Why Doesn't Anyone Make true city buildings in O scale?

Being an urban modeler, I really like the discussion and the pics. Here are some pics from my old layout circa 2002.

On my 12' stretch on the modular layout, I am limited by the 2 mains and passing track in a 32" depth. In addition, the scenery has to be easy-off, easy-on.

None of the buildings are tall.....2 stories is my limit for ease of carrying.

Peter

If Lionel or MTH were to make the Algonquin Hotel it would list for $1000,  a very few folks would pre-order, and the manufacturer would declare there is no market for large city buildings.

Just caught that you want to model an elevated RR.  You don't need tall city buildings to do that.  This is the way to do it -- thank you to Joseph Frank! 

I can't used forced perspective because the buildings will be all around my El which itself runs tight in front of you all the way around the island.  And the cityscape will be on an island that you can walk around 3 sides so there is no "way back" area.  

 

PJB

I understand what you are saying.  However, what you want to achieve may be easier than you think.  Consider full width buildings, or some semblance of full width buildings, but don't make them as tall.   That way when viewed at track level, you will capture the look and feel of your El going through a man made canyon of full city buildings.  But you won't have to deal with the height. 

After all, this is what people who model mountain railroading do...none of those mountains are anywhere near scale height, but the track level part is quite wide.

As an example of what am talking about, look at the photo below.  The tracks are going by buildings that are 2-3 feet wide but whose height to width ratio are much smaller than the prototype:

At the Manassas Rail Fest today I saw several buildings that would fit PJB's needs, realistically large and wide hotels, skyscrapers, apartment buildings, office buildings like you'd find in downtown New York or Chicago, and they were made from Legos.  They could also be easily customized to fit the available real estate.

 I'm not sure how necessary these types of buildings are.   Most of us are lucky enough to be able to model a block's worth of real estate on one or both sides of the tracks in O.  Maybe in places like New York or Chicago you'll find tall buildings that close to the tracks.  In most cities, in the 1950s at least, the areas in the central city that close to the tracks are going to be occupied by lower warehouses and factories. Those nice tall buildings would be a few blocks away.

Great pictures

PBJ, As I understand it your city layout is an island in the room with 3 sides to walk around and the elevated line runs along the edge "so there is no far-off background" for forced perspective buildings. Perhaps you could use a "view block" down the middle of the island with forced perspective buildings (HO scale) and photo backdrops along this "view block". 

Paul Goodness

Bill N posted:

At the Manassas Rail Fest today I saw several buildings that would fit PJB's needs, realistically large and wide hotels, skyscrapers, apartment buildings, office buildings like you'd find in downtown New York or Chicago, and they were made from Legos.  They could also be easily customized to fit the available real estate.

Did they look realistic? 

Peter

Bill N posted:

 I'm not sure how necessary these types of buildings are.   Most of us are lucky enough to be able to model a block's worth of real estate on one or both sides of the tracks in O.  Maybe in places like New York or Chicago you'll find tall buildings that close to the tracks.  In most cities, in the 1950s at least, the areas in the central city that close to the tracks are going to be occupied by lower warehouses and factories. Those nice tall buildings would be a few blocks away.

Bill,

This keeps getting misinterpreted. Not saying I need skyscrapers.  I'm saying cityscape buildings. Think about Herald Square Macy's or the St. Moritz hotel. Or the New Yorker for that matter. The Tiffany building, Cartier corner or any of the mansions there. Astor hotel, the Plaza,  etc. These aren't buildings that are the width of a freight train car.  

Any one of these buildings have grand doorways and entrances. And the hotels and department stores have large restaurants and diners that take only a portion of the first floor, and window displays. They often have beautiful architecture and large ornate Windows for the first few floors. And, yes, they rise 8-15 stories or more, but the height isn't the point.  Height isn't very important. It's the grandness and feel of a bid city that's missing in most of what's available.  The biggest MTH building I own has a double front door that could be the entrance to a house in my neighborhoods , a coffee shop on one side the size of my kitchen and typical Windows all around. A nice building but if you compare it to the types of buildings I'm describing I'm sure anyone can see the immense difference in grandeur and appearance. One clearly is grand and screams city. The other can be found in a city but is in a very different class and also can be confused for something seen on Main Street, Alabama.  

Is it realistic to have my El running by the types of buildings I seek?  Frankly, that's irrelevant to me.  I'm not trying to recreate a real thing to match up to a photo. I'm trying to create a feel to this part of my layout. One that stands apart from the typical. When you see it you will know it has the feel of a real city because it will have the earmarks.  

Peter, I believe I understand what you are attempting to achieve. I will try to borrow someone's digital camera to take some photos of what I am doing. Suffice to say my post office building is over 7 feet long. Another building near it emulates a department store with revolving doors and window displays and a blue background with gold letters sign "GIMBEL'S." It has a good sized portico over the entranceway.

I have a number of building fronts that will be used to make a MACY'S store of about 4 x 4 foot that will be 7 or 8 stories high. The 4 foot depth is all I have room for.  A friend of mine makes the fronts and I sell them for him at York and a few 2 rail shows.

So, a question could be "how can you integrate trains in with larger buildings like these?" Easy. The trains run underneath the buildings just as they do in New York city.

rheil posted:

<snip>

So, a question could be "how can you integrate trains in with larger buildings like these?" Easy. The trains run underneath the buildings just as they do in New York city.

So, the question is, are you a railroad modeler or an architectural modeler, a worthwhile endeavor in its own right?
By the way: have you seen this?

http://www.modeltrainjournal.c....php?f=2&t=16489

PJB posted:

 I'm saying cityscape buildings. Think about Herald Square Macy's or the St. Moritz hotel. Or the New Yorker for that matter. The Tiffany building, Cartier corner or any of the mansions there. Astor hotel, the Plaza,  etc. These aren't buildings that are the width of a freight train car.  

Heck, just think of almost any 'downtown' looking structure in the hobby. I can't count the number of movie theater buildings I've seen on layouts that aren't wide enough to house a wide-screen TV inside. Even the old time small theaters, everyone knows one of them when they see them. And all of them, even the small ones were much larger than the models of them on layouts. Heck, many of the structures on layout representing theaters aren't as wide as the box office of many real-life theaters!

Rex,

Thank you for posting that. After I finish the Macy's building Pennsylvania Station will be next in the que. I would say I am a railroad modeler - not a model railroader. My favorite railroad station of all was Pennsylvania Station. Probably was in there on the PRR 25 or more times, and it was hallowed ground to me. My O scale Christmas garden (stays up year 'round) already has the high level platforms in place  and my longest one scales out almost exactly to being the length of the longest one in Pennsylvania Station.

My friends say my layout is an eastern industrial themed one and that is true. Steel mill is a little over 30 feet long. I probably  can answer your question by saying I am both a railroad and architectural modeler. I like big buildings that tend to "hide" the trains.

rheil posted:

Rex,

Thank you for posting that. After I finish the Macy's building Pennsylvania Station will be next in the que. I would say I am a railroad modeler - not a model railroader. My favorite railroad station of all was Pennsylvania Station. Probably was in there on the PRR 25 or more times, and it was hallowed ground to me. My O scale Christmas garden (stays up year 'round) already has the high level platforms in place  and my longest one scales out almost exactly to being the length of the longest one in Pennsylvania Station.

My friends say my layout is an eastern industrial themed one and that is true. Steel mill is a little over 30 feet long. I probably  can answer your question by saying I am both a railroad and architectural modeler. I like big buildings that tend to "hide" the trains.

My, that is impressive.

How about showing some photos?

Rex, What operations do you have in your 1:48 steel mill? I too have a steel mill on my layout. A blast furnace complex, Bessemer Complex, Rolling Mill, four bay open hearth shop and press shop. I am working on animating the skip car hoist. The rolling mill and press shop are animated.

Pete

Wow! That's fantastic, Pete.

rheil posted:

Peter, I believe I understand what you are attempting to achieve. I will try to borrow someone's digital camera to take some photos of what I am doing. Suffice to say my post office building is over 7 feet long. Another building near it emulates a department store with revolving doors and window displays and a blue background with gold letters sign "GIMBEL'S." It has a good sized portico over the entranceway.

I have a number of building fronts that will be used to make a MACY'S store of about 4 x 4 foot that will be 7 or 8 stories high. The 4 foot depth is all I have room for.  A friend of mine makes the fronts and I sell them for him at York and a few 2 rail shows..

Can't wait to see the photos! 

Bill Bramlage has an enormous layout with a very large and tall urban area. He scratch built most of them. Years ago, there was a building kit called American Skyline. The skyscrapers you could build with it were very close to O'scale. You can still get them on eBay, but they're not cheap if complete. I had one as a kid and it was one of my favorite building kits. I have a fairly large layout, 37 x 13', but can't support large city structures. The largest I can support and maintain believability is the Bernheim Distillery complete. It's about 5 scale stores high. I don't have problems with 3-5 story structures since they're small enough so care can be taken with details. Big buildings tend to be like impressionist paintings, they look best when viewed from afar. 

To see an absolutely fabulous city scape on a layout, check out the BNSF-sponsored HO layout in the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. Here they faithfully reproduced Chicago's downtown including a scale model of the Willis Tower that is humongous. It's in a room with a 30 (or more) ceiling height. 

Honestly, if you really want to model large structures, you should be in HO or even better, N. I'm envious of both of those scales when it comes to structures, but quickly get over it when my H-8 rumbles by and I can feel the platform shake. That's some power there. HO and N just can duplicate mass like O'scale . I chose O because of the size and mass of the equipment, its ease of operation, and how cool it looks when going by at eye level. It's the trade offs we have to make.

"Did they look realistic? "

You are asking the guy who in all seriousness suggested using buildings made of Legos!  From a distance they looked as good as many of the commercially available O scale pre-assembled buildings look out of the box.  There are size differences, such as roughly 12 foot ceilings rather than 8.  Close up they betray their origin, but I suspect most modelers would have little difficulty masking this.

@PJB-If you saw some of these buildings you might agree they can be made similar to the types of buildings you are talking about.  What they are not though is models of the buildings you are talking about.  Here's a link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/decojim/923765365

rheil posted:

I have a number of building fronts that will be used to make a MACY'S store of about 4 x 4 foot that will be 7 or 8 stories high. The 4 foot depth is all I have room for.  A friend of mine makes the fronts and I sell them for him at York and a few 2 rail shows.

7 or 8 stories is ~6 feet -- how low off the floor is your layout????  Or, do you have 14+' ceilings? 

rheil posted:

I have a number of building fronts that will be used to make a MACY'S store of about 4 x 4 foot that will be 7 or 8 stories high. The 4 foot depth is all I have room for.  A friend of mine makes the fronts and I sell them for him at York and a few 2 rail shows.

 

Any chance you could show some pix of these fronts and if available for sale? Thank you.

Jerrman

mwb posted:

rheil posted:

I have a number of building fronts that will be used to make a MACY'S store of about 4 x 4 foot that will be 7 or 8 stories high. The 4 foot depth is all I have room for.  A friend of mine makes the fronts and I sell them for him at York and a few 2 rail shows.

7 or 8 stories is ~6 feet -- how low off the floor is your layout????  Or, do you have 14+' ceilings? 

Marty,

The street level is about 50 inches off the floor. Track level is about 44. I use a material available from roofing supply houses as the base for the above tracks ground level. It costs about $16 per 4 X 8 sheet and is a foam material with paper backing on both sides. Very lightweight with zero warpage and very easily cut to size.

I have about 34 inches clearance from top of base material to ceiling tiles. a 4 story front is 12 inches high, so, at 3 inches per floor I can put 8 stories in with no trouble. I like the foam material as it permits me to easily remove a large section for access to the tracks below.

Once I can borrow a digital camera and figure out how to I will post photos of the fronts and buildings I have made from them. Yes, the fellow casting these fronts does have them for sale.

Toledo Lines posted:

The 1:48 scratch built building was constructed using Downtown Deco walls and Grandt Line windows. The last photo is of the building as it is today in Toledo Ohio. The building was the Grasser Brandt brewery in Toledo Ohio. Yes, it too time to construct the building nut it was worth the work and on a layout there isn't that many buildings and to me I want each building to look great. Scratch building only needs patience and an imagination.

Pete

Corte Madera CA

Great work Pete, yours looks better than the original!

My building hasn't seen the wear and weather subjected to the 1:1 scale building built about 1880. The City of Toledo has stated the building may become condos because it has a great location. Following being used as brewery the building was used for cold storage.

I wished Bachmann would do there Spectrum series buildings in O scale.  I spoke with them at York years ago and they said unlikely.  I understand the space limitations many have but IMHO if they kits were made in O scale people would modify them to fit if the footprint was to large.  I know tooling these for O scale might be expensive but I don't believe there wouldn't be enough demand for them unless they priced them too high.

Have you looked at Todd Architectural Models? They advertise Limited Production Buildings & Fronts in OGR but really don't show anything in this line on their website.

Rusty Traque posted:

26th Street in Chicago, near where I grew up.  Looks like city buildings and not "towny" to me. 

26th near California, definitely not a "towny" structure, part of the beloved Cook County Jail...

Rusty

Rusty, I grew up by 31st and LSD in Lake Meadows. I grew up watching the IC trains and freight trains. I could also see the planes taking off and landing at Megs Field. I had to make deliveries near 26th & California. The county jail looks more like a prison.

Toledo Lines:  Never heard of the Grasser Brandt brewery, (no surprise..Prohibition killed hundreds of breweries)...but, no chance they operated their own logoed reefers?  And what brands did they brew?

The Grasser Brand was brewed in Toledo for Northwest Ohio with distribution as far west as Chicago and east as Cleveland according to the book, Breweries of Toledo, Ohio. The logo on the building is the company logo. I became acquainted with the great grand daughter of the last brewer. I have smaller logos which I could put onto a reefer, good idea and thank you.

PJB,

I sent you an e-mail with photos of my city buildings.

rattler21 posted:

Anyone know how deep the big power plant (Kit 916) is when assembled?  Website shows one inch (1") which doesn't seem right.  Thanks, John

The other buildings are about 6" deep according to the website. I think that is probably true for the main one as well, but you can just email Rich off the Korber website and he will give you a quick answer (in my older version of this structure, before Rich bought the company, they are about 8" deep, but it looks like that may have changed since then). 

Jerrman

rheil posted:

PJB,

I sent you an e-mail with photos of my city buildings.

Sorry, I've been traveling back and forth to Budapest on business since May. Will try to get through some email this week. 

Thank you for your email  

Peter

DennyM posted:

Rusty Traque posted:

26th Street in Chicago, near where I grew up.  Looks like city buildings and not "towny" to me. 

26th near California, definitely not a "towny" structure, part of the beloved Cook County Jail...

Rusty

Rusty, I grew up by 31st and LSD in Lake Meadows. I grew up watching the IC trains and freight trains. I could also see the planes taking off and landing at Megs Field. I had to make deliveries near 26th & California. The county jail looks more like a prison.

Rusty Traque - it's fine that an urban block, which to me resembles "main street any small town USA" looks like a city block to you.  Everything is relative.  

More importantly, I see several folks on this forum often post your type of response and not sure I understand the point.  In case it's not clear, I respect the way you happen to see the world but it is sort of irrelevant to my stated goal (building a city to resemble the features I want, as described in several posts above).  So stating what you happen to think a city should look like doesn't actually contribute to the thread.  I think it would be different if I were asking for opinions on what people think a city should look like.  

PJB posted:

DennyM posted:

Rusty Traque posted:

26th Street in Chicago, near where I grew up.  Looks like city buildings and not "towny" to me. 

26th near California, definitely not a "towny" structure, part of the beloved Cook County Jail...

Rusty

Rusty, I grew up by 31st and LSD in Lake Meadows. I grew up watching the IC trains and freight trains. I could also see the planes taking off and landing at Megs Field. I had to make deliveries near 26th & California. The county jail looks more like a prison.

Rusty Traque - it's fine that an urban block, which to me resembles "main street any small town USA" looks like a city block to you.  Everything is relative.  

More importantly, I see several folks on this forum often post your type of response and not sure I understand the point.  In case it's not clear, I respect the way you happen to see the world but it is sort of irrelevant to my stated goal (building a city to resemble the features I want, as described in several posts above).  So stating what you happen to think a city should look like doesn't actually contribute to the thread.  I think it would be different if I were asking for opinions on what people think a city should look like.  

 

Interesting thread and lots to discuss.

There is a big difference between a three-flat in Chicago or along the Third Avenue EL as compared to Fifth Avenue or Madison and State in the windy city.

With that said the whole point of city buildings to me is to have them overwhelm the trains.    

One could take an average bedroom and fill it with a maze of city streets, industries and row buildings and have quite a busy switching layout replicating something similar to the Fell's Point area of Baltimore where the 0-4-0 "docksiders" ran, the Milwaukee Road's Kingsbury branch in Chicago or the Pennsy and Reading  along Delaware avenue in Philly.

Back on topic,  one has to wonder the cost to make large structures for the O scale market.  Would someone pay hundreds of dollars for a block long curtain wall city building?

rule292posted:

 

With that said the whole point of city buildings to me is to have them overwhelm the trains.    

 

Rob,

I e-mailed the original poster (PJB) some photos of my city buildings which do overwhelm the trains. Hopefully Peter will post the photos in this topic. I will also attempt to do so.

My buildings were built from fronts cast by a friend and fellow O scaler. Your estimate of hundreds of dollars is correct for making a large building. If you attend the Strasburg show I'll have them available there.

I get why nobody makes skyscrapers for any scale, because who's got room for that? How many people accurately model anything larger than a small town?

It's just a matter of percentages, but I do get how someone wanting to do justice to a city in scale would be frustrated.

What I don't get is how few mid-size (or larger) wood buildings are made as kits for the hobby. Most buildings seem to be brick construction as I guess it's easier to correctly make that from plastic? I had to scratchbuild what I needed for wood structures as I model an extremely rural area where only WPA-build buildings and a small numbers of houses were made of brick at that time...

rattler21 posted:

Anyone know how deep the big power plant (Kit 916) is when assembled?  Website shows one inch (1") which doesn't seem right.  Thanks, John

John,

According to the front of the product carton I have, the dimensions of the power plant structure are 12" x 23.5" (without the conveyor piece, which is 5" x 24").  So all in all, this entire assembly needs roughly 12" x 48" of real estate space on your layout.  Although the power plant is a popular building on many layouts, I've seldom seen the conveyor assembly -- quite likely due to space requirements.

David

So you're looking for this in O Scale?

Macy's

St. Moritz

How many thousands of dollars do you have to spend? 

Scratch build and reduce the cost to a few hundred ...

hours.