I have just come back to US outline model railroads (I am in the UK) from a period with Marklin 3-rail HO. I am starting to build a small shelf layout in N Scale. As I will need some structures, I fished out my copy of the above book which I have owned since childhood. I attach a photo of the inside back page showing the various books available from Kalmbach. Note tha "Practical Guide to Model Railroading" is a whopping $2.00!
Incidentally, the book on structures itself is $1.
Long Haired DavidA.K.A. David Penningtonmain man on the Sunset and North Eastern R.R.http://www.gmrblog.co.ukfrom the UK
I recently built an N scale switching layout for a friend and used the Evan Designs building design software to design, print and assemble several model structures for this layout. I get building design ideas from Google Maps Street View. I then work up my building facades on the Evan Designs software and print it out on copy paper or cardstock as appropriate for each structure. I next build a styrene core structure to which the printed facades and roofing can be attached using spray adhesive or double sided tape. The N scale printouts look surprisingly good as-is. However, you can add a lot of 3D detail by printing multiple copies of each facade and then layering them onto the core structure. For instance, the first printout can be done on glossy paper to simulate window glazing. A second printout on copy paper or cardstock with the windows cut out can then be applied over the glossy layer giving the look of flat walls with shiny windows. An optional third printout, usually on cardstock with the windows and doors cut out (window cut-outs slightly larger than on the second layer to simulate window frame depth) can then be applied over layer 2. A final printout on cardstock can provide a little more 3D effect by cutting out individual details such as cornices, window sills, pilasters, rain gutters, etc., and applying atop the previous layer. Even more 3D effect can be achieved by adding details made from styrene strip. Paint all such details before applying them to the printed facades.
As the building facade surfaces are paper, artist pastels can be used to apply weathering.
Yes, this is a little more involved than building plastic kits, but no other layout will have the same structures as your layout.
Hornblower
Hello David,
I took a number of buildings that Tomkat did fronts for on this forum and made them 3D
You can find a link to 4 pages of these using
https://sites.google.com/view/stagnesrailway20
https://sites.google.com/view/stagnesrailway21
https://sites.google.com/view/stagnesrailway22
https://sites.google.com/view/stagnesrailway23a
Good Luck with the change back to US Modelling!
Cheers from Australia
Trevor
The 1950s to the 1980s were the glory years of structure plans/structure construction articles in Model Railroader magazine, so one excellent resource is to have either the back issues on your shelves or get the all access pass to the back issue archives on this website.
Railroad Model Craftsman also ran lots of structure plans/ construction articles in that time period.
In recent years the NMRA Magazine, known briefly as "Scale Rails" seemed almost the last repository of Harold Russell structure plans and now and then a construction article.
Perhaps if you are lucky one of your modeling friends also does US modeling and might have older mags that can be borrowed? Being in the UK you likely do not see the back issues for these magazines being all but given away (in fact, quite literally being given away) at train shows as we do here in the USA. I was just at a train show where the "free - take one" table had a virtually complete set of Railroad Model Craftsman from the late 1940s to around 1962. I would have taken one but they all smelled like the dampest basement in the world (RMC back then used newspring quality paper which absorbs moisture more than glossy paper) and my wife would have made me read it in the back yard before throwing it away .....
Dave Nelson
xdford Hello David, I took a number of buildings that Tomkat did fronts for on this forum and made them 3D You can find a link to 4 pages of these using https://sites.google.com/view/stagnesrailway20 https://sites.google.com/view/stagnesrailway21 https://sites.google.com/view/stagnesrailway22 https://sites.google.com/view/stagnesrailway23a Good Luck with the change back to US Modelling! Cheers from Australia Trevor
Thank you. I have had a look and I can most of them appearing on my layout.
dknelson The 1950s to the 1980s were the glory years of structure plans/structure construction articles in Model Railroader magazine, so one excellent resource is to have either the back issues on your shelves or get the all access pass to the back issue archives on this website. Railroad Model Craftsman also ran lots of structure plans/ construction articles in that time period. In recent years the NMRA Magazine, known briefly as "Scale Rails" seemed almost the last repository of Harold Russell structure plans and now and then a construction article. Perhaps if you are lucky one of your modeling friends also does US modeling and might have older mags that can be borrowed? Being in the UK you likely do not see the back issues for these magazines being all but given away (in fact, quite literally being given away) at train shows as we do here in the USA. I was just at a train show where the "free - take one" table had a virtually complete set of Railroad Model Craftsman from the late 1940s to around 1962. I would have taken one but they all smelled like the dampest basement in the world (RMC back then used newspring quality paper which absorbs moisture more than glossy paper) and my wife would have made me read it in the back yard before throwing it away ..... Dave Nelson
I was one of those. I got my first MR back in 1960 and had a whole garage length shelf full of them. Eventually, my wife complained about the smell (yes really!) so they had to go. I gave them away!
You are Welcome
If you want different buildings, I have found Auran Trainz program handy for providing the base of other structures.
To get the Trainz buildings in a foldout fashion,
1. Open up PAINT and then Trainz. Go to Surveyor mode. If you have not got Paint, it is available as a free download from MS web site but any paint editing program you have and are familiar with will do!2. You may like to texture the ground with some green grass on a single Trainz baseboard.3, Select your building from Trainz and place it so that the face that you want is facing south in your case being in the Northern hemisphere/North in mine. Rotate either yourself or the building as you zoom in on it to fill most of the screen. Strangely enough there seems to be a difficulty in getting exactly square.4. Press your "Print Screen" button and Alt Tab and toggle your way into Paint.5. In Paint (or whatever program you are using) press Control V keys together and your printed screen will appear in paint. Select the area you want and move it to the top left hand corner of paint. Save as "face 1" or whatever6. Because there is a "sun" in Trainz rotate your building and get all faces in "sunlight" Repeat steps 4 and 57, Scale the individual drawings on Publisher, Word, Open Office or whatever you have making sure your corners align size wise. With the boxes I did the angular ends in foam core first then cut the front and rear pieces to as exact a size as you can using your drawing as gauge and glue the pieces together to act as a base.I just used card or thin styrene for the roofing and either used printed out textured sheet for the roof covering or painted them.
Hope this helps populate your layout with buildings that no one else has.
You might also care to check out
http://yourmodelrailway.net/view_topic.php?id=9679&forum_id=14&highlight=trainz
for some of my input on this very subject!