What about phone booths

[mikesmowers]

  On the way to work this morning I thought about putting some phone booths on my layout. Has anyone done this? I am modeling in the mid 70's in HO and figure there would several phone booths in town at that time. Has any one ever tried to scratch build them.  Your comments and some pics are welcomed.     Mike

[Railphotog]

I recall seeing HO scale model phone booths some time ago.  They were solid clear plastic with details painted or othewise on the outside.  Do a seach on the Walthers site to see if they may still be available.

I guess scratchbuilding would be possible, but keep in mind they will be very small in HO scale, and keeping glue and fingerprints off the clear material could be a problem.

 

 

[R. T. POTEET]

I have seen these on layouts and they make nice details; I cannot tell you, however, whether they were manufactured or scratchbuilt. I believe that these details are part of somebody's convenience store kit but - keep in mind that I am an N Scaler - I can't tell you who manufactures such a beast.

OT: I hope the grass-cutting business is better this summer than last.

[loathar]

I've got a couple that look pretty good. They were either Model Power or Life Like. They came in a pack with some park benches and fire hydrents.

[loathar]

http://www.modelpower.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=34&Page=2

Here. They're in the park scene kits.

[chutton01]

This Walthers set includes both a modern open booth & a '70s style enclosed phone booth - not bad, a bit fiddly & needs a bit of work (I scribed a few lines to indicate the folding door - these lines, for some odd reason, were not molded in the parts).  The pay-phone itself is a nice casting, resembles contemporary phones rather well.

City Details

[jbinkley60]

  On the way to work this morning I thought about putting some phone booths on my layout. Has anyone done this? I am modeling in the mid 70's in HO and figure there would several phone booths in town at that time. Has any one ever tried to scratch build them.  Your comments and some pics are welcomed.     Mike

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3535

 

[Tracklayer]

I've got a phone booth at my train station...

Tracklayer

[jeffrey-wimberly]

I have a pack assortmen from Bachmann that's available through Walther's. It's part of the Railroad Accessories line. Bachmann item# 42209. It has 2 mailboxes, 2 fire hydrants, 2 trasc cans, 2 park benches and 1 phone booth (blue walls, black top, white doors). The booth is quite well detailed. It looks like there's a phone in there.

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/160-42209

 

[chutton01]

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3535

I swear nobody, but nobody looks at my links  - Dude, I posted that 3 hours earlier!
Well, anyway what I said still stands about the pay-phone casting being well done (hint - cast some resin copies of your own using it as a master) and the phone booth needing a little scribing on its door.
For some reason, when RailPhotog talked about a clear, solid phone booth model, I thought about the one that came with the convenience store kit I purchased in the late 1970s (at that time signed as a 7-11; nowadays 'branded' as Ace markets.  It was a very nicely booth, clear plastic with raised detail that was pad-printed silver, but I think it had a separate phone which went inside.  Well, the current article  from Life-Like doesn't quite measure up to what I remember, so it's a 50-50 gamble that either the phone booth molding was changed, or my memory has changed (and not for the better )

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Sounds about like my memory, can't remember what I did last week but memories of things I did twenty or thirty years ago are sharp as a tack. I like the phone booth in that Life-Like assortment. I'll have to see if my not so LHS has it.

[chutton01]

I know what's the matter with that Life-Like phone booth now! When I built it, I didn't install the odd white cap thing (if that part was even included with the original kit) - I grew up in Queens NY during part of the 1970s, and went to college in the Bronx & Manhattan in the 1980s, where every major intersection had these phone booths or some derivative (that is, any corner which didn't have the open phone kiosks - which by the mid-1980s was most of them) - the sides at the top are essentially flat (like the Walthers phone booth), or if anything maybe a small projecting trim piece around the roof of the booth like in the old Bell Tel Ad I linked to above (I guess the booth in the Movie Phone Booth which has projecting panels saying Bell Atlantic is merely a movie prop, since I don't remember seeing any of NY's few remaining booths having these panels - the ones I saw were recessed like on the Forgotten NY page).

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Indeed, I too remember a lot of those clear phone booths and I actually thought that the wallless kiosk was an insult. The person using it had little or no privacy.

[loathar]

That's weird. The Bachman and the Model Power look like they're the same molds.

[jeffrey-wimberly]

That's not surprising. The design was a very common one and was in use in most cities right up to the early to mid 80's. There's still 1 or 2 in Leesville.

[chutton01]

Indeed, I too remember a lot of those clear phone booths and I actually thought that the wallless kiosk was an insult. The person using it had little or no privacy.

As I said by the time I really needed to use public phones (1980s), most of them had be converted to phone kiosks, and the remaining enclosed street phone booths were often rather beat, panels kicked out, doors busted, somewhat gross smelling, and so on - the kiosks were preferrable, believe me (only problem with the kiosks for me - lots o' street or subway noise you had to yell over during the call).  Also, this was the beginning of the private pay-phone boom era (which lasted till the rise of the cell-phones in the late 1990s), and no private pay-phone owner was installing enclosed phone booths.

So hopefully we have answered mikesmowers questions about Pay-Phone models, and given him links to various HO scenery sets (Walthers, Bachmann, Model Power, and Life-Like) were he can get decent models, and also provided some prototype photos. My suggestion: By the mid-1970s, put in the 'new' phone kiosks at the busiest areas (since these would normally be the newest and most heavily used phones), and have some enclosed phone booths at less trafficed, but still busy corners.
And, if you have drug stores or candy stores on your layout, you can still in the 1970s mount one of these  signs  outside the entrance, and have a 'virtual' phone booth (inside).

[jbinkley60]

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3535

I swear nobody, but nobody looks at my links  - Dude, I posted that 3 hours earlier!
Well, anyway what I said still stands about the pay-phone casting being well done (hint - cast some resin copies of your own using it as a master) and the phone booth needing a little scribing on its door.

I saw the link but didn't follow it to see where it went.  You had the words "city details", which isn't the name of the product and your description didn't sound like the same assortment.  I didn't mean to cause you any stress.

 

[DougF]

If I remember correctly there is a phone booth in the Atlas station kit that has been on the market for years.  It was three walls as it was up against one side of the station and the fourth wall was part of the staion wall casting.  Made a nice looking booth if I remember correctly.

 

Doug

 

 

[chutton01]

I saw the link but didn't follow it to see where it went.  You had the words "city details", which isn't the name of the product and your description didn't sound like the same assortment.  I didn't mean to cause you any stress.

Heh, don't sweat it, it didn't cause stress, more like a "D'oh" moment.  And you're correct, I though it was named City Details, but it's City Accessories. Now that a "D'oh" moment.

[JimRCGMO]

I recall seeing HO scale model phone booths some time ago.  They were solid clear plastic with details painted or othewise on the outside.  Do a seach on the Walthers site to see if they may still be available.

Actually, I have one of those kits (or very similar), but haven't built it (yet). The kit includes clear resin for three booths, plus details for the outside of them. I think I bought it in the 1970's, actually.

Made by:

Mountain States Model Works
P.O. Box 1002
El Cajon CA 92022

who also made some older (1935) cars (I think two I have currently, might be from them).

On the 1/87thScale Info messageboards, there're a couple of posts related to MSMW's cars:

http://87thscale.proboards23.com/index.cgi?board=Models&action=display&thread=1076624288&page=2

"While I do not know who originated the company or did the original molding, Mountain States Model Works is currently owned by Tom Yagerhoffer of Crescent Station. When Tom had the kit in production (In the white styrene configuration ) is was molded for him by Williams Brothers. The mold has been reworked and is presently being used to mold the Williams Brothers 1935 Ford in clear plastic."  (From the above-linked site)

So, there might be the Mountain States Model Works company still. Whether they're still making the telephone booths is another question...

Hope that helps. 

 

Blessings,

Jim in Cape Girardeau 

[SteamFreak]

Here's a live version of Jim's link: Re: FORD VEHICLES IN 1/87

If I remember correctly there is a phone booth in the Atlas station kit that has been on the market for years.  It was three walls as it was up against one side of the station and the fourth wall was part of the staion wall casting.  Made a nice looking booth if I remember correctly.

Here are two different auctions with pics of that model and phone booth:

Atlas Passenger Station RR Train Building 706 Built HO

Vintage ATLAS HO Passenger RR Train Station Kit 706 Box

 

When I was in my teens a friend gave me a box of his train stuff before he went off to school, and that Life-Like phone booth was in it, but I didn't know who made it until now.

chutton01, how's this for a bit of New York area esoterica: In the late 70's, I believe, Lloyd Kramer, who did humorous stories for Channel 2 News, did a story about how every phone booth and kiosk in NYC had the word "God" carved into it somewhere. I remember this because my friends and I noticed the same thing, even here in the more rural areas of Northern NJ. Who did it and why will always be a mystery, but it was a strange choice for graffiti.

I think I just combined two of the most taboo topics on this forum into one story. 

 

[jbinkley60]

 

I know we are talking about phone booths but I wanted to mention that I was at my LHS yesterday and they had some of the BLMA porta-johns there.  I picked up a set.  They are very realistic and are things you also see in cities, construction sites, sporting events etc.. 

 http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/176-4111

I checked BLMA products and they seem to have a lot of detailing accessories.