Building a Town

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have any thoughts on who has the best O scale model buildings? All I can seem to find in my local stores are Plasticville. However I keep seeing DPM and Walthers on the Internet. I am starting the put together a town and I am not quite handy enough to build buildings from scratch. I would like to find something that is a little more durable that simple snap together.

Your comments are appreciated.
Roy

[Anonymous]

The Walthers buildings are nice, but you can see them everywhere. I don't know if DPM makes O scale stuff, but they are a good choice if you want turn of the (20th) century buildings. Their "modular" nature also makes them easy to kitbash, and you can make your own with their actual modular series of parts.

Scratch building is not as hard as you may think. With the styrene shapes and siding, plus all kinds of dimensional wood and scribed wood siding, it is just a question of supplying your own plans. You can find all kinds of things on the internet. Here are two good ones to start you off:

http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/abeng/plans/
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/hhhtml/hhhome.html

Start with something small, like a shed or garage, or even a little outhouse! Then you can work your way up to the massive factory, or highly detailed Victorian gingerbread house. Good luck, and have fun!

Andrew

[DSchmitt]

O scale building are a lot harder to find than HO and N scale. Even shops that carry the scale usually don't have a large selection.

Placticville buildings are toys but with a little work some can be used as the starting point into respectable models.

DPM has a few nice kits. There brick industrial buildings are modular.

Walthers has a nice,not large, but expanding selection of models, both built-up and kits.

Atlas has a couple RR structures

Mikes Train House and K-line also make building, which can be used, (especially the MTH)

There are also a lot of expensive craftsman kits available too.

Check out this site http://www.valleymodeltrains.com/

[Anonymous]

Roy:

At some point in time you will likely want to do some scratch building, so why not now?

All towns have a range of buildings, from simple to complex. You might begin with a simple out-building, one with 4 equal walls, a window or two, and a slant tar paper roof. Materials cost would be a dollar or two. Your next project might be as much more complex as you are comfortable with. Over time you would have a respectable entirely individual town at a low cost in comparison to the cost of kits.

Give the idea some thought.

Randy

[Anonymous]

I am not O scale. (I do own some O scale in storage) My thought is to consider the contents of a kit as a starting point. Dont blindly follow the name of the kit. For example, "Gas Station" if it represents a older era you could use it on a modern pike as a Antique store.

Towns generally follow the track. You would have a depot which is very near the heart of the town. Usually a Drug Store, Dentist, Bank, Hardware, Tavern, and several "Flats" or residences.

Cities were there first the track came later. Which is why sometimes you find a Locomotive and 8 cars lumbering down a city street that seems to fill the entire space from curb to curb.

My two cents

Lee

[Anonymous]

I have been looking hard at the DPM modular buildings and I may start with a simple single story one of those. They really seem to make it simple, allowing you to download paper templates. Then you print them on card stock and glue them together. Since I am a little techno savy I opened the template in Adobe Photoshop and colored them on the computer before I printed them on my inkjet printer. The templates look pretty slick colored.