Model Railroading > The most important MR detail item?

In roaming around to get reference photos for the HO scale layout it always seems a particular item will show up in the most unexpected places. The item- a shopping cart. I have seen these out along the RR, in people's yards, along the road, etc. Yesterday I noticed a "cool" looking pile of junk along the NS and took some telephoto shots. I didn't notice it right away, but sure enough in the pile of crates, tires, an old switch machine, tie plates, joint bars, and old lubricator of some type and other various flotsam and jetsam what do I see- a shopping cart! I would love to hear the story of how this cart wound up in this pile of debris.

Rob Bennett
Fairview, PA

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Gold Medal Models makes them in HO and N scales from etched stainless.  They can be beat and battered.  Or new they will stack like the real thing.  A bit pricey to do a Kroger lot. But certainly afordable for a dump, frat house or where ever a single might appear.  From the site they are $9 for four HO scale or $8 for 8 N scale.

The Gold Metal Models one is tedious to put together, but looks really great. One of the ones I made has scrap metal that an old woman is pushing around.

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Great scene!!

Sometimes the homeless will place a shopping cart on tracks, hoping it'll get hit by a train--- been there, hit that. The cart in your photo might of been saved before its demise.

Posted from Android

How do shopping carts end up in strange places? Because people steal them. While some of that action might involve scrappers, I suspect it's most common among people who walk to local markets, and then decide they need a little help to get their groceries home. Once they get home, though, they have no further use for the cart, and it ends up discarded somewhere. Perhaps near the tracks or, where I grew up in suburban New York, in the nearby creek. Those carts cost the stores a fair amount when they're stolen, too.

The supermarkets in that area eventually put up bollards so carts couldn't even be taken out in their parking lots, much less off the property. The one closest to me now recently fitted its carts with RFID-type devices that lock up one of the wheels if they get too far from the radio transmitter.
 

Out here in California at least there are a number of companies that retrieve shopping carts that have "wondered away" form the store parking lot.
I believe they get paid a bounty for each cart they return.

Looked online..Approx $185 to $300 depending on a lot of styles and finishes.  About $50 paid for a recovery if they do a buy back.
Roger Beckett

That is a super looking model shopping cart. Thanks for posting! In the Boston area Roche Bros.
Supermarkets  have minimized the problem of misappropriated carts.  Their checkout system is
unlike any others in this area. The carts  are only about one foot deep and the bottom of the cart
lines up with the check out counter.  When it's your turn, the cashier raises the hinged front and it
slides under the basket. He//she removes the items from the cart, scans it and it goes down the
belt to the bagger. When the cart is empty it is rolled out  to  the bagger who places bags in cart
who then walks out to your car and places them in your trunk and takes the cart back to the store.
Not a chance the cart is going to disappear, Of course, this system comes with a price.  It is a hard
adjustment  to accept  when you move away from the area where Roche has a presence.  Roche
Bros. has such a generous community attitude, that if in the rare instance one of their carts appears
in your front yard, you almost feel the obligation to walk it back to the market yourself.. Anyone
else have a market with this system??
Frank30 (Boston)

Frank30 Wrote:
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...Their checkout system is
> unlike any others in this area. The carts  are
> only about one foot deep and the bottom of the
> cart
> lines up with the check out counter.  When it's
> your turn, the cashier raises the hinged front and
> it
> slides under the basket. He//she removes the items
> from the cart, scans it and it goes down the
> belt to the bagger. When the cart is empty it is
> rolled out  to  the bagger who places bags in
> cart
> who then walks out to your car and places them in
> your trunk and takes the cart back to the store....
.. Anyone
> else have a market with this system??
> Frank30 (Boston)

That is the System that was in place at the Piggly Wiggly I worked at in the late '70s. Nice to know there is still a store with that level of service. Closest thing we have here in Atlanta are the Publix stores, but still not the level of service you mentioned.

Jay

Getting back to the original question of how that prototype cart got into the prototype junk pile, the model photo pretty much answers that, eh?

Here in Whitttier, CA we have a Smart & Final Grocery Store that has a special wheel lock the drops in place when the cart goes over a powered loop of wire embedded in the perimiter of the parking lot.
Very effective, if I may say so!

James R.(Jim) Baker
Whittier, CA