the big city or life on the farm, with trains passing through, here and there, wheel arrangements like FEF, mogul, conny, mallet having gone the way of high top shoes and "Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco" barn roofs, and as obvious as the already disappearance of water towers, and steam itself in the newer contemporary now caboose-less RRing group. If more and more animated gadgets start hovering, rolling, Ice skating, ferris wheel riding, elephant trunk lifting, glass buildings with moving elevators, sailer puking, ships moving in and out of port, on and on, we then have become "Model Neighborhooders"...
    I am not here ordering, judging anyone's tastes in this great hobby. I am not putting you, you or even you down at all ! I'm asking our MRRing community to not further discard the core meaning of existence of the hobby. State of art technology is fine.. I love my NCE stuff
     
  17. MarkInLA

    MarkInLA Permanently dispatched

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    SORRY, above got posted somehow before I was about to finish ...I love my NCE stuff, all its DCC attributes. I'm only saying, beware of making model railroading into a drunken-zoo menagerie of animated eye candy....But, if that is your thing I still will say in your favor: 'tis each his own"..Capeesh ?
    .....But, of course more flaming at me instead of sensible, constructive discourse, is on its way as I click the 'Post Reply' button !!.........................
    As of this reply to bman I am bowing out of my own thread..I said what I said, You heard what you heard...Let'r rip ......I'm gone............M... 4/21/17
     
  18. MaxDaemon

    MaxDaemon TrainBoard Member

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    Well ... I'm still pretty new here, but I gotta say - Mark - if you think you got flamed, you've not spent much time on the internet! I was pleased at what a high level this entire thread cruised at. Not sure what you saw, Mark, but I saw a lot of people discussing the relative merits of your thoughts. And in the end, most people said "Thanks for the warning, but we'll go each our own way."

    I think your fears are for naught, Mark. In the end, it's the trains that bring the fascination. Making the whole scene move and breathe is one thing, but the train is the only truly living thing on anyone's layout.

    Technically, I'd think that a single piece of scale grass, or a rock wall would take away from the trains. Surely the train should just be .. the train.

    But. The lack of satisfaction just about all of us have with a simple bare piece of plywood with some track on it, is universal. We get the track down and the trains running, and we run trains through our partially completed scenes, but in the end, the challenge of making the perfect hill, or lake, or waterfall .. or blade of grass .. gives such satisfaction. Even though it's a bit player in the drama, who fades into the background when the star rolls past.

    None survives without the other. Just the scenery, or just the trains - is missing a vital part of the dance.

    The most beautifully animated fairgrounds with lions and tigers and bears - oh my, don't they roar! And the ferris wheel - you can practically hear the screams as people are lofted into the air - coming safely back to ground and then wafting off into the wind anew.

    Again .. but. How long will you stand and watch the ferris wheel? How many seconds does the tiger in it's cage grab your attention?

    No matter how intricate or perfectly ornamented the scenery is - it's still just the scenery. It's the train we follow, that we watch, that we yearn to be a part of.

    We ARE the train, "going places that we've never been, seeing things that we may never see again" and we'll be "gone 500 miles when the day is done".

    And there'll be a whole new scene outside the window when we wake.

    .
     
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  19. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Ooooo. Now this is a thoughful summary. Well said! :cool::notworthy:(y)(y)(y)
     
  20. RailMix

    RailMix TrainBoard Member

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    That would be very welcome. One thing I really would like more of on my HO scale roads is variety. I've often thought about conversions like CMW '55 Ford to '55 Mercury but haven't gotten around to it.

    Mike, my garage is a pretty chaotic place. What isn't taken up by old machine tools is occupied by a '54 Ford with a '56 Merc 312-4v and a 3 speed trans-the kind that has real gears, synchronizers, etc. I've owned it since high school. My daily driver is a '91 F150, and my wife's is a 2002 PT Cruiser. Before that, we had a 2001 Cruiser that ran 327,000 miles (2nd engine but original 5 speed gearbox) before a truck pulled out in front of me. Also once owned a '78 Lincoln Town Car along with a string of other mostly Ford stuff.
     
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