I've driven past the caboose a few times I think , Is Blaine between Mars Hill and PI ? Last time I saw it the car was for sale and needed paint BADLY. I'm not familier with brill trolleys on the AVR , I know that they had a snowplow that was built from a GE steeplcab electric. I assume you will be doing the interchange at Washburn ?
<B>Randy Stahl:</B>
Hi Randy. Yes, I well remember the AVR. There IS a book on it! It's called "Aroostook Valley Railroad-History of The Potatoland Interurban in Northern Maine", by Charles. D. Heseltine and Edwin B. Robertson. Small, paperbound book of 92 pages, lots of photos & a copy of their rolling stock & loco roster. I just recently found & bought a copy on Ebay.
My layout is transition era (mid 1950's) after the AVR dismantled their overhead electric lines & went all Diesel. But, one of their Brill Trolleys sat on a side spur near the engine house for many years, well into the 50's, before it went to the Kennebunk Trolley Museum where it now resides. So, eventually I'll pick up a Brill Trolley (a dummy unti, if I can find one), redo it in AVR markings & put it in the layout.
AVR's last Caboose, #7, was a wood, 2-window Caboose they had purchased from the CP. Looked for a long time for a DECENT kit or RTR of one. (Don't like True-Lines version). Finally found on Ebay (and I was the winning bidder) a partially finished all wood kit made many moons ago by Custom Trains of Dartmouth, NS. It's THE exact Caboose type as AVR's #7. A man in New Jersey had the kit. The body is all assembled & he did a fabulous job. Need to complete the detail parts, railings, ladders & roof walk. I will do her up as AVR #7.
The real AVR #7 still exists. She's privately owned & sits in a guy's back yard up in Blaine, Maine.
"I could never belong to any club that would have me as a member."
I usually do ignore signage & minor kit details and look at any given kit for the kitbashing potential. I recently bought the Walther's Cornerstone kit if "Bill's Glass Shop". With the exception of the signage & the need for a few additional side windows, the building is virtually identical to the offices co-habitated by the Aroostook Valley Railroad and the now defunct Maine Public Service Company.
Thanks for the tip off on the new Walthers Car Dealership kit. That is VERY much like a Chevy/GMC dealership that once stood up in Caribou, Maine back in the 1950's. Some very minimal kitbashing will do the trick on that one. I'll be buying one of those when they're released. I make a lot of my own signage. Making your own signage decals is actually fairly simple. All you need is any good computer printer, some clear-backed decal paper (available through Staples & other office supply stores) and microset decal solution. Properly size your decal image, print it out, treat it with micro-set solution, let it dry a couple hours & you're good to go!
Wow, I didn't know anyone else knew about the AVR . I know several ex AVR employees and spent a good deal of time "chasing" the AVR right of way. It would be neat to add some trolley cars !!!
Randy
The City Classics grocery store is one of my favorites:
It's a simple kit to build. I added my own interior because it has nice, big windows to see through.
A lot of structures are what they are just because of the signs you put on them. DPM's "Pam's Pet Shop," for example, is just a small two-story building with a storefront. It doesn't even come with signs, so I made mine a train shop. With some signs and perhaps a reconstructed Emergency Room entrance, the DPM "M.T. Arms Hotel" kit could easily be a hospital.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
This is one area that seems to be a problem for many modelers; a lack of the specific models they want to model, and it reminds me of my days as a drag racer; if there was something we needed, we made it. There are plenty of pictures, plans, etc. of a plethora (ya like that word?) and plenty of modeling materials. I'm going to model our little church. There are NO models that come close, so I'll be ordering the materials to scratchbuild it.
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR
I think the answer to where to find these kits is to consider kitbashing. I rarely build structures without making some kind of modification or just totally re-purposing the kit.
Here are a few suggestions
1. This one's a five-and-dime, but with new signage would make a credible grocery store:
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3464
2. For a medium sized brick school, using either the DPM or Walthers modular brick walls parts could yield whatever size school you need.
3. Ditto for a hospital.
4. You're in luck. Walthers has a car dealer on the way. It's for imports, but could just as easily be domestic cars with changing the signage:
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-4023
Then there's a older kit available as a built-up, but can probably still be found as a kit:
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/931-805
So my tip would be to ignore what the box says it is supposed to be and consider if the parts have possibilities for conversion to what you need. With plastic, it's usually a pretty easy deal to move things around, add on, or cut off things as needed.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Aurora offered this HO scale shool in the 1960's.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Aurora-School-House-Complete-In-Original-Box-/320921265042?pt=Slot_Cars&hash=item4ab865e392
As you can see, they can still be had on Ebay.
Sheldon
Hi Brakie;
Yes, we still have a few of those mom & pop roadside "homemade" ice cream stands up here in rural Maine, but they are fast disappearing. Also rapidly vanishing are the independently owned mom & pop type roadside burger stands & drive in eateries. There are still a few, but the chain fast food places have pushed them out. When I was growing up in the 50's, about the only "chain" fast foods we ever had up here were A & W Rootbeer Drive-ins and Dairy Queens. Everything else was pretty much local owned, mom & pop.
I agree there is many missing links that is sorely needed.How about those small Mom & Pop ice cream stands that appeared to be everywhere?
Another missing link that was everywhere was the Lawson's Dairy stores and Frisch's Big Boy restaurants.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
Hi Mobilman44;
Thanks for the welcome & the search tips. I'll give it a try on the Walther's site. I'm also looking for a reasonable facsimile of an engine house kit that I can kitbash into the engine house partially visible in my avatar photo. No luck yet. It's the engine house of the Aroostook Valley Railroad in Presque Isle, Maine. It was a shortline that operated from 1910-1996 in Northern Maine. Probably going to have to scratchbuild it. I have a few photos of the whole building & can get a good idea of scale dimensions from the 44 tonner parked in front of it. I have an undecorated Bachmann Spectrum 44 Tonner that I'm going to do up as AVR #12, as in the photo. The building itself is still standing & being used now as a truck terminal/maintenence shop. I'm hoping to take the 5 hour drive up there this summer & get some more good, detailed photos of it.
I grew up in Aroostook County, Maine & well remember the Aroostook Valley Railroad & their little 44 tonners shuffling freight cars up & down the valley. I'm primarily building a layout based on the Bangor & Aroostook. The Aroostook Valley Railroad had their yards right alongside the BAR's mainline in Presque Isle, so I'm incorporating their yards into the layout too.
Hi! And welcome to the forum!
I've been a kit builder since the '50s (planes, ships, cars, but primarily RR stuff) and have seen a remarkable surge in the number and variety of kits that have come up in the last 20 years.
Cornerstone has (in my opinion) been the leader in this for plastic kits. And of course there is a plethora of laser kit manufacturers that have started producing many new types of structures as well. The problem with many of the new laser kits is that they are not as well advertised as the Cornerstone kits and one often has to do some serious "looking" to find the various offerings.
The kits that you find lacking are probably right around the corner, or already out there but "hidden". I've found that by doing an "advanced search" on the Walthers site (leave mfg space blank) one can get a good idea as to what is out there. And of course, a Yahoo or Google search might pick up what Walthers doesn't carry.
Good Luck!
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
HO scale building & structure kits have come a long way in the past couple decades. There are now highly detailed, quality, craftsman kits for almost any type of structure...........Almost! There are a few areas of classic Americana that for some unknown reason have gone totally neglected by the kit manufacturers. I've always wondered why. I've searched the catalogs and online offerings of just about all of them & keep coming up with nothing. 1. Those of us that grew up in the transition era well remember the mid-size Grocery Stores that dotted the landscape of every town in America. There were the type of "supermarket" that pre-dated the huge, sprawling ones we have today. They were usually false front, brick structures, roughly about 60' wide & perhaps 80-100' long. The store marquee was usually located along the false front. Predominate among them were stores like A & P, First National and IGA. Just about every town had one or two of them. They are classic Americana, yet there are virtually no kits of these types of stores, that I know of. 2. Why does every manufacturer insist upon putting out a kit of "the little red one-room schoolhouse"? I live in the northeast, where there are a considerable number of these one-room schoolhouses still standing. I've seen very few that were red. Most are white, gray or just stained shingle. What about the typical school found in most small to mid-size towns of the transition era. Usually brick, two or three stories and intended to accomodate two or three hundred kids. Here again, I find almost no kits for these type of structures, yet they existed in nearly every town. 3. I can find virtually no kits of the typical mid-size town Hospital, yet most towns had one. In fact, except for a couple European versions, I can find no HO kits of any Hospitals. 4. Automobile Dealerships: If you grew up in the post WWII era, as I did, think back. Remember what the typical car dealership was like? Often made out of irregular cut stone, painted white, with large showroom windows & two or three service bays. Colored pennants adorned the lot and every September, when the newset models came out, searchlights pierced the sky out front. Almost everyone in town turned out to see the new cars. It was a social event! Here again, this is a structure area that is classic Americana, yet almost totally neglected by the kit manufacturers. All of these aforementioned types of structures are typical to every town of the transition era, an era of railroading that a very large percentage of model railroaders embrace on their layouts. So, why do the kit manufacturers so totally ignore these types of buildings? We have tons of kits of downtown stores, gas stations, factories, warehouses, stations, engine houses, chrurches & homes. I would really love to see some well done kits of the aforementioned structures. It's one area of the hobby that is lacking.
HO scale building & structure kits have come a long way in the past couple decades. There are now highly detailed, quality, craftsman kits for almost any type of structure...........Almost! There are a few areas of classic Americana that for some unknown reason have gone totally neglected by the kit manufacturers. I've always wondered why. I've searched the catalogs and online offerings of just about all of them & keep coming up with nothing.
1. Those of us that grew up in the transition era well remember the mid-size Grocery Stores that dotted the landscape of every town in America. There were the type of "supermarket" that pre-dated the huge, sprawling ones we have today. They were usually false front, brick structures, roughly about 60' wide & perhaps 80-100' long. The store marquee was usually located along the false front. Predominate among them were stores like A & P, First National and IGA. Just about every town had one or two of them. They are classic Americana, yet there are virtually no kits of these types of stores, that I know of.
2. Why does every manufacturer insist upon putting out a kit of "the little red one-room schoolhouse"? I live in the northeast, where there are a considerable number of these one-room schoolhouses still standing. I've seen very few that were red. Most are white, gray or just stained shingle. What about the typical school found in most small to mid-size towns of the transition era. Usually brick, two or three stories and intended to accomodate two or three hundred kids. Here again, I find almost no kits for these type of structures, yet they existed in nearly every town.
3. I can find virtually no kits of the typical mid-size town Hospital, yet most towns had one. In fact, except for a couple European versions, I can find no HO kits of any Hospitals.
4. Automobile Dealerships: If you grew up in the post WWII era, as I did, think back. Remember what the typical car dealership was like? Often made out of irregular cut stone, painted white, with large showroom windows & two or three service bays. Colored pennants adorned the lot and every September, when the newset models came out, searchlights pierced the sky out front. Almost everyone in town turned out to see the new cars. It was a social event! Here again, this is a structure area that is classic Americana, yet almost totally neglected by the kit manufacturers.
All of these aforementioned types of structures are typical to every town of the transition era, an era of railroading that a very large percentage of model railroaders embrace on their layouts. So, why do the kit manufacturers so totally ignore these types of buildings? We have tons of kits of downtown stores, gas stations, factories, warehouses, stations, engine houses, chrurches & homes. I would really love to see some well done kits of the aforementioned structures. It's one area of the hobby that is lacking.