Proportional N Scale Buildings and Vehicles

[Anonymous]

What manufacturer makes the most proportionally accurate buildings and vehicles? Walthers seems good. Bachman and Model Power seem small to me. European stuff also seems to run on the small side.

[DSchmitt]

Buildings:

Walthers, Design Preservation Minatures (brick busines and brick industrial) , Heljen (many of the Walthers business dist buildings are Heljen), American Model Builders, Bar Mills, Blair Line, Micro Structures (modern steel), Pike Stuff (modern steel), Nu-Comp (house trailers), N Scale Architect. Con Cor has a few that are ok.

actually most "craftsman" structure kits although many are small prototypes.

Vehicles:

Athearn, Atlas, Busch (European), Classic Metal Works, GHQ (pewter kits) Herpa (European), Kato (Japanese), Micro Art (early 1900's photo etched kits) Pirate Models (busses), Railway Express Minatures (RR maint & const equip), Showcase Minatures, Wiking (European)

Many of the European are suitable for modern USA as are the Kato

[Roadtrp]

Measure and convert before you decide one way or the other. Many times trains end up being larger compared to people and buildings than what you would expect.

I've used quite a few Bachmann N scale build-up structures. I also thought they seemed a bit smaller than they should be. Until I measured... a two story house from ground to eaves measured 1.5 inches, which converts to 20 feet in N scale. If you figure 8 feet for a standard residential story, a foot to a foot and a half at the base for cement block and another foot or so between floors, and the scale ends up dead on.

I also wondered if the figures I bought were really in scale. They seemed so danged small that I just couldn’t imagine they would be. Once again I measured and found that they were actually quite accurate.

Converting to scale is pretty easy. Take the actual measurement in inches, multiply by 160 and divide by 12 and you will have the N scale measurement in feet.