Show me your detailed/kit bashed Lionelville Buildings!

I actually don'tremember what is Lionel, what is MTH, what is something else, and scratch built on my layout.

I found that interior details, particularly near the windows, help - even on the upper floors do alot.  In many cases, it install first and upper-floor interiors with some furnishings, etc., all made from card stock: I use manilla folders and index cards for strength, often printout on a color printer and glue to them, but it looks great from outside the windows. That, and a few people inside . . .

But as to detailing, I found close examination of the Woodland Scenics built ups helped me think of many tiny details to add toother buildings. Electric service conduits and meter boxes on outside and back walls, window AC units and flower boxes,  garbage cans and dumpsters, outside lights, fire escapes, etc. A ladder to reach the roof sometimes.  On roofs, an access door/stair into the building, stacks and vents, sometimes a skylight or two. In store windows, ads pasted to the insideof windows, displays in the windows, etc.   I've made an effort to emulate those things I see in the WSbuiltups I bought in what I build/bash now.

Here are couple. I usually start out replacing the windows with clear material and putting photos of interiors in the windows. Then one by one installing interiors and lighting. Roof detail has been added also, water tanks, stairways, figures, stacks, etc.

Similar upgrades done to Walther's and MTH buildings. The frosted window material removed from the Lionel buildings make great bases for figures that have to be taken up and moved. All of the figures in these pics have bases.

Pete

Here is my Lionel Toy store.  I converted it to Grace Drug. Not a bad building for the $20 I paid for it.....but correct....very plain......

After I took the building apart and made it into a 'kit' I eneded up with this.....

I added display window trim to make it more realistic.....glass all the way to the sidewalk would not last long! I made and printed the signs on photo paper. The hanging sign is brass wire. Interior was printed and cut....simple but not full detail. I added trim over the top of the windows....painted and weather the building. 

Thanks

Norton,

Where did you get the trailer unloading in front of Al's Hardware?

Joe

Joe,

 I picked it up at York a few years ago from a guy selling off a ton of scenic material. I don't have a box but may be able to check who made it this evening.

Pete

The only building I know is Lionel for sure is my Legacy hotel.  Here are a few of the details I put around it: alobby of paper furniture and walls with paintings and a gegistration counter farther back (hard to see), to the right: dumpster with cat, telephone booth, trash can, brick alley.  In front, benches, people for some sidewalk action. Mostly unmodified though. 

This is either MTRH or Lionel, I don't remember which.  Store interior is complete - bookshelves along back walls, and internally standing bookcases pull of books (justpprinted and folded paper, counter with cash register, people shopping inside.

Outside, flowering hedges, store-front magazine racks, benchs, people, a dumpster in back, etc.  

This building isn't the greatest, but look at the lamps over the front doors.  A simple trick I've used on about five building.  Those are beads from a cheap plastic set I bought at a garage sale, with a hole drilled in them, and mounted on bent paperclips.  Here, they look elegant. Turn them over and they look elegant.  Turn them over and cut the bead in half so the globe only has the upper half, and they look industrial instead.

This is made from Ameritown store fronts bashed a bit, but emphasizes how much a (again) paper interior and stuff on the sidewalk can add . . . the lights over the doors added here were taken from Lionel utility poles with streetlights, and work.

Here's Al's Hardware with 4 stories added to it

Alex

Here's M&M's corporate headquarters

Two candy stores, each with an extra floor, and with a bridge floor between... re-signed, and a few M&M's accessories.  Delivery truck fits under bridge floor.  Plymouth switcher is a Ford version re-signed because the colors look so good with the M&M's aquarium car, truck, fork lift, and corvette!

Ed

This is a Lionelville pharmacy I modified into the bar on Family Guy.Lionel should produce this building,I think it would be a good seller.

Dan

Along the lines of this thread, I wonder why Lionel has pretty much dropped  these great little buildings...

I bought a lot of them from Grzy..... it appears they bought out all of the stock of Lionelville original buildings.  Now they only seem to modify them and sell them with additional "decoration" at higher prices.

Occasionally Lionel comes out with a special version, but I wish they would bring back the original 9!

Ed