Plasticville

Grampstrains, Thank you for your reply. I'm not looking to buy any plasticville or any thing else. I just had some general questions about plasticville.

Plasticville in 1:48 scale (O Gauge) would be interesting to say the least....large would be an understatement.  Interesting to note that the Marx molds that MDK (K-Line) rescued are now owned and in the possession of Kader Industries, the parent/owner of Bachmann & Plasticville.

I have this book, good reference guide for Plasticville.

https://books.google.com/books...html?id=_7m8uwEACAAJ

I think Plasticville still has great use today. For those looking for the "nostalgia look", you cannot beat it. For those who want a more "scale-like" appearance, you have to be judicious where you place it and glue and paint it.

As for it size, it looks a little better with S Gauge, but there is where your placement comes in.

Back in the 80s-early 90s, I got these ieas from Roland LaVoie's Greenberg Books (of the portable layout the Greenberg shows used to run).

The building flats against the back wall were from Plasticville parts

Now, being a little more seasoned, I try to blend Plasticville in and use it for kitbashing. Here is a coaling tower I made. I got the idea from the coaling tower on Skip Natoli's gorgreous NYC layout.

One more example......the Plasticville "Cathedral" is way to small to be a cathedral. However, it can be a nice-sized church amongst city buildings.....painted and weathered.

You can see the spire poking out in the picture above.....

Peter

Love that coaling tower!!

I've found that many of the buildings, particularly the houses, can fit nicely on a contemporary layout.  I've used several on mine, although I kitbash stores to deepen them.  Here are a couple of examples.  Note, on the ranch house, I did add a "footing" to give it more height.

I did find a few more pics of the Plasticville Cathedral......after painting and weathering.....

.....and, to give my pictures of the old layout with the "Plasticville building flats" a time perspective,  here is a picture of my son this past Thanksgiving when he visited the train display at the Science Museum of Virginia.....

I bashed a model of a shortlines coaling tower l really like from a PV one, and went on a binge of bashing all kinds of stations, two story, angle junction, etc., out of PV ones.  For a while a couple of years ago, people showed some really creative PV bashings on here.

@Putnam Division posted:

I think Plasticville still has great use today. For those looking for the "nostalgia look", you cannot beat it. For those who want a more "scale-like" appearance, you have to be judicious where you place it and glue and paint it.

As for it size, it looks a little better with S Gauge, but there is where your placement comes in.

Back in the 80s-early 90s, I got these ieas from Roland LaVoie's Greenberg Books (of the portable layout the Greenberg shows used to run).

The building flats against the back wall were from Plasticville parts

Now, being a little more seasoned, I try to blend Plasticville in and use it for kitbashing. Here is a coaling tower I made. I got the idea from the coaling tower on Skip Natoli's gorgreous NYC layout.

One more example......the Plasticville "Cathedral" is way to small to be a cathedral. However, it can be a nice-sized church amongst city buildings.....painted and weathered.

You can see the spire poking out in the picture above.....

Peter

Peter, you can make anything look good.

Jay

@Tranquil Hollow RR posted:

Peter, you can make anything look good.

Jay

You are way, too kind.

Peter

I agree with @PeterA 's approach.  Weathered and detailed Plasticville can be made to work on a "scale" 1:48 layout, adding a foundation to the buildings helps a great deal.  Another trick is forced perspective.  Put Plasticville structures away from viewing aisles and full-scale structures so that their undersized proportions aren't as noticeable.

I wish there were a greater variety of industrial and office-type buildings.  As far as I know, there was only one style of Plasticville factory.  (A similar factory building kit was offered by Marx / K-Lineville.)  I've seen the hospital and the multi-story apartment building kitbashed into offices.

I doubt we'll ever see "new" designs proportioned for O and S gauge, because today the movement in the hobby has been to true scale 1:48.  But for those of us with less space running traditional trains on 4x8s, Plasticville is perfect!  Good topic!

Dennis Brennan did some interesting changes to Plasticville structures in his book. I’ve also seen the brown roof village church with the corners painted brown for an interesting perspective. The little cape cod cottages can have shutters or window boxes added.

Kitbashed from two plasticville motels

As @Ted S wrote, "for those of us with less space running traditional trains on 4x8s, Plasticville is perfect." I only have a few Plasticville items, but the coaling tower fits on my very small loop and works well across from the more scale-size Menards water tower. If the coaling tower were bigger it would overpower the scene. I also have the PV signal bridge and truss bridge and they look good at a great price. I tried the water tower but quickly found it was exactly HO scale so repurposed it for my other layout.

John

To answer your initial question, I have found that older Plasticville "snaps" together, while the newer plastics sort of "mush" together, and then "mush" apart again.  If it were made with original formula plastic, I'd buy more.

Jon

Same here Mr Kooljock.  On the newer cheesy Chinese Plasticville, I use museum putty or similar sticky stuff to hold the sides together and then they are easily disassembled.

I would’ve liked to have seen some of the HO ‘contemporary’ Plastiville replicated in O/S scale - the bank, men’s store, car dealership, Shell station. They had the best buildings in N scale.

The detail is surprisingly good in my opinion.  Below is their covered bridge and railroad maintenance car I picked up as kits (really old) for $5 each at a train show.  Some of the parts are a challenge to join, but with a little patience and paint, they look pretty good.

I’ve come around to Plasticville myself, partly because I’ve had the opportunity to get ahold of some of the vintage kits for cheap, and partly because I’ve started to dip my toes into building models instead of getting them prefab (though my painting isn’t half as good as what our other talented members here do!). Since they are plentiful and used kits are cheap, I don’t feel too bad about customizing them.

This last year, I’ve added three new Cape Cods to the layout, to round out the town with post WW2 houses... and I’m pretty proud of what I was able to do with that project, including the “house under construction” that came to me still in original box!

I have also recently picked up a Plasticville “small” gas station, and been painting and improving it. Although it’s a bit undersized, it actually fit really well on the layout in my semi-industrial area, and when posed right it looks great! The Streamline Moderne architecture really compliments my ‘37 Ford V8 truck...

Plasticville has some great details, that really shine when picked out with paint. It can make a world of difference even if like me you aren’t exactly DaVinci when it comes to painting.

I find that vintage Plasticville has better quality plastic, but that with age it’s now also a bit more brittle. Modern Plasticville is a little bit flashy as the molds are now getting old, and the fit isn’t a good as earlier production. I found the plastics, at least modern ones, don’t like the Testors glue that melts plastic together (or in this case, doesn’t), and have had much more success with just doing 527/superglue. Also, “snap fit” is kinda a lie, especially for more modern Plasticville where the fit may be a bit variable.

I do wish they would reproduce some of the older products that are no longer in production, but I imagine they would have to make new molds for them first. If Walthers has some of the old Marx/KLine buildings, they’d be a great addition to the Plasticville traditional line up, and bring some nice variety. It’d be cool if they did their “village in a box” sets again too... the price would probably be high but it would offer a lot of buildings for modelers at a similar price point to some high quality stuff, which I think the budget minded and beginners would find attractive.

This isn't the best photo but it illustrates Plasticville buildings used as low relief structures.  The buildings are (left to right): Hardware/Pharmacy, Post Office, Five & Ten Cent store.  All the buildings have custom signs and window inserts.  Plasticville fits in well with the scale sized White Castle on the corner.

Your Post Office building was the first building I had.

I like some of the Plasticville stuff.  Here are a few that I have.  Matt

That is very impressive work Matt. It provides me with inspiration.
Jay

I took extremely good care of all my Lionel stuff from the late 50s-60s.  For some reason I was really rough on the Plasticville stuff I had.  I had several buildings, and not one survived.  I remember some parts were missing, but most were not broken.  I think I just threw them away.  I guess I didn't think they were as cool as the trains.  I have bought some buildings recently, but still....

I got my first train, A Marx freight 2-4-2, for Christmas in 1950.  Since then Plasticville has had a place on all my layouts, O, O27, and HO.  Some were as purchased, many were "detailed" in many ways, a lot were part of kit bashing projects, and some were cannibalized for parts in scratch built buildings.

Now that I getting rid of a lot of my trains and accessories I find I still have dozens of buildings (in many boxes) and parts for kit bashing projects that never got finished......or in many cases never got started.