I bought the IHC “Big 2-Stall Engine House (1:48)” kit on sale back in the ‘90s. It has since had its box graphics changed and sold by Atlas O and Mike’s Train House. This is a well designed kit, a mold-engravers’ triumph, which looks like it was designed to be reconfigured. The brick window panels, eight in the kit, have brick cornices and footers (sorry, I don’t know the architectural nomenclature) with round-top window openings, all joinable with 3’ wide brick pilasters. The two ends are one-piece, with two arched doorways each. The sides and ends are joined by special brick pilasters, mitered at 45º where they meet the special mitered pilasters on the wall end pilasters, making a lo-ong engine house, a whopping 11-1/2x27-1/2”! For O-scalers, that’s 45’x110’!
Sure, the parts were molded this way to avoid warping those big O scale pieces, but it sure seems made to be reconfigured (read “kitbashed”). I plan to shorten the house by one window panel and will join these panels to the sides of the ends, cutting a lower pitch to them to make a shop area. It will be a shorter, wider structure, 18x20-3/4”, or 72x83 O scale feet. I still marvel at the adaptability of this kit and I’m curious about who actually manuf
