Any interest in an Atlas O Scale Middelsex Mfg. Kit?

Hope you have better luck than I did.  Several years ago, I lobbied Walther's, DPM and Atlas to offer kits for large structures such as this.  I was told by all concerned that there was no market for them since nobody had a layout big enough to use them. 

At the time, Korber was the only game in town.  You could also assemble the few DPM wall sections available in O-scale into a decent structure.  DPM wasn't interested in introducing a larger variety of window and arrangements in O-scale either.

It's great to see Korber offering some new large structure and building flat options, too bad there aren't more of them.  Fortunately, we can always scratch build. 

That is close to the Paper Mill in Vicksburg, Michigan.

It would be a good model to add the right roof and paint it pale yellow-tan to match the old Paper Mill.

Two to four of them would have to be assembled to make the model close enough for the Christmas train layout.

Andrew

People should also post requests on the Atlas Model Railroad Facebook page.

Yes - Excellent kits - Atlas Structure O Gauge

Gary

• Cheers from The Detroit and Mackinac Railway

Unfortunately, O scale is a relatively small segment of the hobby. We can easily divide that into 2 rail and 3 rail. 3 rail can be split into Hi-Railers and Toy Train aficionados. Out of that group, the ones most likely interested in large structures are the 2 rail and hi-rail guys who have the room and like to build kits.

Think about it. If there was a huge demand that would justify the cost of the molds, someone would produce them.  

We can easily divide that into 2 rail and 3 rail. 3 rail can be split into Hi-Railers and Toy Train aficionados. Out of that group, the ones most likely interested in large structures are the 2 rail and hi-rail guys who have the room and like to build kits.

 

Think about it. If there was a huge demand that would justify the cost of the molds, someone would produce them.  

well lets see how korber will do with his latest releases. They are all kits and they are tall.

Since the prototype is 5 minutes from my house and it is a factory I saw in operation as a kid I would buy this kit in a heartbeat. 

I just wish i had taken pictures of it back when it was in operation. We kids called it "The Snuff Factory". Man, I can still remember the smell it made when they were making the stuff.

The building shown above was one of two large buildings and they had a walkway between the buildings that went over the street. Then there were about 5 or 6 smaller buildings around the property. All of those are gone as it is being transformed into retirement condos. I did get a picture of the walkway just before that was removed. 

The Walthers buildings are injected molded plastic. I'm talking about justifying the cost of making new machine molds for injection molded plastic to reproduce that kit in O scale. These cost tens of thousands of dollars.

The Floors of the building are repeating.

The floors are sandwiched between the foundation and roof.

How about just building the front floors and side floors that fit together, into the separate foundation and roof. 

People can build the structure as 1 story or 10 stories tall to match their local building.

The back of the floors must have numerous alignment strips and tubes for the proper joining of the floors, the foundation, and the roof.

Andrew

I like it, but probably not for the reason most people would. My layout is modern themed and a building like that would make great "loft apartments" like the kind that you see in many cities these days that are often made from old factories. So, yeah, I'd buy that in O-Scale.

-Eric Siegel

Nice building.  

But doubling the HO footprint, this monster would be 30" x 11"!   And, I'd estimate about 13" tall, too!

The tooling to injection mold a one-piece long wall (typ. 30"x13") would be massive alone...and pricey. 

I'm thinking modular, too.  But if you're into a solid brick wall like the Middlesex bldg., it'll be hard to achieve consistent seamless joints in the brickwork for this style (no column covers, etc.).

I know it's not for everyone, but my approach to replicating a large O scale building of this style and composition would be to laminate embossed styrene brick sheet over some box support...Masonite, acrylic sheet, MDF, etc..   Cut out the window/door openings, use commercial window/door moldings (e.g. Tichy, Grandt, et al).   Been there, done that.

I'd just be happy in the short term if Atlas would re-do the iconic Water Tower, as discussed in another thread!  Certainly was pleased to see the return of the movie theater!

KD

It would look nice, but I'd rather Atlas spent their energies on getting the rest of their track line to market then coming out with a new building kit.

Then somebody will have to laser cut window openings in large PLASTRUCT brick sheets.

Andrew

Well, actually I was thinking of a scratch-building concept, rather than a kit concept.

True, cutting out all those openings would be tedious....the hardest part in basic box wall materials...Masonite, MDF, etc..  But a few fresh #11 blades in the ol' handle would take care of cutting the embossed plastic sheet, AFAIC.

I dunno....I could be surprised, for sure....but a kit building of that size for the dwindling O scale demographics prone to such structures/assembly...that would be at a palatable consumer price while recouping the manufacturers costs?......not sure about that.

We'll see.