Plasticville: the Right Size

There is a lot of different (building) models available.  I did an Ertl, farm set,on my layout, Not a true O-scale model, but worked well for me.   

Been available for several years, done first, in the 1970's, Lionel did a grain elevator, a larger piece,that uses a couple of sidings.

I have a few of their products and like them all. The coaling station, some shantys, and smaller railside buildings. I find the scale to be the right size for my layout. I always add embelishments to everything on my layout as i feel this is where the fun really is....in the small details. I hope when someone comes back to the latyout, they see something they missed last time. Overall, the Plasticville products are excellent.

My favorite is the Plasticville Hospital with the little beds, chairs, gurneys, etc. on the 2nd floor. My granddaughters, who are 9 and 5 years old, also love the hospital and furniture.

Another favorite of mine is the Plasticville Produce Stand, which great to have at or near a farm on the layout. Arnold

Arnold, I agree. Plasticville just hits a nice note, both in nostalgia and size. I have a mix of Lionel, Atlas, MTH, and Plasticville on my layout, and it all seems to blend well.

@Arnold D. Cribari posted:

My favorite is the Plasticville Hospital with the little beds, chairs, gurneys, etc. on the 2nd floor. My granddaughters, who are 9 and 5 years old, also love the hospital and furniture.

Another favorite of mine is the Plasticville Produce Stand, which is great to have at or near a farm on the layout.

You can't beat their modest size for a small or medium sized layout in which space for structures is quite limited.

Arnold

Progress report:

Benchwork done:

Plasticville possibilities can be seen in these videos:

Although the table for the expansion is only 78 inches by 40 inches, IMO the videos make the layout look like it's 10 times bigger.

"My Little Town" is becoming My Big Town.

Arnold

Arnold, I totally agree.  Nobody ever caught the look of postwar US like Plasticville.  I had to have a scene on my new "retro" layout with a Plasticville farm scene, too

Pete, like your fencing did you make, been looking for the old screening can't seem to find, have a roll of nylon tried to paint silver didn't look good, nice job.

@PeterA posted:

Arnold, I totally agree.  Nobody ever caught the look of postwar US like Plasticville.  I had to have a scene on my new "retro" layout with a Plasticville farm scene, too

I grew up with Plasticville so it was a natural for my current layout. They fit well in the space I had for buildings.

Even though Plasticville is closer to S gauge to my eye, I love it on an O gauge traditional layout like mine. Its size allows for a great variety of buildings on a layout.

Case in point - check out the recent Where Warrenville's Citizens Live and Where Warrenville's Citizens Work posts on www.Warrenvillerailroad.com

Plasticville is also very customizable as you will see

It definitely captures the postwar America look very well

Sitka, the chain link fencing is made from bridal veil material!  I saw a post on that a long time ago and bought a roll of it at a fabric store and which has been used in various areas on my main layout.  I still will have enough for another generation of users!  The steel posts are soldered together and with a very thin coat of superglue on the vertical posts, it is glued onto them.  The secret is not to get much glue onto the fabric to fill in the holes.  I am not always successful.

I use mostly Plasticville buildings on my O27 toy train layout.  They have a large selection of buildings and allow more buildings in a smaller space.  They also are inexpensive and have several like the Coaling Station, that make a good basis for kit bashing other buildings.

I want smaller buildings to emphasize the locomotives and trains and make them appear larger as I am interested in a train layout and not building, cities or town layout.

Charlie

I had plasticville when I was a boy and loved it. Peter A, I believe I had the same farm set as you.

This was the first layout that I built back in 1971. You can see the farm set under the stairs.

How many different Plasticville buildings are made today?

One more fellow here who likes Plasticville and similar compressed (maybe we should call them "O27 structures"?) buildings!  They're the basis for our Christmas layout and allows us to fit a lot more into our 8x3.5' space than we otherwise would.   I agree that the hospital is a particularly nice building.

If you're looking for similar sized structures, you may want to check out the buildings and accessories made for wargaming in the 28-32mm scales.   Though 28mm (a foot to eyeline measurement of average man) is technically 1/56, the windows, doors and ceilings are often slightly oversized to take into account the bulk of wargaming miniatures and the height of the basses they are built upon.  Simultaneously, like Plasticville, they are usually built on a much-compressed footprint in order to fit more structures on a wargaming table.

The majority of these structures used to be fantasy, Sci-fi and European for wargaming, but increased gaming in the postapoc/zombie and superhero genres has resulted in a lot of kits reflecting average American 20th century structures.

Plasticville certainly makes some great looking buildings.

Yet, they are just to "plastic-looking" for me.  (I.e. bright and shiny.)

The two buildings I have just looked too fakey, . . . until I de-glossed them.

It is somewhat strange to me that folks spend lots of time and money putting in very realistic looking shrubs, trees, grass, etc., but don't mind using the bright and glossy buildings and farm animals.

Mannyrock

One of the most fun things for me about model railroading is planning where to put track, structures and scenery. I'm beginning that process on my layout expansion where I will have a Plasticville village, Woodland Scenics' Morrison's Doors Factory and 2 bridges. One of those bridges may be a Bascule Bridge:

Here is a panoramic shot:

One piece of Plasticville on my otherwise totally scale layout:

@wbg pete posted:

One piece of Plasticville on my otherwise totally scale layout:

It fits right in Pete

I have about 70 PV structures on my layout, and scale/size/color/glossiness are irrelevant to me, because I have always wanted a layout with the 1950s look. I have a few structures that are more scale, and even a few tinplate litho structures, but I generally group them separately so the differences in buildings are not jarring. The Cathedral, the Apartment Building, the Factory, the Hospital, the Toll Booth and the Coaling Tower are among my favorites.

On my first layout in the '90's:

Plasticville: I have most of it. Currently in 2 Big boxes until there is allotted space on my ever changing tubular 3 rail postwar type layout. I even have PV  cars and trucks from that era plus dime store  dreams vehicles to adorn the village(s). So cool.

speaking of cool I really like the PV houses up on the hill as seen on WBG Pete’s layout photo!

Arnold, they are perfectly  sized on flat or on a hill.

I think Petes's Plasticville placed in his  realistic scenery on his layout looks great. It's my understanding that this approach is known as high railing, which is the style of model railroading that I endeavor to do..

Leroof, when you say you have most of the Plasticville structures, approximately how many such structues would that be?

Speaking of the shiny, unrealistic appearance of Plasticville, I am torn whether to paint or weather them, or keep them in their original condition.

I painted a Plasticville train station tan and brown, and it turned out well IMO. Will post a photo of it later.

However,  I also like Plasticville in its the original condition, think it's charming and believe that keeping them in their original condition with their original boxes enhances their value.

I had a few pieces of Plasticville as a child, but did not think much of them back then, thinking they were nothing special because they were made of cheap plastic. About 1 year ago, I saw lots a complete Plasticville in their original boxes at my LHS, bought about 10 to 12 structures, and like them very much. Arnold

As for painting Plasticville, I think it depends entirely on your layout and the collectability of a given item. 

They are charming, and if you have the original box they might have a bit more value, but so many of these were produced and the prices in general are quite low.   Unless you check Ebay and it turns out you have an exceptionally valuable piece, I'd paint them without a second look.

Based on what I can see of your layout, which has alot of unpainted buildings,  I'd probably not bother painting unless I had a desired color in mind or was doubling up on a given kit.

On my Christmas layout, I'm currently enjoying the toylike look. However -while I don't intend to go all super-detailed- I would eventually like to paint all my buildings and cover over or remove the "Plasticville" signs on businesses.

I do sometimes paint over the buildings, depending on their use. For town buildings, usually I don’t, but for industries and railroad structures, I sometimes just dry brush, such as my hobo shacks, or coal dealer. I’ve modified my coaling tower (with a kit from Mount Blue models for more realism, and a simple project). I add lighting and opaque plastic on the windows.

@Eilif posted:

As for painting Plasticville, I think it depends entirely on your layout and the collectability of a given item.

They are charming, and if you have the original box they might have a bit more value, but so many of these were produced and the prices in general are quite low.   Unless you check Ebay and it turns out you have an exceptionally valuable piece, I'd paint them without a second look.

Based on what I can see of your layout, which has alot of unpainted buildings,  I'd probably not bother painting unless I had a desired color in mind or was doubling up on a given kit.

On my Christmas layout, I'm currently enjoying the toylike look. However -while I don't intend to go all super-detailed- I would eventually like to paint all my buildings and cover over or remove the "Plasticville" signs on businesses.

I agree with you that the sign "Plasticville" is not my favorite. I feel the same way about "Lionel Lines." I much prefer NY Central, Pennsylvania, New Haven, Baltimore & Ohio, etc. Arnold

@Artie-DL&W posted:

I do sometimes paint over the buildings, depending on their use. For town buildings, usually I don’t, but for industries and railroad structures, I sometimes just dry brush, such as my hobo shacks, or coal dealer. I’ve modified my coaling tower (with a kit from Mount Blue models for more realism, and a simple project). I add lighting and opaque plastic on the windows.

Your scenery and Plasticville structures look great, Artie.

Arnold

I had PV on my childhood layout, and would have had more with better cashflow, but today l build a lot of kit O scale structures.  However no kit offers a compact "branch line" wooden coaling tower like a photo l found on the net.  So l severely bashed a PV tower. and got positive votes on its photo on here some time ago. Before that l went on a binge to bash a variety of PV ultra common RR stations to have a "related" variety of stations in my railroads colors:  corner crossing stations, one dividing diverging lines, two story, etc., but then decided to use all scale. But l am not going to knock it.  It bashes very well

Here is a Plasticville Station that I painted and added a couple of signs:

Nice station Artie. 

I just ordered some small plastic felt board letters to experiment with as alternate signs since they are similar to the Plasticville font.

"Lionel Lines" is a whole other thing.  I'll keep the ones that came with my son's Scout set intact but any others in my collection are fair game if I get the urge to repaint.

More Plasticville (PV) on my layout:

For me and my layout, PV is not too big, not too little, but just right in size; charming in appearance, especially if it is 100% complete with all the little details; easy to assemble so a child can do it; and reasonable in price. Some of the structures come in very nice boxes as well.

You can see from the above photos that Plasticville can also be combined nicely with postwar accessories like the Animated News Stand.

My favorite structure currently on my layout is the Woodland Scenics Morrison's Doors Factory. It has superb detail, looks great and IMO superior to any PV structure. Here it is on my layout expansion that I'm in the process of building:

I put it next to the PV Hospital, which is one of the bigger PV structures. The big difference is the cost: the PV structure is a small fraction of the Woodland Scenics Morrison's Doors Factory.

Arnold

Great produce stand, Arnold 👍

From my hi rail layout in Williamsburg:

Pete, your Plasticville, scenery and photos are superb.

I've loved Plasticville since I was a youngster and had it on my HO layout.  On my current postwar O gauge layouts I'm not really going for realism - rather just a display for trains and Plasticville.

Doug

Doug, I think the Plasticville on your layout is very charming. It looks like a perfect little Plasticville world.  Arnold

The photos on this thread are giving me ideas for how best to set up the Plasticville on my layout expansion.