Distinctly European and Asian buildings on US-themed layouts?

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

While browsing on eBay for N-scale buildings, I was struck by how many offerings would stand out as obviously foreign buildings. Other than layouts set outside the US, do people actually use these buildings here? How do they modify them to look more prototypically American?

Do you kitbashing multiple, small, Asian-style buildings into something typical of something you’d see in North America? Do you try removing the gingerbread trimming from traditional German-style buildings?

Or is everyone ignoring them because they wouldn’t fit their theme?

I’m guessing we don’t see lots of huge warehouse-store buildings available because you’d also need to include a matching huge parking lot (filled with lots of expensive cars and SUVs).

But couldn’t someone design modern, modular skyscraper units to stack to the desired size? The not-Sears Tower would be a good real-life inspiration.

2

Plaza Japan is a nice N Scale source for Japanese prototypes, many that look quite good as North American structures, which is the purchasing goal. “Very Asian” buildings are not being considered for CR&T. JNR-steamers look tempting at such reasonable prices, for future consideration – Let alone motorized chassis for traction conversions.

Example #1: (search = Tomytec Firehouse A) To be CR&T’s Home Station. Note how traction overhead wires “are tunneled” under the structure’s 2nd floor.

Example #2: (search = Kato Local Bank) To be a Pennsy Union Station for PRR, and; also serving CR&T & Greyhound. Passengers enter the Union Station, walk under an elevated 2-track Pennsy mainline, then ascending subway-style stairs (search = Tomytec Subway Entrance) to board the Broadway Limited. Union Station / Subway Stairs are inspired by what can still be seen as Johnstown PA’s Amtrak Station (see Wikipedia pictures).

3

I am in HO but I have found some German styles modify well. I did the Bierschaller bridge, but I bashed it a lot. I did a church for a big city and by adding proper landscapping, it looked good

As for American skyscraper kits, have you found Custom Model Railroads http://www.custommodelrailroads.com/
. They are pricy, but wonderful. I built three and they were fun and look great. For N scale I found Victorian house kits from NorthEastern Scale Models Inc. http://www.nesm.com/ to be great. They are under doll house kits. I used them in a forced perspective scene. They are slightly large for N scale, but then those houses are supposed to be grand.

4

Do you mean the “Bietschtalbrücke”? The prototype is in Switzerland, not in Germany.

While industrial structures might be easy to modify to go for American style buildings, residential buildings do not really fit the scene.

5

I am aware of CMR and Lunde, as well as expensive, unique custom buildings from Germany that are sold on eBay.

6

Actually many American buildings are similar to European buidings. Emigrants to the US built in the styles of their original homelands, but modified to suite materials available and local conditions.

This thread has some thoughts on Americanizing European buidings:

http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/17361.aspx

Similary, Japanese prototype buildings can be Ameranized.

Check out Walthers for comprensive info with photos of buidings which have been made: https://www.walthers.com/

7

A Maryland-based online/brick-and-mortar retailer has a bunch of Kato buildings whose most obviously non-American feature are their very Japanese-style roofs. Has anyone ever replaced the roofs?

8

In real life I see buildings which are Asian influenced. They are usually restaurants and can be found in several cities. Some cities have a China Town. Also the German style buildings can often be found in mountain resort cities as restaurants and hotels.

j…

9

Home of the German Lloyd Steamship line in Baltimore and site of plotting saboteurs in WW1. The building still stands today.

Later pics show a tire ad painted on the building to the right.

10

Hi Droughtquake.

Any comunity will use the architectural style it is familliar with.

So for example an ethnic Japanese comunity no matter where in the world will tend to add a very Japanese feel to the place.

The same can be said for other nationalities this will show up in all buildings.

Which is why you get places like China town and a German town in South Australia that looks like well I don’t remember flying to Germany

This is also true of the US and probably more so.

So sensible use of so called forigne buildings should not be a problem.

As for high rises not hard to make a tall clear box with the inside painted black, and the smallest size of silver RC racing car pin stripe running verticaly at a suitable spacing with suitable sized angle stuck on the corners, so it looks like it will stay standing.

background high rises can be done a similar way a bit of thin ply painted black with perspecs stuck on the front and the same pin stripe and corners.

a simple variation is to paint the inside different colours for different colour window tints.

You can make those as short or tall as you like,and add different overlays as needed with boring modern high rise buildings the impact really comes from hight and size does matter

Expencive but some of the Tomix buildings are able to be un-clipped and stacked up as high as you think looks right, but you will end up with a few bottom floors you don’t know what to do with.

You can even use other religion places of worship.

If the comunity represented on the model should have a distingtive style of building, this also includes the more traditionaly included church, the different Christian denominations all seem to have a different style of building that matches their variation of belief and originating nationality.

It’s all about getting the balance right for what and who you intend representing in your m

11

Back when I used to actually have a copy of Walthers big catelog, I used to browse the building section; there was a huge section of German manufacturers in there and it was very clear to me that the building were German and well, would not fit into an American layout visually, at least without a lot of modification. Thankfully Walthers makes a lot of kits a and alot of modular building parts so that anyone who needs to can find plenty of fodder for building city scenes or industrial scenes without having to resort to European buildings or Japanese buildings.

12

[quote user=“John Busby”]

Hi Droughtquake.

Any comunity will use the architectural style it is familliar with.

So for example an ethnic Japanese comunity no matter where in the world will tend to add a very Japanese feel to the place.

The same can be said for other nationalities this will show up in all buildings.

Which is why you get places like China town and a German town in South Australia that looks like well I don’t remember flying to Germany

This is also true of the US and probably more so.

So sensible use of so called forigne buildings should not be a problem.

As for high rises not hard to make a tall clear box with the inside painted black, and the smallest size of silver RC racing car pin stripe running verticaly at a suitable spacing with suitable sized angle stuck on the corners, so it looks like it will stay standing.

background high rises can be done a similar way a bit of thin ply painted black with perspecs stuck on the front and the same pin stripe and corners.

a simple variation is to paint the inside different colours for different colour window tints.

You can make those as short or tall as you like,and add different overlays as needed with boring modern high rise buildings the impact really comes from hight and size does matter

Expencive but some of the Tomix buildings are able to be un-clipped and stacked up as high as you think looks right, but you will end up with a few bottom floors you don’t know what to do with.

You can even use other religion places of worship.

If the comunity represented on the model should have a distingtive style of building, this also includes the more traditionaly included church, the different Christian denominations all seem to have a different style of building that matches their variation of belief and originating nationality.

It’s all about getting the balance right for wh

13

But those examples are more typical of enclaves or tourist traps. Most people don’t have the luxury of custom designing their own buildings.

I think it would look out of place to scatter Japanese- or German-style buildings in most locations.

On the other hand, a Japanese-style garden is not totally uncommon here in California. Those inexpensive Chinese vendor trees on eBay might work out well since most of them look like someone sculpted them anyway.

Most of the layouts I’ve seen in MR and other magazines don’t seem to have much in the way of gardens around the houses. The houses next to the train tracks aren’t usually in the luxury neighborhoods where fancy gardens are the norm. :wink:

14

My old '60s Bank of Hawaii brass King Kamehameha piggy bank would end up as tall as a 10 or 12 story building!

15

Hi droughtquake

Ah Grass Hopper but the key words Are sensible use and balance[:D]

True about next to the tracks, but if its still a respectable neibourhood tracks or not some effort will have been made even if its only very simple inexpencive gardens.

No gardens IMHO is not really that acurate even if its only a small house and block of land in a lesser but still respectable neibourhood.

Some sort of lets make the place nice to live effort will be made even if only a nice lawn and a single shruby thing out front and nice front fence and a grassed play area out the back.

Makes it easier to show the wrong side neibourhood part of the layout when you wreck the fence add weeds and carbodies etc on the blocks of land that make it look like you need a SWAT team to make what should be a simple arrest.

I think the problem there is we are Model Railroaders not Model Gardeners[:)]

Even old style tenement blocks by the tracks can be made a respectable or disreputable area by how its scenicly treated and the odd tree or flower in a pot.

Some of what used to be the old inner city gang war zone’s or less selubriouse places . Mere mortals like you and me these days could not afford to live there.

Still the terraces or old tenement blocks but all cleaned up respectable, yuppiefied and very expencive now.

Perhaps as Railroad Modelers we need to pay a little more attention to what goes on beyond the RR boundry and how we show it even if we only have a little bit of it on our layouts??

regards John

16

Having a German or Asian restaurant in a building based on their home country’s architecture would be pretty common. My old home town in Minnesota (Mpls. suburb) had a German-themed bar / restaurant called “The Heidelburg” that was (or at least had the appearance of) a German-style outside frame building.

Also, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was common in the Midwest for towns to be settled by one ethnic group. You might have “New Berlin” with almost all Germans, “Kilkenny” a couple miles away, with Irish, and “Springfield” a few miles the other direction, primarily settled by people from the eastern US. The German small towns often had traditional German-style buildings, particularly in the older center of town. Some of these are still like that.

17

These were offered in N scale by Atlas some years ago and turn up on resale sites occasionally. The black square and rectangle buildings had expansion kits, not sure about the hexagon.

TOMIX also offered skyscrapers, some of which might be used in American settings.

18

I find it entertaining how you folks talk about “traditional German-style buildings”. There is no such thing, as the architecture differs widely from region to region. What German manufacturers like Faller, Kibri or Vollmer offer is usually based on what you´d find in Bavaria or southern Germany in general. Northern architecture is very much different.

In any case, I think those buildings look rather out of place on a US-themed layout.

19

Here in Milwaukee which was settled largely by Germans there is plenty of older architecture which has a rather Germanic/Bavarian look and with modest modifications at least some of the Faller/Kibri/Vollmer type structures can be used, particularly industries and business buildings, less so apartments, stores, and houses. What is usually called for is some removal of some of the more ornate bric-a-brac.

When I was in Cincinnati years ago on business I similarly noticed some Germanic looking old structures, not touristy things either but functional, old buildings.

Dave Nelson

20

I have a cathedral made by Faller on my layout. The “prototype” for my juatidication is Frankenmuth, Mich, where the original German settlers brought their church with them from their original village in Germany.

My cathedral is in a city neighborhood, based on a closed Catholic Church near Milwaukee Junction, in Detroit.