The layout that you saw is owned by a friend of mine.
The movie theatre building is constructed from a plastic model kit built without the base. It has the walls washed so that it looks like mortar between the bricks and there is even graffiti on the side of the building. The movie screen is a 2-1/2" x 3-3/4" original silver screen which does not fade like a LCD color screen of a small hand-held TV. BTW, This was build in 1980. Yes, it is possible to show a wide screen movie. You can also hear the sound of the movie coming from the front doors.
The movie is a full length movie of any choice you may have. It was on display at the NMRA convention in Colorado Springs, CO at or about 1980. The marque has a chase set of lights that flow from the top to the bottom and the name of the movie appears with a lighted background.
Next to the hotel across the street is the Glass Hole bar. This building was also a plastic model built without the base. The inside has 2 window boxes in which one has a "Coors" neon sign in it and the other has the bar name "Glass Hole" which only has the "ass" in Glass lit up by the neon. The sign is broken. These signs flash on and off.
There are several sets of auto traffic street lights with the overhead boom, much like the ones you see in major cities. These lights change from red to green, then yellow and back to red. On the major two lane road, there are two overhead signals (street name is Sex Drive) with a left turn arrow. All upright posts have another two signal heads on them too. All of this was hand built and even the brake lights come on when the lights turn yellow as the cars approach the intersection. In the other direction, the brake lights go out as the lights turn green.
There is a tall building tower with a chase sign 1that travels around the top like that at the Stock Exchange in NY. The message on the chase sign can be changed to whatever message you might want.
Most of the box cars have a connector where a miniature flashing red light lantern can be attached. This is the replacement to the caboose in train traffic now days.
Yes there is an airport off to the end of the layout. This is a small airport, however it does have all the runway lights and even a control tower where the blue and white lights rotate. The blue and white lights were used as it is a military airport. Also the Flight-for-Life helicopter is kept there. This helicopter is hand carved from a 1" rod of plastic and the upper blade spins slowly with the use of magnets. The runners of the helicopter are attached to the marker LED leads which light up while it sets on the layout.
City Hall has an elaborate side of the building lit and can be easily set up for a Christmas lighting scene.
An auto dealership has the parking lot lit up with a number of grain of rice bulbs. There is also a ball field that will work as either football or baseball that is lit with a number of white LEDs
Blue and red LEDs are used on the light bars on the fire and police cars that are operating throughout the layout. (One where the police has stopped a car, some fire trucks and police cars are at a burning house where smoke is coming out of the house and the firemen are using water to put the fire out.)
Church bells ring every hour at the church. The power wires that are strung from pole to pole for the city street lights carry live power. There is a number of buildings that have building signs which was made using plastic cast molds and small lights, like McDonalds and Taco Bell. Some of the houses and apartments have the flashing blue TV screens on as the residents watch TV. Water in the small river appears to be moving. It uses layered plastic and LEDs. Towers and tall buildings have a flashing red light on top for the warning light for planes. When the room lights go down, stars appear in the sky, headlights on all cars come on and the various business have their outside lights come on too. Crossing signals work at each marked rail crossing that has lighted signals. The parking ticket police have their vehicle with a yellow light flashing while issuing a parking ticket. In the mountains, there is a snow plow that has blue flashing lights on it. There isn't much animation in attaching an airplane to a wire and the wire to a boy that would be mounted on a motor to make it look like he is flying a model air plane. The windmill was about the same, however the windmill use would be more effective if it were in the country. This was also a simple motor attached to the fan of a windmill through the shaft that goes up through the layout..
There is a number of other projects that are half started that is currently being worked on. There has been written documentation of how these all work.
The company that makes building signs uses a plastic mold that is cast over small bulbs. Generic signs are more available, like HOTEL and MOTEL. The building signs used by my friend are custom made for my friends layout and not something that is generic. The fluorescent signs that they make are similar to the12V buss type bulbs you can buy at an electronics shop, except Radio Shack. Their animation of moving lights involve the appearance of two or three holes in the sign with a bulb behind to light it up on a strobe. None of this is new as I worked with a friend who actually built a switch that would switch 3 amps of power with the use of a 1 microvolt signal in 1962, much like transistors do today.
True model railroading involves a lot of animation. Putting some track together and running a train around the track without any animation is no more than toy trains, much like the father who wanted a train set for his son for Christmas. All he really wanted to do was run a train around the Christmas tree. Of course when his son gets older, his son can put together the track, set a few pre-built buildings on the floor and play toy trains too.
The word "model" in model railroading means to re-create in a smaller or similar to life-like manor. There is nothing life-like about a piece of plastic that can not simulate the operation of something. Even three rail track has not got a life-like example.