I am about to add buildings to my set up. I am new to this. Are there any brands I should look for or stay away from. I’m sure most of it is personal taste, but I want to stay away from poor quality or brands that people have had trouble with.
thanks
Actually most of the major brands are pretty good : Walthers, DPM, City Classics, Atlas, RDA, Pikestuff.
The Lifelike and Model Power buildings can be a little on the crude side as far as details, but are designed for the beginner.
Vollmer, Con Cor/Heljan and Kibri make good kits but they are mostly European prototypes.
Do you have any particular era or area of the country in mind?
Dave H.
Just watch out for the OLD Walthers plastic kits, the ones in the light blue boxes. Those are the rebadged old Magnuson kits and show their 70’s origins. They may LOOK a lot like DPM kits, but the castings are nowhere near as nice, at least in the couple I have. The new ones are much nicer.
–Randy
as has been mentioned, WALTHERS, ATLAS, DPM (Design Preservation Models, BLAIR LINE, NORTHEASTERN SCALE MODELS and AMERICAN MODEL BUILDERS are all great. Bachmann, Life Like, Model Power & IHC are inexpensive and a little on the crude side, though, but they’re good for the background, or for “kitbashing”-taking parts from 2 or three kits, and combining them.
I heard of 1 modeler who buys up 2 or 3 MODEL POWER kits at a time, and does this.
Yes, but I am working on this with my 9 year old son, so looking cool is more important than historical accuracy. He really wants a junk yard and a coal mine. But something he can play with too. I want something he can have fun with so as not to turn him off to the hobby.
Thanks for the replies.
I would avoid the wooden kits like the AMB and JL Innovative, they are actually my favorite structure kits to build, but they are too fragile to play with. I would stick with the plastic kits. The Walthers New River mine is a nice kit, quite big, but a great destination. How about some stock pens and cows, this can be a good place to run your stock cars to.
I’d shoot for Bachmann’s Plasticville stuff then, they’re more colorful and in tune with wehat would keep a kids attention. They can also be enhanced later on, when he get’s a little older, to look better and more real.
For an idea of what they look like: http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/160-45130
you can tell they are colorful enough for a 9 year old, yet can easily be repainted/enhanced later when his attaention switches to more realistic structures.
For the full list: http://www.walthers.com/exec/search?category=Structure&scale=&manu=&item=&keywords=plasticville&instock=Q&split=30&Submit=Search
or try bachmann’s site: http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/index.html