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

p51 posted:

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...

Ironically, I don't get the common consensus in this hobby - or at least on this forum. Last time I checked, people here love to model mountainous regions, yet a decent rendition of a small, yet scale-ish portion of the Rockies or Appalachia would be a whole lot bigger than modeling a small yet scale-ish 4-6 block piece of any city.  

What strikes me as even more astonishing is that many of the people who have posted about how "big" (too big!) a few city blocks would be are the same folks who are looking for absolute realism in the model trains and argue how the level of detail on this or that offering from Lionel or MTH just doesn't cut it.  How the heck do these same folks poo poo the size a few city blocks yet justify modeling mountainous regions that can fit in a small corner of Central Park?  Go figure ....

These would make for a nice skyline...............

Regards,

Swafford

Peter, Once you have an opportunity to check your e-mail I believe you may see what you are searching for.

PJB posted:

Ironically, I don't get the common consensus in this hobby - or at least on this forum. Last time I checked, people here love to model mountainous regions, yet a decent rendition of a small, yet scale-ish portion of the Rockies or Appalachia would be a whole lot bigger than modeling a small yet scale-ish 4-6 block piece of any city.  

What strikes me as even more astonishing is that many of the people who have posted about how "big" (too big!) a few city blocks would be are the same folks who are looking for absolute realism in the model trains and argue how the level of detail on this or that offering from Lionel or MTH just doesn't cut it.  How the heck do these same folks poo poo the size a few city blocks yet justify modeling mountainous regions that can fit in a small corner of Central Park?  Go figure ....

As i said earlier, city modeling outside of traction/subways, certainly isn't as common as rural areas.  This is sad because one could pack a lot of accurate city railroading into a bedroom, let alone a basement.   The scenery could truly dominate the railroad, as it should.

The old Model Railroader articles on the Kingsbury Branch in Chicago or the Severna Park Model RR club's B&O "Inner Harbor" model proved this some 30 plus years go.

If were not modeling coal cracker scenes my next would be a city and all of the trappings of urban railroading like John Sethian's PRR.   What would be a dream is passenger operation underground.   Think of modeling a GCT or Penn Station with literally hundreds of trains arriving daily.

rheil posted:

Peter, Once you have an opportunity to check your e-mail I believe you may see what you are searching for.

Finally leaving work. Prolly be too wiped when I get home to start sifting through my inbox, but really looking forward to taking a look at your email - if not tonight then definitely tomorrow. And thanks again!

peter

Bill N posted:

"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

Bill N - I checked out the Flickr page and wow, these are pretty cool buildings - considering they're made of Legos. Don't know how real I can make them look, as I'm not the most experienced modeler - but I have friends who work at Lego US HQ and plan to at least follow up to see if I can see these in-person.  Thanks. 

Farmer_Bill posted:

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.

Yes. Looking for buildings like those.  Not necessarily those. Meaning, as I said much earlier, real city looking buildings with grandeur - so you know you're looking at a big city.  Having said that, they don't need to be scale. They don't have to be as tall as my house.  Just decent "semi-scale" (as the train manufacturers love to say for selectively compressed renditions) versions of a grand buildings would be ideal. 

Yes, O scale is all about the available real estate.  I attach some photos of my 4 ft by 8 ft layout.  We decided on three general land use areas --- a town, an industrial area, and a passenger platform area.  In the town, we have a "municipal" block consisting of (1) police/municipal offices; (2) City Hall and (3) fire station.  The remainder of the "town" area includes Dotty's Store, a trackside shed, three story apartment building, row house, and rural-type farm house with garage out back.  We only had room between a siding and the mainline tracks for a modest two-story warehouse in the industrial area.  For the passenger platform area, I built a kit for the older (abandoned --- just RR offices now) train station, and installed an MTH "modern" platform typical of those we see on commuter lines along the Hudson River above NYC, and also out on commuter lines west of Boston.

However, the most rewarding feature of our layout (...and, I suppose any decent train set...) is the amount of illusory detail provided by the rich imaginations of our children (in my case, grandchildren) as they make up the history, culture, and day-to-day operations --- whether loading freight into box cars, or handling make-believe announcements at the passenger platform.

Are any of these buildings within 100 feet of the railroad tracks?

Andrew

THIS IS FROM BOB HEIL:

Here are a few shots of some buildings I am making for my city scene. Obviously , they are not completed. The fronts used on the post office building will also be used for Pennsylvania Station New York.

John: There is a post on OGR scenery about large city buildings, and I made reference to these. Can you post these on that topic? I am not sure how to do it. You already put some photos of what you have done.

Thanks,

Bob

@BXCXDan posted:

PJB,

Sure.. here you go.. I have a bunch for you review.. I have shots I will start with on the scene with nothing till there are buildings.. with that, I also did the whole row of buildings that were against the tracks as large ones and took them apart and made smaller buildings and added the church because the huge buildings took away the seeing the good stuff that I had did with the buildings in the back.. But it still came out well. I also added some mills that are being modeled and shows how I am using cardboard mock-ups to visualize how the scene would work.. wish I did that with the city issue above, would have saved me a week.. but live and learn... enjoy.. Ohh, to answer your question, the building to the right is a Chooch building.. cut up to 'fit' the scene..  Dan

Oh man! I would LOVE to see Gilbert Pulp and paper mill completed! Thats cool the walkway/ conveyors over the tracks and the structures are set on a curve!

Ready made city buildings mostly MTH, just by two or more and stack them up

Our product line has headed in the direction of historic buildings or buildings with interesting regional use that can be modified to fit on any layout by changing height, width and/or footprint to meet the needs of the buyer. Understanding the lack of O Scale real estate on most layouts, our offerings usually start in shadowbox (1" deep) format. So far this has been a six-year learning curve that has been exhilarating at times and frustrating at times. All of our buildings are built true to scale. All are developed initially in O Scale, some are now available in S Scale and we presented our newest structure, the McElwain Factory Warehouse of Nashau, NH at the January 2021 ARS Virtual Train Show, in HO Scale. It is the first model where a near-prototypical brick pattern is used. A prototypical 4-1/2 story, 12" long section has 156 pieces that are cut, painted, and/or assembled, be it O, S or HO Scales.   Our Cameron Station project was developed from original design (early 1900's) documents.  The Birthplace of Basketball project took six months of research with multiple historical societies as the original design drawings were lost in a fire and the building was razed in the 1960's.

All of our models are individually crafted using laser scored and cut acrylic plastic and other materials. All are painted and assembled in New Jersey. There is inventory on some models and sizes, I call them "build boxes", while others are built to-order. Build boxes contain all of the parts to construct an order, cut and painted. Assembly is done once the order is placed. This allows for customizing window glazing and reducing the storage area needed for onsold built-up and boxed inventory.

I host regular Zoom sessions on weekdays from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM EST and Sundays from Noon until 4:00 PM. The links are found on the website homepage. Some sample photographs are below. Yes, the WTC is not in O Scale.

I know this is an old thread, but...I would have thought the answer was obvious.  An O scale building requires eight times the amount of space on a manufacturer's or dealer's shelf, eight times the space to ship and close to eight times the material as the same structure in HO.  To justify that there would have to be either a large demand for the product or a large profit margin.

My issue is with what constitutes a "true city building".  Not every true city was New York or Chicago.  As late as the transition era I would argue urban centers of 100,000 people or less would qualify as true cities.  These cities might have just a handful of non-industrial buildings that were more that 5 stories tall, but they were not usually located adjacent to the railroad tracks.  Even in cities of significantly larger size the taller downtown office and residential structures were usually located some distance from the tracks.  If it comes down to a choice between tall office buildings, residences or hotels on the one hand, and warehouses, basic factory buildings and tenements on the other, I suspect that most modelers would find the latter to be more useful.

@Bill N posted:

I know this is an old thread, but...I would have thought the answer was obvious.  An O scale building requires eight times the amount of space on a manufacturer's or dealer's shelf, eight times the space to ship and close to eight times the material as the same structure in HO.  To justify that there would have to be either a large demand for the product or a large profit margin.

My issue is with what constitutes a "true city building".  Not every true city was New York or Chicago.  As late as the transition era I would argue urban centers of 100,000 people or less would qualify as true cities.  These cities might have just a handful of non-industrial buildings that were more that 5 stories tall, but they were not usually located adjacent to the railroad tracks.  Even in cities of significantly larger size the taller downtown office and residential structures were usually located some distance from the tracks.  If it comes down to a choice between tall office buildings, residences or hotels on the one hand, and warehouses, basic factory buildings and tenements on the other, I suspect that most modelers would find the latter to be more useful.

I agree with Bill N regarding the business obstacles to producing or selling realistic large buildings.

I also agree with him regarding the definition of a "true city building".  Below is Steubenville, OH in the mid-late 1950s (based on the automobiles I've been able to identify, this is 1957).  The view is east, down Market Street towards the Ohio River.  While there aren't a ton of tall buildings, on the left you can see the National Exchange Bank Building and beyond it (with the fancier stone front), the Sinclair Building (10 stories).  The white 4-5 story building in front of them is The Hub department store.  The crossing gates in the foreground are for the Panhandle.

Most of these downtown buildings, with the notable exception of The Hub, still exist.

Further north of the first area (i.e. to the left of the photo above) was another tall structure, the Ft. Steuben Hotel.

This building also exists, although it has been since converted to condos and apartments.

So, it is possible to have some tall buildings / city scenes close by the tracks.  But you are probably going to have build them yourself.  My plans for the area:

George

I have been given permission by Frank to develop his building designs that are shown above. I still have a bit of catch up on outstanding orders and there is the Downtown building to develop and produce. Also in the works are the Steinway Storage building (NYC), Stegmaier Bottling Building (Wilkes Barre, PA), and the building backdrop of the Erie-Lackawanna Yard in Binghamton, NY.

I would appreciate some input on how you would use Frank's building designs on your layout. Footprint size, height and lighting options are details that need to be understood for me to be a viable source. I am looking at a timeline to have product available to pick up at TCA York in the fall.

Please consider joining in the daily Zoom sessions that I hold. The appropriate links may be found on the website homepage.

What a neat thread this is! Great pictures and videos.

I disagree with others who think that city's take up a lot of space and that's the reason why there's so few city buildings available. For my layout, building upward takes up less two-dimensional space, and as such I can create the illusion of a larger city than what actually exists in 2-d.

IMO, the real reason there's so few city buildings available is because O-gauge is a niche hobby dominated by collectors of engines and rolling stock - and thus that's where the money is. I've observed that HO scale, on the other hand, is chock-full of city style buildings.

The other reason is because we've lost MTH, at least what they used to be, and while Lionel has bought some of their building designs, what they've released thus far is pitiful IMO and commands a much higher price.

MTH's legacy for me at least, was their buildings and accessories. Without MTH, I would've never been able to afford (meaning the prohibitive cost of buying custom structures at York) to build my renditions of a city.

Pictured below is my downtown area, mostly MTH with one Lionel, one Menards building, and one Korber.

I have seen great looking buildings at York but they are sooooooo expensive. With available brands I have a classic, I think, 50-60's, brick building downtown. I also wish Menards would do more all ones.

Yes, Menards came through with the York Hotel, but I have to say the other tall ones they made didn't pique my interest, most were very modern-looking for the most part, which I surmise their customer-base desires.

I love the classic period of American Architecture, mainly those well-made brick buildings of the early 20th century. I make-do with mostly MTH structures, which after detailing, are quite neat.

The Menards YORK hotel is not O scale, closer to 1:52-55.  Shown next to a Pioneer Valley kit building(1:48). John

Wish Bachmann would do their Spectrum series in o scale

Interesting discussion, my guess is that there is a paucity of City Buildings made in O Gauge simply because the major companies believe there is insufficient demand to make them worth their while to manufacture.

I've opted to have a Plasticville village, which is relatively inexpensive but still has a lot of charm IMO,

together with a couple of Woodland Scenics buildings. IMO, Woodland Scenics buildings are awesome, but they ain't cheap. My favorites are Morrison's Doors Factory (had to have it being a huge fan of The Doors rock and roll band and it's lead singer Jim Morrison), and Sully's Tavern.

Had to have a bar (doesn't most every town have a multitude of them?), especially across the street from Morrison's Doors Factory.

LOL, Arnold

@Paul Kallus posted:

I disagree with others who think that city's take up a lot of space and that's the reason why there's so few city buildings available.

Disagree if you wish, but the footprint a scale model of a large city building wold be larger than my entire layout, and it would stick up several feet above my roof in the layout room.

@palallin posted:

Disagree if you wish, but the footprint a scale model of a large city building wold be larger than my entire layout, and it would stick up several feet above my roof in the layout room.

Why does it need to be a large city? The scene I posted above takes up around 24 sq. ft, which is less than a 4' x 8' piece of plywood.

@Paul Kallus posted:

Why does it need to be a large city? The scene I posted above takes up around 24 sq. ft, which is less than a 4' x 8' piece of plywood.

Well, let's take one of my favorite large city buildings, the Empire State building.  Rough measurements based on dimensions I found says the scale model would be 106" x 46" and 363" tall.

My layout is 120" by 60", roughly, meaning that the footprint, with sidewalks and streets, would exceed the size of my layout.  It would be 30' tall, which would tower some 26' above the roof where the layout is.

Now, another large city building, but one more in keeping with the idea of a train layout is the Wainwright building in St. Louis.  A scale model would be just under 3' tall, which, if it were on my layout, would touch the ceiling.  I don't have the footprint figures, but an estimate based on the pics is about 24" by 15", call it 30" by 18" or so with sidewalks and streets.  Certainly more doable, but it would severely restrict trackage unless placed in the center, which is not possible without entirely removing the rear parts of the loop from access.  And that's just one building.

I stand by my contention that true scale models of large city buildings are not popular because too few people have the space and the resources to make use of them.

O'scale is just too big. A Iowa class battleship would be 19' long. In the Museum of Science and Industry they have a scale height Willis Tower of Chicago's downtown in HO. The ceiling height in the room is massive and it just fits. Scale structures in O need really big spaces.

Note: it's sitting under the wing of a real B-727, so it's a REALLY big room! If you haven't even seen this model RR, it should be on your bucket list. It was funded by the BNSF and goes from Chicago to the Pacific Northwest. Warren Buffet owns BNSF and loves trains and has his own spectacular layout. Always thought I like Warren...

Though probably pointed out already:  Even assuming a layout had the space for even 1 'true scale' O city building on the layout, the issue is it would likely dwarf all the other buildings on the layout.  This has been a discussion at the local club, in which while we could have the room for a "flat" or partial true scale re-creation of a local city building, it would make all the Woodlandscenics, MTH, and Lionel buildings look very small in comparison.  Even putting a true scale mid-sized city train station on the layout the other year made the "downtown" buildings look very small.  We're putting a small Fire Hall this Christmas into the residential area, and I worry the MTH houses are going to look almost like playhouses once installed (same as if we had put in a true scale house instead...).

@PJB posted:

... True city buildings in O scale?  You can build a beautiful city in N or HO, including realistically large and wide hotels, skyscrapers, apartment buildings, office buildings, etc.  Not in O scale. The choices are basically those "townie" 2-3 story buildings from Lionel or MTH, or 3-4 floor large town buildings from MTH - or similar from AmeriTowne, in kit form.  I've had 2 city buildings made, but this gets incredibly expensive quickly.   Why are true city buildings non-existent in O?

After some of you raised valid points on true O-scale building dimensions, I went back and re-read the OP's questions, copied above.

I thought the discussion was about the lack of decent city-style buildings in the hobby, and frankly never assumed this meant building to scale iconic skyscrapers.

The fun aspect of O-gauge for me, and I think this would be true even for true O-scalers, is that we endeavor to build with an illusion that there's more to any given scene. It's part of the challenge and making a city has just been an awesome and fun/creative project for me. It's been so rewarding that I tunneled under the basement steps into the utility room and have the benchwork and trackwork done for another city.

I worked, a lot of years in Down town Milwaukee, Most of that In the Plankinton Building, and to build that in 0 would be the size of a 4x8 table and another 27"s in height ,and thats just one building!

Downtown Deco does a reasonable job of creating urban-style architecture albeit in the two-story variety. I've scratch-built some Victorian/2nd Empire structures that were/are found in cities all over the country. In my idea box is doing the Edward Hopper "Sunday Morning" urban street with storefronts and apartments upstairs. Design Preservation did great townhouses but, unfortunately, they were HO only. That's the problem. There are good HO structures that would still work in O'scale if companies felt they had enough volume to pay for the development.

@Paul Kallus posted:

It's been so rewarding that I tunneled under the basement steps into the utility room and have the benchwork and trackwork done for another city.

I envy you your room!

It could be worse, though:  I once dabbled in F (i.e. 1:20.3).

Trying to build to scale the massive buildings in O scale as others would point out would just be impossible unless you have something the size of Madison Square Garden to play with. That said, I think what the OP is saying is why aren't there buildings that can capture the grandeur of city buildings? They obvious would be very compressed, would not be as tall as the real deal. I have seen some elegant buildings like that at York, and not surprisingly they were expensive. To get the grandeur in the relatively normal space, to create a city scene, my guess would be it would be a combination of artfully decorated yet compressed buildings along with forced perspective and building flats. Forced perspective might be having an HO skyscraper that is tall, but looks like a building in the distance in the background, when you combine that with compressed buildings in the front, can make it look like a big city.

I understand where the OP is coming from, a lot of the city buildings are boxes made to look like the metal and glass Bauhaus office buildings, rather than something more Art Deco or the like. I always wanted to build a compressed model of the NY Public Library and buildings like that, though I think even with compression they won't be all that practical. 

When it comes to large buildings O scale they are  too big for most home model railroads.  Many of us run O gauge trains.  O scale city buildings will minimize our O gauge trains and the layout might better be called a model city not a model railroad.

I am in O gauge model trains for the trains and I like the post war era with steam engines so I can model the interesting operations to support them including turntables, roundhouses, coal mines, loading, unloading and servicing the steam locomotive.

A large city scene can best be seen in my O gauge toy model railroad as a distant back ground to my suburban located turntable and round house.

Charlie

I suggest you go to Model Building Services website and look at some of the buildings Stu Gralnik has built. He recently took an Ameritown Building in a six story high rise and configured it to go around a lalley column on my layout,  He has several large layouts of just buildings in his demo portfolio  and he is also available for helping with ideas. He is currently building a very large church for a city on my layout and has done several other Downtown Deco buildings along with a Martinsburg Coal breaker for me.  First Class work and its complete with whatever else you want ie: wiring and lighting, weathering, signage etc.. I am sure you will like what you see on his website.  Bill

Lionel's grand central station was a Vision Line accessory released in 2009. I had bought one on the secondary market, and it turned to be so large it just didn't look right on my layout, and subsequently sold it. I have a hunch there's some selective compression in the design of the model.

Grand Central Terminal (lionel.com)

The old tin 113-series stations capture some of the feel of a larger building in a reasonable space, and I remember an article in CTT in which a fellow describes using artist board and wood moldings to provide a suggestive lower level for one.  Perfect for a tinplate layout but maybe not detailed enough for a hirail.

Once upon a time, a company made tin building sets that worked a lot like the '60s/'70s Kenner Girder-and-Panel sets.  I think New Marx reproduced them?--I probably have that wrong.

Anyway, I have often wondered if either type could be used to good effect.  The scale is closer to HO than O (not to mention SG), but force a little perspective, and voila!  Maybe?

One thing about large O scale buildings is that they are large in price  We have a few that we bought and we have some that were built in house  If you want large O scale look for some of the Chooch Ultrascale 2 fronts   Theyt dont make them anymore but can be found on the secondary market  MTh buildings all can have floors added by buying two or three or four and stealing the middle floors   

For a smaller city, I used HO buildings to save space and compress the depth of the scene.

After all the good discussion, ideas, and points made, I still come back to my original thought: O-gauge is dominated by collectors of engines and rolling stock, and therefore there's just not the same demand for neat and interesting ready-made structures as there is in HO scale. The variety of city structures alone in HO is incredible, though I am not sure if they're from kits or come ready-made. We in O-gauge seem to spend big bucks on realistic-looking engines, yet compatible structures really don't exist, with the exception of Woodland Scenics. Ben pointed out the companies that had made neat city structures, yet they're all out of business, which adds more weight to my hunch.

The counterpoint to my own theory is the Lionel GCT - which retailed for $1,500. It was a limited production and judging from the secondary market commands some very high prices. As an aside, I didn't really care for the construction materials, MDF and some coating that is prone to chipping (it is one heavy beast). If Lionel were to make a detailed scaled-down version of the ES or Chrysler Building ~ say 5' to 6' high, I for one would be in, assuming the building was well-made and sturdy, with a price of no more than what the GCT originally sold for. Realistically though, for Lionel to do something like this, they'd have to roll-out the marketing gurus and advertise in their usual manner and would likely make it limited production and jack up the cost. It would be neat - kind of a landmark architectural series of buildings and support structures - one released every year or so.

In addition to the posts by Ben of the NJ Hirailers city scenes, I found this thread and recall it was featured in OGR. You have to scroll down to see the NY city structures, totally awesome.

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