Dept. 56 buildings with"O" gauge trains

[USNRol]

Almost pulled the trigger on this lot of Dept 56 buildings for use in a PE Christmas layout for next year...but waved-off at the last minute...price seemed good though.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140115226130&ssPageName=ADME:L:DBS:US:14

Does anyone know if these buildings woulda been the right size next to the Polar Express?

Are all Dept 56 buildings and figures the same scale? anyone use them on their layouts?

Thanks,
Roland

[Anonymous]

  Dept. 56 has become the plasticville for Christmas layouts. They are beautifull buildings that are quite proportianal to O guage. They have an extremely large line and some of them are quite collectable. My favorite is the Lionel train shop. Also look for Dickens Village as well as a few other companies that offer porcilan buildings.

[spankybird]

Many of Dept 56 buildings are fine for O Gauge layouts. I use many of them on my Christmas layout and seveal on my large layout.

 No not all the buildings are the same size.

 Most of the people are more G scale size and way to large for O gauge. The exception is "Seasons by the Sea" line. These were made very close to O Gauge. Too bad they are no longer being made.

 BTW - so far that looks like a good deal.

Here is a pic of Dept 56 train station and my 4-4-0

Here is a Church that I use

These people are from 'Seasons by the Sea'

These horse drawn wagons are also from 'Seasons by the Sea'

tom

 

[Anonymous]

Those look great. I've been thinking of getting some of those myself for Christmas too.

[Brutus]

I've got a bunch of their Halloween Village stuff for use with my Lionel Transylvania locomotive, docksider, and cars they put out over the past 2 years or so.  The Dept 56 people are oversized, but they are toy trains after all so I just use them anyway.

[Dave Farquhar]

My wife bought a few secondhand Dept 56 buildings 3-4 years ago. We use them on the Christmas layout. She got some houses, a store and a church. The church is a little small but the others are about perfect. I'm the only one who ever noticed though. We use some of the cheaper buildings too. We go to hundreds of garage/yard sales every year, so we find them and never pay a whole lot for them.

For figures, we use the Cobblestone Corners figures from Dollar Tree. They're sized just about right--anywhere between 1.25 and 1.5 inches. So they're great for O scale, borderline for S, and look great with the Dept 56 and similar buildings. Buy them early though, because the stock sells out fast. One year I saw them at Dollar Tree in July or August. It's a good thing I bought some then because you won't be able to find them at all come November. They come 4-5 to a package for $1, so for $25 you can have more figures than you know what to do with. I've also seen similar figures (appear to be from the same molds) at Walgreen's and Big Lots.

[fifedog]

I have mixed quite a few DEPT 56 structures on my winter layout with good results.  I use ebay only to see what's available out there, and have recently ordered from DINKYTOWN of TEXAS with good results (good prices too on discontinued pieces).

The figures though tend to be G scale in size, so they stay in the box...

[jonadel]

Here's a link to our album using lots of D56 buildings, we do like them.

http://jands.logicalgeek.com/main.php

Here's another link to a video I made, give another view of the layout.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2kTgHQLN5k

Jon

Sorry about that 2nd link, here's the correct one

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7113039967492295449&pr=goog-sl

[Brutus]

Awesome layout, Jon - really wonderful!

[jonadel]

Thanks Jim for the kind response, it's appreciated. We had so much fun building the layout it surprised both of us, in fact--we enjoyed the building of it more than just going down and running it. I REALLY want to tear it down and do one more, not sure when but it will happen. Maybe one more year.

The big question for us will be if we continue to use MTH Realtrax, I have a lot invested in that track and switches, not sure if I could recover half of my money if I tried to sell it. Had I known it was going to get that big I would have used Gargraves track and Ross switches to begin with, oh well, hindsight is always 20/20.

Thanks again.

Jon

[rogruth]

Lowes, Michaels and Walmart all have similar buildings for sale during the Christmas season that are much less costly than Dept.56. Iuse the cheaper ones on my Christmas layout.

[USNRol]

Thanks everyone for the great feedback!  Spanky and JOn have definitely shown me that the Dept. 56 buildings can look excellent next to O gauge trains!!  Thanks for posting the pics fellas.  Rogruth, I'm gonna keep an eye out for those cheaper buildings you mention but the next time I see a good eBay deal on the dickens village buildings like the one at the top of this thread I'm gonna jump on it I think.

Can't wait to see the PE snaking through lighted buildings on top of a snowy field with the trainsounds tender this winter!

Roland

[fifedog]

...don't forget to pick up lots of evergreens, and a pack of wolves.

[cnw1995]

It is amazing where you might find the off-brand ceramic buildings - Walgreens in the heart of Chicago's Loop half a block from my office has 'em; as mentioned, dollar stores, Michaels Crafts, Hobby Lobby, K-Mart, Lowes, Home Depot, Wal-mart are just a few of the places I've found 'em. I've also found pretty-close-to-scale decorative birdhouses that are useful for kitbashing. I've turned them around - so that the loading dock side faces the track; I've recolored them so you can't see the 'snow'; relettered signs on them; reroofed them, all sorts of things. I've also taken the lights (temporarily) out of a few so a distant village of 'em looks better - no town has all its lights on all the time IMHO.

[Dr. John]

Collecting Dept. 56 and Lemax buildings has been a way for my wife to take a small interest in my train hobby, at least around Christmas. I have a modest collection, mostly purchased second-hand or on sale. I do think that some of the more recent Lemax offerings are about as nice as the Dept. 56 for less $$$. Even though the scale sizes of the building vary, the lights and the charm factor more than make up for that, at least for me and the missus.

[USNRol]

...don't forget to pick up lots of evergreens, and a pack of wolves.

Oh yea!!  Great idea...forgot about that bit from the movie

I have a Lowes and a Michael's near me and seem to remember seeing the houses mentioned above...I'll be taking a much closer look next time.

Roland

[phillyreading]

I use some Dept. 56 accessories on my layout.  Most of the Dept. 56 I bought at a Hallmark Card shop in Stuart FL, other stuff I bought in Ft. Lauderdale FL at Warrick's Hobby shop.  By the time I get to Wal-Mart all the good stuff is gone!

The good thing about Dept. 56 buildings is that you don't have to worry about warping plastic like with Plasticville when you put a light inside.

Lee F.

[dwiemer]

A few thoughts,  K-Line used to sell several ceramic structures made by Lemax...I use to buy them for about $5.00 cheaper without K-line's boxing at Sears and Michael's.  If you watch around October, Michael's will have them in stock.  Watch for special adds in the paper as they will sell quickly.  I always check what is out and some items you know will sell out quickly, like the Ferris Wheel.  Pick those up, and the ones that will likely be left at the end of the season can be picked up for 60% off.  They also have some great accessories, like street lights and RR crossing signals.  Another good idea is to go to WalMart and check out the back section where the Christmas lights and buildings are.  While I don't think most of their buildings are as close to scale as Lemax and Dept.56, get some of the multiple light sets that allow for 5 of the building lights on one string.  This will reduce the number of outlets you need.

Thanks to Jon, when my bride and I first saw his layout a few years ago, we decided to both get involved in the train/building hobby(ies).  I think he has a first rate layout.

Dennis

[fifedog]

Roland - Be sure to check JoAnn's Fabrics too, usually they start stocking their shelves right around back-to-school.

[jonadel]

Dennis, your response takes me back a few years to when we got serious about building a permanent layout. Sharyl had several D56 bldgs. as she really enjoys Christmas In The City Villages because she just goes crazy decorating our home for the Christmas celebration. Our layout really is designed around the D56 buildings in the west room and of course that was where we began. We enjoy the warm colors of the buildings and the detail is excellent, while not inexpensive we found that by shopping around and buying when we could that the value was worth it to us. But more importantly, as you found out, it involved both of us in the hobby and that's where the real joy is. I can't imagine that either one of us would enjoy this hobby as much as we do without the sharing that we have experienced by working together.

Our next goal is to replace the giant people that D56 utilizes, they really are hilarious when you put them on the layout. I ran the trains for the first time this afternoon in several weeks, it sure felt good. There are three times of the year when I'm super busy (even though I'm supposed to be retired) and as of last Saturday I am now in a relaxed period until Sept., thank goodness.

The D56 bldgs. were a very important part of our beginning of our permanent layout and we enjoy them as much today as we did on day one.

Jon

[USNRol]

Roland - Be sure to check JoAnn's Fabrics too, usually they start stocking their shelves right around back-to-school.

Will do...sounds like a convienient place to pick up some of that snow fabric I want to use too!
Roland