Jurassic Park: Park Model

joeyock

Member
How you all doing! A few years ago my brother was really into model trains and built a great table and bought all the stuff needed to make a pretty extravagant model train set, unfortunately he never got around to building it and now lives in another state. I recently came up with the idea to make a small scale jurassic park with working tour vehicles instead of trains in place where the train set was once supposed to go. The problem i know almost nothing about making train models and creating miniature worlds! I have a few books on all the how to's of making the landscape and environment so I'm gonna start reading up on those but the first thing I need is a layout of the park. I've added the dimensions of the table i will be working with and was hoping some of you would give suggestions as to where things should go.

Things that must be included:
visitor center
helli-pad w/ waterfall (most likely in one of the back corners)
main gate (obviously:cool)
pond or lake for herbivores
T-rex enclosure (also maybe in a corner?)
restrooms that Gennaro the lawyer uses
Nedry on hill with jeep and dilophosaurus
sick triceratops
other small enclosures


am I missing anything else important?

For the dinosaurs I will be using those detailed plastic toy dinos, I browsed ebay and found plenty of people selling lots of them for cheap.

The vehicles are going to be the biggest challenge as I can't find any toy Jpark vehicles that seem to be the right size. I have a suv similar to the explorers in shape that is a 1/38 scale and is pretty much perfect for what i want to do so I will be using that size vehicle. I will have to custom paint the explorers and jeeps once I find which toy I will be using but I have some experience in that area so I'm not to worried about it. I've looked into how to make the explorers run along tracks and what kind of track to use and I will most likely be using Lionel 'SuperStreet' which is used to power trucks and trollies on model train sets.

If ANYONE has any experience with model trains you could be of great help and share some of your knowledge! For now I shall start planning the layout! Please share any and all ideas!
 
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am I missing anything else important?
The raptor pen / loading dock is a must!

As for the layout, you can find some great maps of the island on jplegacy. Some of them conflict with each other, but you can get a general idea or pull some inspiration from them.
 
The raptor pen / loading dock is a must!

As for the layout, you can find some great maps of the island on jplegacy. Some of them conflict with each other, but you can get a general idea or pull some inspiration from them.

Of course the raptor pen! how could I forget!? but I dont know if the loading dock is going to be a possibility because of the shape of the table and limited space
 
A heli-pad with something rigged up to make it land/takeoff would be sweet.

EDIT: Somehow I missed your list... My bad.
 
I've been thinking about this, it's a really cool idea. In the book, there's a pretty good river scene, and you could make the waterfall connect to the lake with the river.

Also, how cool would it be to have the restroom walls able to lay flat, and have a little lawyer sitting on the toilet? Make it with a spring loaded mechanism, like one of these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0voYnEjFcQ

EDIT: Better linked video
 
Thats a nice idea... I had the same idea, years ago to build a park in my garden in 1:18 :facepalm

Stupid idea, so I just made 2 scaled models in 1:18 with the toy cars...

But smaller on a big plate would be great, too. You just need a lot of space...


Here are my 2 scaled models, maybe to use as inspiration... :)
 
I've been thinking about this, it's a really cool idea. In the book, there's a pretty good river scene, and you could make the waterfall connect to the lake with the river.

Also, how cool would it be to have the restroom walls able to lay flat, and have a little lawyer sitting on the toilet? Make it with a spring loaded mechanism, like one of these: Availabot - YouTube

EDIT: Better linked video

yes i was planning on having the lawyer in there! spring loaded walls would be really cool for that!
 
Thats a nice idea... I had the same idea, years ago to build a park in my garden in 1:18 :facepalm

Stupid idea, so I just made 2 scaled models in 1:18 with the toy cars...

But smaller on a big plate would be great, too. You just need a lot of space...


Here are my 2 scaled models, maybe to use as inspiration... :)

Thanks for the pics! gave me a little bit of an idea on how to make the fences! I started drawing the layout of where everything will go and realized i will need to set all of the track for the vehicles before i get started on building anything else so i'm going to a hobby shop either tuesday or wednesday to find out what track size to use so i can get to ordering that.
 
This may be of some use to you.
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Yes the power shed is a must! and thanks for the map, I've seen a few but i'll only be able to take elements from them unfortunately instead of using the same layout due to my tables shape. I do have a question though for anyone that can answer. The t-rex area is confusing to me... In the movie when they first pull up to it, it seems as if the ground inside the fence is at the same height as ground where the vehicles are but later after the rex gets out they attempt to climb down this enormous drop which appears to be in the t-rex cage. It's something that has confused me for a while can anyone shed some light on the subject?
 
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