LETS HAVE A VOTE : Is Plasticville products cheap?

[Anonymous]

Are Plasticville products cheap?

I VOTE YES ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !!!!!! !!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

What do you mean by cheap? Do you mean inexpensive? Or do you mean second rate?

[Anonymous]

If your making a voting thread... why not make a poll with it?

[Anonymous]

How do you do that? ? ? ?

[Anonymous]

Its an option when you post a thread

[brianel027]

I lilke the Plasticville products and am glad many have been reissued. The drawback I notice is that the plastic material currently being used is much less rigid than the older original issues: in the past I have bought a couple of the new reissues that have been warped right out of the box. The roofs and some walls needed to be braced with bass wood. Once I did this, they were fine. Still, kind of a drag and an extra step.

I am repainting and gluing mine together. I can't imagine some kid and his dad trying to just snap them together if the pieces are warped right of the box. Under this scenario, the K-Line building are better, though varying in size and scale quite a bit, I haven't had one that wouldn't just snap together as they are suppose to.

[ben10ben]

I've got enough old plasticville to say that it most definitely is not cheap. I have 50 year old pieces that still fit together like they were brand new, and look great.

By the way, with original Plasticville, I've found it helpful to glue it together using Elmer's glue. Because the pieces were designed with dovetail joints originally, the Elmer's glue is just sticky enough to give them excellent structural integrity. When finished, the piece will snap apart with only a little bit more force than originally required, and all traces of the glue will flake off with the help of a fingernail.

I can't comment on new Plasticville, as I don't have any experience.

[Jim Duda]

[nitroboy]

90% of the bulings on my layout are Plasticville. They fit my layout and my budget. What could be better???

[Dave Farquhar]

In the 1950s, it was what most people had. It all depends on what you're wanting. If you want a traditional 1950s layout, use Plasticville and/or the snap-together K-Line buildings. If you want a scale-appearing hirail layout, you won't get that look with Plasticville unless you paint the buildings and weather them a bit. Or you can pay $40 for Walthers and MTH buildings that are just slightly better, but really you have to paint and weather them for them to look good too.

But I know people who are perfectly happy with Hershey and Campbell Soup tins that are made to (sort of) look like buildings on their layouts because they like the tinplate look. There's a guy on another forum I frequent who builds all of his own structures out of discarded cereal boxes. To them, Plasticville is costlier than what they use but it doesn't matter because it's not the look they're after. That's part of what this hobby is all about: Figuring out what you like and then building it, and (hopefully) not letting anyone tell you what you should like and not like.

[bogaziddy]

Original Plasticville that you find at train shows is definitely NOT cheap, at least in terms of the price you pay. As far as quality is concerned, there certainly are better, more realistic looking products out there. What it all boils down to, I suppose, is the effect you're trying create. A great number of us had Plasticville buildings on our toy train empires when we were children. If you're recreating a layout that takes you back to your childhood then the issues of cheapness and quality are of little importance ... you want the impression and warm fuzzy feelings that the nostalgic Plasticville buildings emote.

The apparent 'cheapness', quality, and adherence to scale proportion are moot points. If you're building a Hi-Rail layout that employs 'Standard O' and semi-scale rolling stock, Plasticville buildings seem undersized. However, Plasticville is quite a bit more suitable for 'traditional' sized rolling stock and O-27 layouts. I am operating a mix of Standard O and traditional-sized three rail equipment and have a fair amount of plastiville buildings that I place at some distance from the tracks so that their disproportionate size is not as noticeable. If rivet counters want to criticize my use of Plasticville that's fine. After all, my layout is for ME. I'm the one who has to live with it and I'm perfectly happy to trade the short-comings of Plasticville (whatever they might be) for the nostagic warmth emanated by those wonderfully 'mediocre' plastic buildings. Their presence on my layout takes me back to when I was a young boy. So if anyone wants to knock Plasticville, they must have their own reasons. As for me, what those old products give me is worth whatever smirks the rivet counters might make when they see my set-up. To be a little more blunt, I just couldn't give a Rat's less. [soapbox]

Respectfully,
The High Bogaziddy Mahesh Maserati, TOP RAMEN!

[ChiefEagles]

Still got mine that Santa brought me in 1952 with my Lionel Hudson. Still good and they have been stored twice.

[prewardude]

I vote for cheap. Can you imagine a plastic #840 Power Station? Then again, I am biased... [;)]

[laz 57]

Plasticville is good for different looks, I just got all the Lionelville houses and stores very cheap.(price wise they only cost me $165 foe seventeen houses) These give the layout a different more finished look.
Laz 57

[Anonymous]

cheap - yes.... but the real nice stuff is mostly way overpriced IMO.......