I read sometime ago that Plasticville structures are loosely based "S" guage with "O" guage doors and windows. That seems pretty accurate to me. As a young boy, my model railroading hobby began with the Plasticville white fencing placed around the edge of my Christmas layout and a Colonial house and passenger station. Each year thereafter my parents took me to the Hobby Hangout in Easton,Pa. during mid-November (anyone remember Jim Emory? He and his entire family were great people to know) to purchase several additional Plasticville structures. They are great structures to modify as has been shown in this posting. 

Every kid I knew with a layout in the 50's had Plasticville buildings. They were easy to build, came apart, and only cost at most a dollar. The only other buildings I had were the cutouts on the back cover of Toy Train magazine. 

You can still do a lot with a little detailing and paint. I made my Vicky's Trailer Park from Plasticville. Hit the picture to enlarge. I don't think they look bad. Don

IMO; OK, yes, great,no. Don

I think the trailer park is fabulous, Don; what more would anybody want in one.
Love it.

FrankM

Yes Plasticville can  be used effectively.  They are smaller than scale and allow you to build a bigger more interesting town then you can with full sized buildings such as MTH makes.  And as seen here several times, the trailer park is wonderful. If you use Glue Dots to put them together then they come apart easily if you need to do that

Don, nice work on the trailer park. Great looking layout too.

Cobrabob.

These are just three Plasticville buildings.. The Firehouse was made so for a paid fire dept.  living quarters.   the church was detailed a the hobo shacks are already in place

Only thing missing is the tornado!

Oh, and the white guy with no shirt being arrested!

Jerry

I found some old photos of Plasticville station kitbashing (and of a Lionel station kit). 

The Lionel station kit was reduced down to Placticville size, which I decided was S

scale, and so do not plan to use them unless I build a different layout for Marx 3/16.

What I do like about them is the family resemblence.  Here are a few of them, and the

Lionel station:

I have several Plasticville buildings on my layout. I usually repaint them which to me is half the fun of modeling. My layout is not strictly scale so I have no problem using the Platicville structures.

Steve Tapper

Be honest: are Plasticville structures okay?

Yes - Spray them with Testors 1260 Dullcote and or Spray Lacquer.

& have fun. Great product, most be over 50 years old???

Here is the Bachmann coal tower that has been customized

This has an interior floor and a doorway off the stairway to the interior. Completely painted inside and out.

Modifying a Bachmann O scale Barn kit.  This is Bachmann kit #45602.  It is a very basic structure that can be modified and painted to provide a nice background structure.  It would be useful in a rural scene.

The attached photos show the original barn and two paint variations.  Notice that the large barn doors have been modified, painted and then mounted on the barn.

I have the coal tower and the barn. They both look good on the layout.

Don-great trailer park. I'm going to have to get those also.

Great product, most be over 50 years old???

Advertised in 1946, produced in 1947.  Hard to believe, 67 years old.

Scalerail Don, How many kits did you use for your trailer park? How many trailers come in a kit? Thanks, MilwRdPaul

Certainly not the first or last Independence Hall that you will see. It was a lot of fun to build.

Great way to start developing your model building skills. This was my first attempt at doing mortar joints. It is more "S" scale, but it serves well as "Santa's Mansion" on the Polar Express scene with the Modular club.

Gilly

For the beginner they are great. You can build a few or go wild and fill up your entire layout .

Several years ago, OGR presented a man's layout in OGRmagazine which was completely Plasticville. He was referred to as the Mayor of Plasticville in the article. I thought the layout was gorgeous and clever.

FrankM

When I built I my small S gauge layout under my main layout I went for a more traditional look using mostly Plasticville buildings. 

I like them, and use more than a few on my layout. I also belong to the PCA (Plasticville Collectors Association) and would suggest anyone interested in Plasticville to at least look at their website:

http://www.plasticvilleusa.org/

Here's a couple of shots around my layout:

J White

I remember the "Mayor of Plasticville" article, and a layout I saw when I attended

a train club? convention some years ago....and one in the Wheeling, W.Va. Marx

museum.  Except for the roof, which I would make to look like metal sheeting,

as was my grandfather's, I like the shape of the barn, but, as P51 notes,  would want to put two or more (4?) together to double its size.  Craftsman O scale kits are often designed to take as little space as possible, and can look grotesque to me, and I have to enlarge them....which means I can use fewer.  So it is with Plasticville....the PV

barn models garage predecessors, buggy barns, with room for the buggy before

automobiles, and the stalls along the side for a couple of horses and a small loft for

hay.  Koley and John, my grandfather's mules, used to mow slopes too steep for his

tractor, and to plow the fenced garden where the tractor could not fit, spent much of their lives in stalls along side his barn, which was many times larger than the PV one.

I love them as a starting point.......

I have both Plasticville and MTH buildings, keeping the Plasticville more together in a group in the background for better perspective due to the differences in scale.  I deliberately do not alter or change Plasticville to not destroy the integrity of the piece with one exception:  I installed a small light in the modern rendition of the fruit stand.  The original USA Plasticville I have date from the 50's with original boxes and I do not alter nor glue the pieces.  I fully realize that Plasticville is not true to scale or comparable to other building manufacturers in terms of detail and realistic style, but it does have a certain charm.  I have a sign on my layout with the words "Plasticville" in the section where they are principally located.  Most visitors smile, but they also read a small explanatory note on the edge of the platform that I included about Plasticville and why it was so significant for kids in the 50's who had layouts.  BTW, I also incorporate Dept. 56 buildings in another section.  If you enjoy nostalgia (perhaps more than realism) show off your Plasticville proudly!!!! 

Coal Tower, and Gas Station I'm working on to convert to one that I remember in our town.

http://i191.photobucket.com/al...4652_zps3e426490.jpg

http://i191.photobucket.com/al...4650_zpsb1a8a2d5.jpg

http://i191.photobucket.com/al...4651_zps1dc07b0b.jpg

Exactly the right weathering touches! You did a masterful job, AMCDave.

FrankM

Awesome thread! Terrance, you asked a loaded question! Look at all the creative expressions reflected with PV! Love it!

Though the buildings are diminutive, the doors and windows seem more to O scale.  The packaging mentioned that the buildings were usable for both O and S.

It depends. If you are wanting scale structures, (scale looking), for O gauge or even S, then Plasticville is not for you. If you are doing a Post War style layout, toy like, then Plastic Ville is just what you want. Some, not all, pieces are good starting points for a good kit bash, or even just detailed up. Some are too small for normal use. Good for background. Example is the Plastic Ville gas station. If you put a 1:43 car near a garage door, it will be obvious the door is too small. But again ok for the toy look. If you are not a scratch builder, or cheap (like me) you can do a lot with them. Paint and detail can make them look very good. I do not have a lot of space, so I need compressed buildings. If you put a ruler to them you will discover that they are very small square foot wise. But I try for a realistic, more or less, appearance. Here are a couple of examples.

First a U Toke M, play on the convience store U Tote M. I didn't want another 7-11. These were very common here, Texas, until some other chain bought most or all of them. My girlfriend's brothers called it the U Toke M. Hey it was the mid 70's. So here is my rendition. Using a Plastic Ville store. I believe this was the Hardware and Pharamacy. I blocked one door section off. Added window glazing, a counter, drink coolers and some interior detail. With the exception of 3 Micro Icon figures, aprox 1:35 scale, and a cash register, the remainder of the interior was made from printed pictures. I found them on the internet and scaled and cropped them in Photo Shop. The drink coolers are back lit, printed on transparency and glued to frames made from mat board.

Oh the cases of Coke I found on the internet some time back.

The second, not finished, is the Plastic Ville Apt building. I thought it looked like an art deco motel, hotel, from Florida. It will be a Holliday Inn. I have to make one of those signs. It re-mind's me of the old motels when I was a kid in South Florida, late 60's. I have repainted it, and so far added window glazing, plastic from gift box windows saved from Christmas. And a second floor, the actual floor, so I can add figures etc.

I had several others, but the fire station for example had doors so small my 1:50 fire engines would barely fit thru the door. Gave that one to my Grandson. The gas station, previously mentioned, will probably also go to him.

So really depending on your use, look you are after, or how close to scale looking you are after, these can be used very well. Out of the box for a Post War layout. Or a little paint and a few detail pieces and you wouldn't hardly know that they were Plastic Ville.

This is the future motel, the picture didn't do what I wanted, but here it is.

FWIW, it seems that many of the manufactured village pieces made by Lemax and Dept 56 are closer to S scale also and, although styled differently, fit better with Plasticville pieces than Lionel and MTH buildings. 

     Buck Wheat sais DAY O TAY!!!!!! sorry just kidding. Choo Choo Kenny

For all of us who run around York and explore SE Pa., and drive through places like

Strasburg and another with an unusual name, also near Lancaster, I see Amish living

in town.  I have not noticed if they have buggy houses and/or horses in the garages?

(property seems to sell back and forth from Amish to the "English", and of course

the Strasburg RR seems to run through an Amish farm, but I am thinking of the

small towns around there).  Just wondering about zoning, as most towns elsewhere would go tilt if you tried to keep chickens, and one of my childhood homes had a chicken house  (that we used for storage). An interesting and I think oddball thing is that the Amish raise tobacco.  Central Kentucky was once full of tobacco barns, usually the second barn on a farm (it was for one of my grandfather's, and for my maiden great aunts), with one barn a dairy barn, described as Josef has above, and the other a tobacco barn, for the curing of tobacco, hung up inside on "tobacco sticks",  four foot? long, one inch thick wooden strips.  These barns were often narrower and taller than a dairy barn, and, in their later years, were often black...I assume with creosote.  If I was modeling Kentucky (and possibly Tenn., Va., N.C., and it was/is grown in southern Indiana)  I would have to model a tobacco barn, and have one of the industries, as still exists in my mother's home town, a railroad served  tobacco marketing warehouse.  In Kentucky these barns had a small room attached that was the "stripping room", where I think leaves were pulled away from the stalk after curing, and leaves were bundled for sale.  I saw all this at a very early age, so may not have it correct. (my brother and I fought "sword" battles with tobacco sticks, and used them for stick horses when playing "cowboys")

Oh, yes, there was "worm picking".  At that time (I'm way out of touch now) my grandfather would have to walk the rows of tobacco and remove and kill tobacco worms, that ate holes in the leaves.  For some years I have wondered that some

insect could eat a nicotine laden plant.

Continuing east in Kentucky, past the capital, and home of Diecast Direct, you are in

the Bluegrass, where tobacco is raised, but horse barns, low and rambling, with many stall doors, and big buck thoroughbred farms surrounded by white wooden fences,

become the norm (although white there has given over to creosote, too).

Barns do differ, and there are model kits of New England barns that are connected to the house, to avoid going out doors when it is not, uh, warm.  I have not thought to

photograph a ranch barn, as opposed to an eastern style as described above.  I am not

sure how western barns differ (I have not paid attention, but have not noticed a

distinctive difference).

OK, I'll be honest.

I don't like structures of any kind on my layout.  They represent clutter on an otherwise clean railroad running through virgin wilderness.

But as far as appearance...I dunno...I guess they're alright.

RIP TRACK

The hand of man, as the attacking Indians would have said, while the rails were pushed west, leaves little virgin in this wilderness...culverts, rotted ties pushed down an embankment, short and long trestles, cuts and fills, and miles of marching telegraph poles... at least not around a railroad, even in the desert, across Utah or ?  I have certainly followed the trace where no rails remain.....but in populated areas,

the trace soon vanishes...

I really like your Erector Set truss. Haven't seen anything like that built into a layout in years.

Just posted a bunch of pics of recently completed new or updated scenes on the Ironbound RR layout. Find ‘em here:

http://www.trainutz.com/ironbound.shtml

~Andy

GREAT work Andy!!!!

Awesome pictures! Plasticville buildings can look fine sometimes right out of the box, others you might want to detail or kitbash, I'm in the middle of rebuilding my layout so they're boxed up right now. You can use some Krylon Stone paint to make a building look like stutto on a building for a different look. Great especially on small layouts where place is a premium and a big money saver when you're on a tight budget like me. 

Yeah, they're OK for me.  Many Plasticville structures from Bachman in the '50's are postwar survivors if they have not been glued or otherwise altered.  For those of us that have a similar nostalgic attachment for them as we also have for our Postwar trains, they are a must on a layout.

Beyond that, they are reasonably priced if found at a show, and can't be beat if you want to kitbash them.  The other newer highly detailed structures that are already weathered are much nicer looking, however, you get what you pay for, and you will pay a lot more for them.

Good point as written by several, that many Plasticville buildings, acc. will fit with no problem into an O scale/gauge layout. Repainting, altering will improve many also. Here's an Apartment building I'm working on. Has been re-painted only. The figure, an "O" scale from Woodland fits perfectly. Some work on the interior and lighting will take away that distinct "Plasticville" look.

http://i191.photobucket.com/al...4683_zps1692fd7a.jpg