I've downloaded photos of Hormel's plant in Beloit and also have taken photos in an attempt to make a backdrop to cut and paste. I'm trying the same with Mullin's Cheese Factory in Knowlton. Haven't finished either project and have had only limited success doing these types of things because 1.) it's hard to capture the right perspective that looks good on a layout -- people and cars get in the way, and 2. It's hard to blow them up without them going blurry on you.
I'd like to see a 3D "Flat", maybe 3" deep) of the front of the Elks Opera House Theater in Prescott, AZ. Beautiful, charming, and elegant place.
In addition to a stockpen or yard, l want the destination....a packing plant, with maybe the same pens as for loading, available for unloading. I like that hillside coal breaker suggestion, and the wooden grain elevator (although l have too many) and would buy a variety of circa 1940 trackside structures....stamp mill, elevator, stock pens, etc. If local grocery chains are in order, how about the Durango, Colorado Safeway a few blocks down the street from the Silverton train station in the 1950's?
Menards Mark -- How about a tease as to when the next new product will be coming out!!
Living in England half of the year, A Chppy which is a Fish N Chips shop. I'm planning to do one using a Ameri-Towne kit.
@Putnam Division posted:Here are a few.....
....a downtown city block with this store as a centerpiece.....
Peter
Like thi#......
How about a 1970s style gas station?
Maybe a street corner including a vinyl record shop.
I'd sure like to see a grain elevator building. A nicely weathered corrigated or concrete. They are both common in the midwest.
Smaller houses from the 1910s to 1950s, like you see filling neighborhoods throughout the Midwest. The ones that MTH made look too east coast.
I don’t have any room for more buildings on my layout. Unless I add an upper level. I’m not very good at making an upper level that looks very convincing.
If you could make a modular support framework, that could be configured to hold pre-cut masonite of different sizes, then I would have an upper level to house more buildings.
I may not be explaining this real well so I added a picture of Allan’s layout to help illustrate. The red arrows point to the concrete structure that supports the upper level. Something like this that would hold masonite/plywood.
Bourbon distillery. Jack Daniels would probably be an expensive license, but Evan Williams could probably work.
A coal mine with buildings associated with coal mines. Like a machine shop, a power plant, row houses, a building to store dynamite and electric caps and a company store.
O-scale buildings derived from REALLY BIG actual buildings won't fit on most home layouts, although large club layouts might sufficient create space for one.
IMHO, the best suggestion to date is ... Steak N Shake. There were five SNS restaurants in my hometown (Peoria, IL). Teenage cruisers (like me) would run the route to each one, order a Coke, and move along to the next one.
Mike Mottler LCCA 12394
How about a some more modern structures that today's kids (grandchildren) can identify with; something from 2021. Modern gas station?
A narrow, long paper mill building where on on one end flat cars or gondola loaded with logs are emptied of their load.
The wood is turned into pulp in boiling hot vats that give off steam.
The steaming wet wood fiber is turned into sheets of paper that pass through spinning rollers.
The paper is chopped up and put into cardboard boxes.
The cardboard boxes are loaded into box cars at the other end of the paper mill building.
The structure needs to have large windows to view all the detailed action.
Andrew
CSX Queensgate Watch Tower
We can provide Menards with all kind of ideas as to what they should be making. What happens if they don't follow through. I just wonder how many of our suggestions have they made. Probably not many.
@jim sutter posted:We can provide Menards with all kind of ideas as to what they should be making. What happens if they don't follow through. I just wonder how many of our suggestions have they made. Probably not many.
I was thinking that same thing. And I'm not holding my breath for anything.
@Csxcellent posted:Maybe a street corner including a vinyl record shop.
MTH already did one. It looks quite realistic without a lot of overly bright and excessive lights. In fact, it looks a lot like one that I was in in a Philadelphia suburb many years ago; one of the reasons that I bought it and that I like records.
@jim sutter posted:We can provide Menards with all kind of ideas as to what they should be making. What happens if they don't follow through. I just wonder how many of our suggestions have they made. Probably not many.
@A. Wells posted:I was thinking that same thing. And I'm not holding my breath for anything.
I guess I’m not sure of the point of these two replies. Menards asked for ideas in February and made no promises about producing anything from this list. This isn’t a wish fulfillment list. It’s an “ideas” list. And Menards has hardly had time in eight months to design and implement any ideas from this thread yet. Look to 2022 at the earliest.
Jim R. Maybe Menards should get some new designers. Somebody that can turnout product in a much more reasonable time frame. If Menards wants to be in this ballgame, maybe they need someone to step up. I get tired of excuses.
Menards is a home improvement store. They have slowly integrated themselves into selling train items. They also sell on line to the rest of the country but don't get them confused with Lionel, MTH, Woodland Scenecs, Atlas O ect as their core business is home improvement. I think it's pretty amazing what they have done in just a few years especially with their price points. If you don't live near a Menards they usually have about 40 feet of shelf space 3 months out of the year dedicated to trains. The rest of the year the trains are in a storage area though it's accessible if you know where it is. Since this thread is supposed to be what buildings would you like to see Menards make I'll repete my earlier post, a nicely weathered corrigated or concrete grain elevator. Hopefully this thread is back on track.
@jim sutter posted:Jim R. Maybe Menards should get some new designers. Somebody that can turnout product in a much more reasonable time frame. If Menards wants to be in this ballgame, maybe they need someone to step up. I get tired of excuses.
And yet, if Menards ever drops the train line, there will be a great wailing and gnashing of keyboards...
Besides, I'm sure Menards is facing the same supply chain and shipping issues everyone else is right now.
Rusty
@Putnam Division posted:Here are a few.....
....a downtown city block with this store as a centerpiece.....
Peter
Kinda surprised nobody mentioned the 4 fully charged (pressurized) 3” hose lines going down the subway entrance. 4 charged lines means there was a real fire cooking when this picture was taken. The hydrant is also in use, as the spanner wrench can clearly been seen on the hydrant valve!
@jim sutter posted:Jim R. Maybe Menards should get some new designers. Somebody that can turnout product in a much more reasonable time frame. If Menards wants to be in this ballgame, maybe they need someone to step up. I get tired of excuses.
Really? You think if you send an idea to Lionel in February that you’ll see it on the shelves in October? Jim, you are so far off base it’s ridiculous. Try two to three years from submitted idea to market.
There is research and development, which takes months. Then comes design, more months. Then tooling development, weeks to months, depending on factory schedule. Then test shots and approvals. Then production. Then shipping overseas. Then distribution.
Menards has managed to bring that timeline down somewhat, probably because of the elimination of tooling costs with its handcrafted buildings made from MDF.
Plenty information about the manufacturer processes on the web, including YouTube.
@Jim R. posted:Really? You think if you send an idea to Lionel in February that you’ll see it on the shelves in October? Jim, you are so far off base it’s ridiculous. Try two to three years from submitted idea to market.
There is research and development, which takes months. Then comes design, more months. Then tooling development, weeks to months, depending on factory schedule. Then test shots and approvals. Then production. Then shipping overseas. Then distribution.
Menards has managed to bring that timeline down somewhat, probably because of the elimination of tooling costs with its handcrafted buildings made from MDF.
Plenty information about the manufacturer processes on the web, including YouTube.
well put Jim, well done. !! Some people don't realize the time frame it takes and the shipping problems these days.
@jim sutter posted:A coal mine with buildings associated with coal mines. Like a machine shop, a power plant, row houses, a building to store dynamite and electric caps and a company store.
I like this idea very much, AND if considered since typical O-structures take up serious space I hope Menards would make it at a maximum half depth and use their clever hidden pass-thru portal to make a colliery coal breaker/wash-house/machine shop/company store type facility that could be placed as a background structure. Maybe even as a phased or multi-purchase design that can be added over a limited time frame.
However, I would guess that something as described from the late 1890-1930's era would be a challenging endeavor to design and cross-promote current day Menard's suppliers in an effort to possibly help underwrite some of the production costs.
@jim sutter posted:A Howard Johnson Resturant. A icing station were blocks of ice are loaded into refrigator cars.
I'll second the Howard Johnson restaurant!
I know most folks are going with commercial retail/service establishments, industrial buildings, or a vast array of stations, but how about an old fashioned second empire or Victorian styled bed & breakfast? Interchangeable among eras, fits almost any layouts geography, and can be easily repurposed if desired (as residential, a hometown doctors office, etc).
Example: https://www.oldhouseonline.com/house-tours/the-mania-for-mansard-roofs
I like that idea a lot. Also, some Italianate architecture structures from the 19th century would be appropriate. Here’s one I wrote about last week — and it’s just a few blocks from the CN main line through the city.
Keystone, I glad you like my idea about a coal mine. I live in Indiana County, At one time there were a lot of coal mines here. Most of them were owned by the R. and P. Coal Company. My great uncle owned a old fashion Hardware store here in Homer City. My father and him ran it. I worked there from 1960 to 1973. All the mines in this area had accounts at the store. When i was a young boy, I can remember going with my dad to the different mines to deliver supplies and dynamite. Now the mines are about all gone, We still have three coal fired power plants in this county. How long they will last I don't know. The creek that runs down over the hill from our home. I can remember when it was orange. Now its clear and they are catching trout out of it.
Chris Lonero, I chose Howard Johnson because I can remember stopping there with my parents when I was a young boy to eat or just get a ice cream cone. I loved their Fisherman's platter. Back in the seventies my friends and I would always stop at Howard Johnsons going to York and coming home.
A metal screw and staple company that has an operating crane on a gantry that will pick up spools of metal wire from gondolas and carry them inside the building.
Then the empty spools are loaded onto the gondola for a strip to the steel mill that makes the metal wire.
Andrew
@jim sutter posted:Jim R. Maybe Menards should get some new designers. Somebody that can turnout product in a much more reasonable time frame. If Menards wants to be in this ballgame, maybe they need someone to step up. I get tired of excuses.
Dear Jim,
I can fully understand your frustration. But the fact that Menards is even in this ballgame at all is a miracle in itself and we should be thankful for it. As you know its primary business is home improvement - not toy trains. Thus far they have put out product that the other guys haven't been able to match either in variety or price point.
Sure they have had a few glitches, but nothing like what the traditional train manufacturers have had and continue to have though they have over 200+ years of experience between themselves. Just take a look at the zinc pest issue still creeping into expensive engines and circuit boards that do not have replacements if fried by accident (actually there should be preventative measures built in to protect it against accidental electrical overloads).
A few short months ago Menards introduced their first electrically powered engine to test the market and field out the bugs. It wasn't a full home run but they did make it to third base and looking to steal home plate.
Lets give them the time needed from submission of ideas to delivery of their "seasonal" product line. The suggestions we put forth here are just that - suggestions. I don't really expect to see a full blown array of buildings to capture a paper or steel mill or an automotive assembly line. But I may see an interesting aspect of such a complex operation.
Menards, for me, is akin to a new Kline - offering unique product the major players do not - only Menards is taking it at a much smaller and slower pace.
Allegheny,
I'm not frustrated by Menards. There's no reason to be. I no longer own any trains. Therefore, there's nothing I need or want from any of the manufactures. If they would make something I recommended that would be wonderful. If they don't I understand. There was a lot of fine ideas suggested in this post. I will just live with what they make.
Outdoor stage with animated bluegrass band of 15 instrumentalists and 5 singers playing music to a crowd of people.
The outdoor stage has lights that change to the music coming from real speakers on the stage.
The source of the music could be provided through a computer playing files stored on a flash drive inserted into a USB 2.0 port.
You could have a summer version and a wintertime Christmas version.
Andrew
I vote for the HoJo because it is universally recognized. It should be a best seller in a hobby dominated by baby boomers. They just need to keep the lighting period appropriate. Come to think of it, wasn't there and HO version out there years ago?
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