One prime area for museum operations to "get away" with such gags is on a display model railroad. Look hard enough at almost any large permanent display layout, and you'll see obvious pranks, inside jokes, and hidden jokes squirrelled away.

At the Baltimore Streetcar Museum, for example, the O-scale layout includes a mock-up of the very building the visitor is standing in (repurposed from the original architect's model, I believe), and the movie theater marquee shows long-time transit preservationist Carvey Davis "starring" in "BALTIMORE STREETCAR FILMS". "Easter eggs" I have seen on other layouts include "Where's Waldo" hidden in the layout as a challenge for kids, a crashed flying saucer, a dinosaur peering out from the woods, a sea serpent in the river or harbor, various odd cars including "Thomas" and the miniature office car riding on a single six-wheel truck, and much more. Of course, if you don't have to deal with the public, you can put a topless sunbather or nudist on the club layout.....

On our last excursion, we played with the idea of patching Bennett Levin's E8s for Conrail. (Think black patches with slanty "CR" on them). We had gotten material before that was removable, so it could be done, but we didn't think Bennett would have appreciated it much. Would have given the Railfans a heart attack though. (They had enough of one with the Amtrak unit behind the E8s as it was!

The real question is... does the building model have a model of the layout inside?

http://recursivelyrecursive.wordpress.c ... n-layouts/

Ah, so that was you! Flyer fan that I am, I always thought that was pretty funny. The locomotive in question wasn't ex-RI, it's an ex-L&N FA2 that is now at IRM. The lettering on the nose got covered over pretty quickly but I believe the "Built By Gilbert" may still be on the engine.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1030576

Bennett's son Eric works for ConRail.

Frank -

Thanks for clarifying this. I had never heard of a Rock Island ALCO FA surviving and that would have been remarkable if it had been true. For the record, EMD later rebuilt all of the Rock's units but they still looked like FA's right to the end.

Les

Oh, so you say. On that monster model railroad in Hamburg, Germany (Miniature Wunderland) there are several "tableaux" (among the thousand of them) that feature fully nude (and unshaven) sun worshippers and even a couple who are--coupled.

Only in Germany and Europe.

At IRM years ago, some people in the steam department rigged up a giant rotating wind up key and put it in the coal bunker of the shay. It was motorized, using a motor from a grocery store display, so the key slowly rotated around.

Also at IRM, one person make a "Cockfosters" destination sign for the CA&E 36 this past summer.

One year, for Member's Day, I operated the Vera Cruz open at IRM with Frank and Randall Hicks. Every time Randall ran the car, I'd put a "DANGER-Student Operator" sign on the back that came from Cleveland. He didn't realize we were doing this until the end of the day.

Les,
Sorry about that, I was working from memory, and I remembered the "Island" part of the lettering, just not the "Long" --- Oh well, what do you expect from a steam fan??
Amazing, looks like they've not done a thing to it so far. Except, I guess touching up the nose--must be some Lionel fans there! :)
Ah just looked at your album, and the nose shot--there used to be a patch panel over the lower headlight recess, and that's where I'd put "American Flyer Lines". I liked my "Lionel Fan" theory better! :)

David -

No problem. I figured if a Rock Island 2700 series commuter coach surprisingly survived, maybe an FA did too!

Hmmm! Since IRM hasn't really done anything with their FA, maybe they would consider deaccessioning it again. We have this LIRR fan at our museum...........!

Les

Actually, it was put on top of the water tank, while the crew had a "pit stop" during a marathon switch move the night prior to a holiday weekend.

The response from the crew, when they finally noticed it quite a while later, was clearly audible 1/4 mile away, at "Illegal Acres".

Jeff
Guilty Party, Illinois

A joke that pops up in the UK on occasion:
Student drivers still on a provisional licence are required to identify their car with a large white sign with a red capital "L" on the rear, so as to encourage other drivers to not run them off the--errr, to have patience with their inexperience.

This has, naturally, become a national joke, with white "L" signs showing up on rookies/trainees of all sorts, including the occasional heritage line locomotive......

We've all got used containers that we got from somewhere. Sometimes they need paint. Paint one with the Blue Sun logo. Even a Firefly fan is going to take about 3 passes til it hits him.

Or if that's too obscure, Black Mesa.

I know of a guy who has several CONEX boxes on his property, all of which are painted with fictional markings. He has several Battlestar Galactica themed ones. I've seen one marked as "Eversun Space Lines," I need to look those up again...

I've seen false numbers welded or stamped, intentionally, onto re-railing frogs and other parts of lost engines from the same class, just to get people excited.