I am confused by Bachmann Plasticville and the HO Cylindrical Hoppers.
The Bachmann Plasticville line has to be mostly HO Scale but they market all the buildings in the O27 Gauge and O Scale Line as well. I can see them marketing them for a tight O27 Gauge layout that measures 4’ x 8’, but O Scale is a stretch unless forced perspective in the concept. That size discrepency will confuse and disappoint people who are new to the model railroad hobby.
What also confuses me about Bachmann is the way they sell the HO Scale Cylindrical Hoppers. The first thing to point out is that they chose a rare prototype that I have only see in ATSF Santa Fe and CN Canadian National paint schemes. There are no unpainted or sparsely painted versions, except for the accurate Santa Fe. The paint schemes are not revised from year to year to be more accurate. It means more decals, solvents, and paint to get it done right by the car painter. Good thing they are priced under $15. It looks like only $20 and above will pay for the authentic markings and colors. There are photos of these specific Cylindrical Hoppers on many web pages like what is found on the CN Lines site section about covered hoppers.
Bachmann Trains representives will not answer e-mails about these subjects. I did not realize that they were such sensitive subjects.
It was my understanding that there were two different lines of Plasticville…One smaller for HO and S; the other to be used by O-27. Some products are only available in only one of the two scales; and others available in both have different details. The boxes for each scale are different as well if I remember correctly; Blue for HO, and Green for O.
Can’t say anything about the hopper though…I guess they aren’t expecting people to notice that only a few railroads used that particular hopper; especially when they swap rolling stock often.
There are two sizes of Plasticville - HO and O. As said not all are in both sizes. Bachmann frieght cars are not noted for accuracy anyway, so what is the problem?
Some of the Bachmann Plasticville buildings are quite salvagable, although they definitely need painting and weathering - for instance I’m thinking of the Split Level House, the ‘Contemporary’ (well, 1958 contemporary) House, and the Pedestrian Foot Bridge. One building which I repainted and detail years ago was the New Car Showroom (rebuilt as a carpeting outlet), which is no longer offered but the front part lives on as the Hamburger Stand (the 3 mid-1950s style coupes which came with it were completely toy-like, but kinda fun to look at).
The rest of the kits can be a bit too cartoonish (e.g. the School House and Surburban Station) Note that at one time Bachmann did offer a few more realistic kits - I’m NOT talking about the Spectrum Cityscenes ones (e.g. the Hotel, Office Building, Bus Terminal), but I believe one kit was a nice looking large auto-garage and there were a few other kits also.
BTW, do NOT buy the ‘assembled’ Plasticville buildings if you can help it, because as I said you WILL need to repaint the buildings, and ‘built-ups’ just suck for repainting…
There is frugal, but to lump all the buildings together then to say they fit all scales is goofy. It looks like they do not really even have a true office in North America. Their final concepts seem like something decided in Hong Kong, Tokyo, or London. Somebody at Bachmann Trains might want to spend a few weeks in Canada and the United States each year.
Bachmann does have offices in the United States, try Philadelphia, Pa.
The Plasticville line of buildings for its time (the 1950’s) was very good. I had a lot of those buildings that I used with my Lionel trains. You have understand they were used mostly by the people who set up their trains at Christmas time. That is why they were snap together buildings that could easily be taken apart for storage. Like anything over time, things become outdated unless they are updated/upgraded.
My experience with Bachmann has been that if it is not Spectrum (their top of the line), it probably is not an accurate model of whatever you are looking at. Even with the Spectrum line some things are generic. Other items are a base engine with different roadnames put on it. If you are into exact models, you may want to consider brass as they tend to be a specific model of a particular item.
Before you take Bachmann to task, most models by other manufacturers are generic in nature also.
I model in G scale and have a lot of Bachmann cars and engines. They modeled one actual box car and all the other roadname boxcars have the same side door opening. The door slides to the left, as the car they modeled did. However, on most other railroad’s cars, the door slides to the right. I have a choice, correct it, or live with it. I may in time correct the cars, For now I just run them and overlook the problem.
The Plasticville signal bridge in HO and O/O-27 has been a popular item for kitbashing for years. Model Railroader even did a cover article on it back in the 50s. But Plasticville was built to be toys for kids and remains toys for kids. The fact that adult modelers can utilize some of the Plasticville stuff is from Bachmann’s persective just frosting on the cake. They are unlikely to get too excited about being informed that their toys look like toys.
The cylindrical hopper in HO was built to be a trainset car. Again the fact that it is reasonably accurate for any prototype is, from Bachmann’s perspective, an incidental sales benefit.
The O-27 trains put out by Lionel and others were, in essence, approximately S scale sized cars on O gauge track. Compare for example the typical Lionel O-27 boxcar to a Lionel 6464 O boxcar (pretty close to a scale model) and you will quickly see the difference. So the compromise size of Plasticville, and maybe some of the Walthers built ups, is appropriate.
When the description says "snap together " do you really think you’re going to get any realistic looks or detail ? And if I remember their water tower roof has gigantic “plasticville” letters molded on them . You can research but I don’t think any town has ever had that name .
Plasticville buildings while crude to todays models have excellent kitbashing posibilities. Almost all of them can be worked on to make a credible model, it’s a plus for Bachman.
Plasticville buildings are absolutely perfect for O-27 sized trains. My O scale layout is exclusively Plasticville. If you take the time to think out a good town plan, use roads, good scenery techniques, and the original 1950’s buildings you will have a very nice set up.
I’ve found that the original Plasticville structure colors to be superior to the new re-released Plasticville buildings. Of course it is hard to find good quality original Plasticville buildings with all the parts and no damage…a lot harder to get the boxes too.
The best in my opinion are the Factory, Green House, Trailer, and Split Level. The Diner and Frosty bar (chrome versions) are also nice.
I’ll have to get some photos of my O scale layout. Here is a great link to the history of Plasticville with many photos:
Almost forgot, there are two lines. O and HO. The HO stuff is crude and I would stay away from it. Although I did make an excellent 2 story motel out of the Bachman HO motel for my HO layout. However I do not believe it is marketed under the Plasticville name. It required a lot work, mainly with details to improve the models look and I needed two sets, but it is now a perfect late 50’s era Route 66 inspired motel. Here’s a link to the model I used:
I believe that the cylindrical hopper was once sold by Model Power, minus the metal wheels and updated couplers. Bachmann may or may not even own the dies.
The Plasticville Barn has been around for 50 years! Wow![:O]
Plasticville are appropriate for starter set HO Scale and O-27 Gauge layouts because they have the same level of detailing as inexpensive HO Scale and Postwar Style O Gauge Trains.
I would like to send them some photos of the Santa Fe and Canadian National Cylindrical Hoppers that I witnessed in the 1990’s, but would they be responsive to more paint schemes and new road numbers?
The tooling on that car is pretty decent. Bachmann has upgraded some of its better trainset cars to Proto1000 standards and maybe this car would be a candidate if they had the prototype photos and information. Their website has a contact us section and at least you could inquire as to who does their product development and prototype research.
For me, every structure kit is a starting point. Does anyone just glue together a DPM building and stick it on their layout unpainted? For me, the Bachmann/Plasticville pedestrian crossing perfectly filled a need, so I’m very happy that they are providing products that fit this segment of the market. Here’s an old tower I bought back before anyone had even heard of the Beatles. It was originally safety-yellow (yuck!) and yes, it did say Plasticville on it.
