Page 16 - September October 2017

Today you can still get the first two for British outline, along
with a myriad of other suppliers. This includes Pacific Models owned by Region member Ian Wilson who is soon to introduce USA outline structure kits. As in the UK the main suppliers of kits produce them in plastic, such as Walthers, whilst others produce them in laser cut wood and some even have hydrocal kits. We will look at each in turn. Some manufacturers now also supply resin kits but the author has no experience of them so cannot comment. Also we might expect 3D printing to become a greater player in the structures market as the cost of “printing” large models reduces.
Plastic Kits
By far the most popular and obvious manufacturer of plastic structure kits is Walthers. The author has no connection with them other than as a satisfied customer. Their kits cover rail- road, on-line structures and off-line structures and are generally available in both HO and N.
Walthers Cornerstone railroad structures are both generic and railroad specific. If you model the Santa Fe you have been spoiled in recent years with the production of the Mission-style passenger depot building, freight house and interlocking tower. Even the transload centre kit looks remarkably like a freight handling structure on the Santa Fe at San Bernardino. They also do occasionally a brick-built depot that looks remarkably like some along the Santa Fe main into Kansas City. Milwaukee Road and Rock Island have also had some structures too.
Industries, both on-line and offline, are well catered for too. There cannot be an industry that Walthers has not done
yet. Some have also been reproduced as low relief kits for background modelling. All kits come with details of the size of footprint so that you can be sure they will fit before you buy. That said, most can be adapted in any number of ways to fit a particular location.
All these kits come in pre-coloured plastic to make painting unnecessary in many cases although some might be needed. In contrast some kits come in a colour of plastic that seems a million miles away from the picture on the box top but probably denotes what colour pellets were available for that production run! My Glacier Industrial Sands kit came in a vivid mustard colour and not anything like the creamy white on the box top (see below). If a truly good model is to be made then painting and even some weathering will be needed. We hope to cover this subject in a later Part of the series.
If you are not great with plastic glue, Walthers Cornerstone Gold Ribbon Series offers some of the kits in a click together design, again in appropriate colours of plastic. They all seem to be off-line structures.
Walthers Modulars offers a range of HO parts and kits that build into a variety of industrial buildings. You can either follow the plans or go freelance and kit-bash.
I would also add City Classics and DPM (Design Preservation Models). City Classics produce real quality HO scale kits of urban structures such as a 1930s service station, a diner, some warehouses, a range of 5-storey city buildings and some com- pany houses. They also produce the parts of the single story warehouse as individual parts for kit-bashers and scratch-build- ers (see below).
DPM supplies parts and kits for industrial buildings rather like those depicted in the photo of Downtown Wenatchee – time- less. The plastic comes in a dark red brick colour and windows are green so you could get away without painting if you are OK with that colour scheme. Personally, I would paint the whole model an appropriate combination of colours as all brickwork is a mish-mash of different shades and the mortar course can be quite obvious too. Kits available in N, HO and O – some O scale kits are resin.
Rix Products Inc manufactures a variety of structures through three different brand names. Smalltown USA offers plastic kits of largely retail premises in HO that span a good number of modelling eras, many still seen on Main Streets across the USA today. These are easy to assemble, but do require painting and internal detailing which needs to be provided by the modeller.
Pikestuff offers modern era industrial units and a few rail- road-related structures such as an engine house, in N and HO. The parts are sectional and thus lend themselves easily to a start in kit-bashing (the kits are called “Kitbasher Series”) and even scratch-building. Door and window openings need to be cut out as and where required, as do wall lengths and heights on some kits. This means that a kit can be assembled with loading doors just where you want them – the end result can be as individual as you want. Doors, windows, steps and guttering are available separately too.
[Above: Two Pikestuff Motor Freight Terminal kits modified to be a rail-served transload warehouse inspired by a Lance Mind- heim structure in his book “How To Build A Switching Layout”, page 99]
Under the Rix Products banner you can buy N and HO items such as small homes (“Maxwell Street” – HO only), water tanks, grain silos, highway bridges etc. Some parts lend themselves to kit-bashing especially the bridge parts, the curved panels for the silos/tanks and the elevator kit. The kits require painting to finish.
Another supplier of modern industrial building kits is Great West Models Inc who manufacture the distinctive concrete panelled buildings with openings for doors and windows already there (HO only). They can make a very strong structure though internal bracing is recommended. They also lend themselves
One bonus also comes with Walthers kits – quite often you get extra parts that are on a sprue that is used for more than one kit. Do not panic if you have parts left over when you think you have finished. They can go in your spare parts box – I have a lot of parts of the Black Gold Asphalt kit from the Glacier Indus- trial Sands kit.
16 ROUNDHOUSE - October 2017