Model Railroading is certainly fun, but probably most everybody would agree that it can also get expensive. Particularly for buildings and other structures. And often times a modeler has to make a choice between spending his money on trains, track or rolling stock, or else purchasing building structures or scenicking items for the layout-- and anyway you look at it, the costs add up. Anybody who’s racked-up any time on this forum-- and probably any other railroad forum for that matter-- has probably seen the seemingly monthly-recurring posts lamenting the costs in the hobby and so forth. Those posts, by the way, always seem to focus on locomotives for some reason-- have you ever noticed that? Whereas its equally true that buildings and scenicking materials are also subject to the same cost / price pressures and rise accordingly. So as a modeler, if you want to model an urban scene, particularly a larger town or a city, you’re gonna have to shell out a fair amount of bucks to acquire the building kits, or else the scratch-building materials to make it happen. And then multiply that by the number of towns you wish to depict and the costs keep accumulating.
There are a number of manufacturers now days who supply very nice looking cardstock building kits that, from a distance, are nearly impossible to tell are flat and have little or no dimension. And of course if you’re thoughtful in planning the construction of the card-stock buildings, its possible to add some dimension, extra detail, and integrate
John, far as buildings as a whole I got mine pretty cheap. Got some good deal off E bay, for some reason buildings go pretty cheap. My best score was 20 built DMP and by a Pro I will add for $80.00 with shipping. I have around 60 to 70 structures (if you count water towers) and I don’t think I have over $300 to $350 invested.
I would not mind doing some card stock buildings. But, I would need a way better printer, mine is from 1998 and lucky it prints.
1.Conserned is an understatement, accually (I’m in a panic, acually) Alternatives: scratch build EVERYTHING (Sure, it’s 10X slower, but it’s about 50-70% cheeper)
2.Flats? Well, no I’ve never tried that, but it would probably drive me up the wall, because I love to detail everything (even what won’t be seen), so I wouldn’t enjoy cutting up the kit (s) for a flat, unless I can splice all walls together and form one large building.
3.Card stock: Oh, yeah. I love using cardstock. I have a few buildings, and my biggest complaint is thatthere are not enough of them for free. Easy to build, easy to install, all around good fun.
*On a side-note, I also enjoy building other types of free cardstock kits (such as the Fiddeler’s Green Trotwood travel trailer) and there are few problems with most of them. THere are a few exceptions, but they are few and far between, from my experiance.
other tips: Scratch-build. I’ll admit, I’m not the best scratch-builder, but I can piece together almost anything from wood, styrene, which is, more often than not, plastic For Sale signs from the hardware store. I leave the Evergreen and Plastistruct styrene for specialized stuff (i.e. clap-board siding, courrogated tin roofing, misic. angles and beams, etc.)
I have a LOT to share about cardboard structure modeling…but I have Hallowe’en carnival to go to before it gets too late. So first I am going to let you try building a cardboard structure right here and now.
I was helping a young man in Austin design a prototype-based N layout that included a small older powerplant, and the layout requirements allowed only a small depth-- and the depth needed to be slightly less at the right end as a track went behind the structure at an angle with a bit of a “signature” landmark bridge going into “behind the scene” staging. I designed a structure and sent it to the layout builder OVER THE INTERNET. and I am going to to that for you right now.
Here is a picture of the completed cardboard building…
Here is a link to the file used to create the front and sides.
I send these as file links rather than displaying the pictures here, because the Discussion forum here changes picture sizes. And here is a diagram of how to assemble the little building.
No, the ends are NOT even. That gies me almost an inch more space at the
I do have a number of flats on my layout. This one is a sort-of flat, because it’s not a complete building, and it does rest against the wall of the room at the edge of the layout. It was made with DPM modular wall sections. It’s got interior details and lighting. I call it “Moose Mills.” I haven’t put the sign on yet.
I have one of those annoying 45-degree rooflines, so I decided to make the best of it by putting low flats into the angle in a couple of places. This one is a warehouse, again made with DPM sections, but I also used some Walthers brick sheet (styrene) because it’s more economical. There are some interior details and lights inside this, too, but only behind the small window and door sections.
And then, there’s this one. Phase 1 of my layout is a free-standing table, with no walls adjacent to it. But, I wanted another industry, so I added this building against the edge of the layout.
It’s the Walthers “Arrowhead Ale” kit, and this is basically what it looks like from the outside. But, having a table layout, the viewer could be faced with looking at the back of this flat. So, I took care of the inside, too, and made it a “sliced through the middle” building, not just a flat:
I’ve added a bit more detail since this photo, but basically it’s just textures printed on cardstock and glued to the walls. I made brewery tanks by cutting some medicine cups in half and painting them silver. I love doing building interiors. You can get away with so much, because you’re just conveying an impression of a model, and no one can really see the details.
I’ve had some pretty good building scores off ebay myself. My best one was 55 DPM and Cornerstone, (and a few others) buildings all built-up, for $200 bucks. Some of the DPM buildings were missing some details-- nothing broken, just never finished, and most of them not painted, but I’m okay with all that. Gives me something to do.
I agree about the printer-- but you can also get cardstock buildings cheap from a number of suppliers and they come nicely printed on good cardstock, so you don’t have to use your printer. Or, alternately you can buy a nicer printer with the money you save
I love the expensive building kits. After building four layouts with no money, no space and no time, I now am retired and have a small budget just for trains. I can finally do what I only wished for 60 years. I love the fact that there are such great kits availible for those of us who can now afford one.
I haven’t paid much for my structures. I find them at trainshows,cheap and often already assembled with natural “dust weathering”. A good scrubbing and like new. SOmetimes cheap unassemble in boxes. I like cheap. I can kitbash or something with cheap and not feel bad.
When I was a kid and had O/O27 trains, ubetcha I used to build buildings out of cardboard…cereal boxes to carboard cigar boxes, anything I could get my hands on. I would not be opposed to it now if I couldn’t find a structure I wanted to fill a need. I could print off siding materials like brick and such to glue onto the cardboard. Though, I think I would rather use balsa wood or something like it. Then again, maybe not.
I don’t have a back drop on my layout and if I did it would be mountains and sky, not buildings.
I fondly remember the cutout buildings for tinplate O gauge layouts (were they underscale and possibly usable for S?) on the back covers of Carstens’ Toy Train magazine in the 1950s. The covers were the only part of the magazine printed in color, and the thin paper required gluing to cardstock. Those introduced me at age 9 or 10 to how a structure was laid out. One series of cutout low-relief buildings was sized to fit over standard sized cigar boxes. That was wehere I learned low-relief background buildings. In the early 60s Carstens offered a book of cutouts for HO printed on one side only of a cardstock just about twice the weight of index card stock. Those were neat. And fun. I enjoyed the cardboard car sides printed on a heavy stock insert once or twice a year in NMRA Bulletin until they switched from interesting and obscure prototypes to “Famous Pikes of the Past”. Those would have been good if they didn’t have big lettering “Famous Pikes of the Past” that made them too obviously non-prototype. (Just my opinion.)
I was building a West Berlin Germany layout in 1971 after a European trip-- sort of a sidelight to my main modeling and restricted to a 27 by 34 inch board. I used the background building trick of unwrapping a model building to make a longer low relief street towards the back of th
I am concerned about price increases, but I’ve been buying stuff for 40 years now, S for the last 17 years, and some of the earlier stuff (rail, strip wood, etc) can be used with S. So I am off to a good start on the next layout - I have all the bench work from my last layout which filled over half of my basement. I have enough engines and cars. Structures will have to be mostly scratch built, but I have been buying doors and windows for years.
Well…it tends to come down to exactly what sort of scene one models. Dense urban areas are far more costly than a small town and both are dramatically more than a rural village. Modeling a major urban area is really big bucks, no matter how creative you are. My City of Jacksboro ran close to $1,000 when I built it half a dozen years ago in spite of my employing a number of tricks to reduce its cost. So, you bet I’m concerned…especially since I’m currently working on another city scene. One of the approaches I’ve used to reduce the cost is outlined further along in this reply.
You bet, all the time! Since any convincing city scene requires a minimum of three layers of structures and in most situations one does not have sufficient depth in a scene to use three layers of full-depth buildings, the layer nearest the backdrop usually ends up with little, or no depth, to it, i.e. it ends up made of flats and low relief buildings.
The cost of commercial products don’t concern me much. I’d rather build than buy.
My attitude about the hobby is that it is entertainment, and I think of it in terms of dollars per hour of fun. When I buy a vintage craftsman kit on eBay or at a train show for $60, and spend 120 hours assembling and finishing it, that’s a lot of fun for fifty cents an hour. I put $10 into my concentric curved trestles and they occupied me for a whole Utah winter (pennies per hour). Of course, that’s just me. I know that many model railroaders prefer to buy pieces and assemble them into a layout. A $60 rtr structure only offers a couple of hours of installation time and then it’s on to the next project - at $30 per hour it is an expensive hobby. To me it’s a question of approach and finding pleasure in less expensive ways to enjoy the hobby.
As far as stretching your dollar I offer these suggestions:
Buy used stuff when you can
Learn to build kits and refurbish distressed items
Don’t be a “gear-head” (someone who just has to have the latest, newest thing)
Find dirt cheap ways to enjoy the hobby when funds are thin (Painting people is a way to spend a lot of time and not much money, for example)
Plan your layout within your means; you can add to it later.
ONLY buy at a hobby store when you absolutely must.
I buy nearly everything for my layout on eBay, at train shows, at train club auctions, etc. I even use second hand track. Sure, sometimes the stuff I buy is in need of repair and it isn’t crisp and new, but I enjoy the repair and refurbishment as part of the hobby. Here are examples of the money I save:
Grain of wheat bulbs 100 for $3 on eBay; 10 for $10 at the LHS
Plastic boxcar: $30 at the LHS, a craftsman kit: $10 at a train show
Caveat: Since I have yet to build a square millimeter of ‘projected visible surface,’ all of my scenery and structure planning is, of necessity, future tense.
Thanks to my snail-like rate of progress and my choice of prototype, that cost, while it may prove fairly large in total, will be spread over a LONG period of time. Any given month’s expenditures will probably be rather minor, and will primarily cover scratch-building materials and paint.
I have even considered layering mountain ranges as simple silhouettes of appropriate bluish-grey color - which is what they would typically seem to be on a humid late summer day in Nagano-ken. The same trick will work with scale-reduced structures half-hidden by intervening vegetation. The ‘details’ would be painted on, then oversprayed with ‘humidity.’
My very first structure was the Ideal cardboard and celluloid factory, the one with the sawtooth roofline - and, boy, did I just date myself!
Looking at my future needs, I can see building up background, and even foreground, buildings with layers of white cardstock. White plaster walls were a mainstay of traditional Japanese
I am concerned only to the point that I have to take the cost of structures into account when budgeting. For the most part, I don’t think the cost of most structures is unreasonable and increases in cost seem to be in line with inflation. If anything, structure kits are probably cheaper today than they were 25 years ago if you adjust for inflation. I have mentioned this before but I compared prices from Walthers 75th anniversary catalog to their 50th anniversary one which I had saved. The old Magnuson resin kits are now sold under then Scale Structures Limited brand. The are cheaper when adjusted for inflation. In addition, many are now sold in plastic versions under the Walthers name and are even cheaper. There are a lot of plastic kits that have been sold under multiple brand names and for the most part those are cheaper as well.
I have moved away from the expensive craftsman kits. I just don’t think you get your money’s worth for with them. In many cases, it is a collection of scratchbuilding materials and a plan. Some of them were just a pile of scale lumber that had to be cut to size. If I am doing all that grunt work, what am I paying hundreds of dollars for? Yes, most of them do have some nice metal castings but those too can be purchased rather inexpensively.
As for cardboard buildings, I would and have used them in both backdrops and flats. I would never consider them for a foreground structure. I have yet to see one that would pass a close up look.
If one really wants to save money, they should learn to scratchbuild. That’s probably still the least expensive way in dollar cost but probably not in time cost. Another way to stretch the budget is to substitute blank walls in for the backs of buildings and use those walls in kitbashes or as building flats. What’s the point in putting a detailed back wall on a structure if it will never be seen?
– Have you ever considered using building “flats” on your layout? (Structures that are low-relief or even completely flat that lay directly against the backdrop / back wall of your layout)
Early in my layout construction I used Photo Flats, pictures of real industrial warehouse’s where I could set out box cars at. I really like switching and this worked well on my narrow shelf layout. The intent was to later replace the Photo Flats with low relief structures, but the photo flats were very effective and they are still on that section of the layout.
I also scratch build most of my structures for my layout that depicts the Southern Pacific’s industrial right-of-way in the Los Angeles area. Many of my industrial structures are built as low relief models that I had photographed in LA. Most model kit industries that I see advertised I can’t use because they are too “cute” looking, or have the New England look to them.
Having a shelf type switching layout, low relief structures and flats worked out very well, I have no complaints. I am a right-of-way modeler and while operating, I am busy concentrating on the engine and cars while switching not the background.
Bingo! The “play value” of basic kits is very high relative to the ready-to-plop stuff. A four-walls-and-a-roof building from City Classics or DPM just screams out for customization and individuality. And, as I see the work of others, I have to constantly set my sights a bit higher for my own modeling efforts, so more time is involved in pretty much every task. (Yes, even wiring. Neater, more reliable, easier to trace.)
A couple of weeks ago, I opened up the Walthers “Centennial Mills” background building kit. It will be the “Powder Milk Biscuit Company” on my layout. I’m not ready to start it yet, but I wanted to put the main wall up just to size it. I was a bit confused to find two main walls, one of which didn’t even belong to the kit. With a bit of sheet styrene or maybe some brick sheet, I’ve got the makings of another building for nothing.
Another good thought provoking topic that should result in interesting answers.
Are you concerned about the costs of building the towns and cities on your layout? And if so, what thoughts have you given toward alternative modeling strategies that could help lower the costs and extend your modeling budget?
Absolutely…I shop around for the best deals and use buildings.
As a example I picked up a built Walthers N Scale Superior Paper Company for $30.00…While used it was a bargain even at street price.
Have you ever considered using building “flats” on your layout? (Structures that are low-relief or even completely flat that lay directly against the backdrop / back wall of your layout)
Oh yes! I have 3 such buildings…These are laser paper prints on foam-core backing.
Have you ever considered “CardStock” buildings? Have you actually used card-stock buildings on your layout? If so where and what type? How has it worked out for you? Do you like the effect? Are there “issues” with perspective and whatnot?
Not sure about cardboard buildings…I suppose I would use them along the backdrop with regular buildings in front.
What other tips and techniques can you think of that might help lower the costs of building your layout while giving up little or no modeling fidelity in the process-- or indeed, might even enhance the look of your layout over other commercially obtainable items?
I am not above “painted roads” on my switching layouts nor am I above buying a smal
I’ve found that to be true of many of Walthers low relief background structures. In many cases, they are just chopped off versions of full size kits, and I’m sure it is cheaper for them to use the same sprues as they do for the full size kits rather than retool. This often results in bonus walls, great for kitbashing or flats.
– Are you concerned about the costs of building the towns and cities on your layout? And if so, what thoughts have you given toward alternative modeling strategies that could help lower the costs and extend your modeling budget?
No, but then again I do a lot of kitbashing and scratchbuilding already so its not that high cost for me anyway. The hardest part for me is finding stone buildings, common in my area and era, not so common in model form.
– Have you ever considered using building “flats” on your layout? (Structures that are low-relief or even completely flat that lay directly against the backdrop / back wall of your layout)
Use them all the time. Most of my benchwork is only 18" deep so I probabl will have more shallow depth buildings than fully modeled buildings.
– Have you ever considered “CardStock” buildings? Have you actually used card-stock buildings on your layout? If so where and what type? How has it worked out for you? Do you like the effect? Are there “issues” with perspective and whatnot?
Nope. Haven’t needed to.
– What other tips and techniques can you think of that might help lower the costs of building your layout while giving up little or no modeling fidelity in the process-- or indeed, might even enhance the look of your layout over other commercially obtainable items?
Photocopy all plastic buildings before you even think about building them. Then play with rearrangining the photocopied walls to create new buildings that custom fit the space.
Here is downtown Wilmington, note the painted buildings on the backdrop and the row of building flats :
Here is Harlan & Hollingsworth, a ship and car builder. It is made (or will be made) from two cornerstone Vulcan kits:
No doubt building detailed city scenes is expensive (its all relative). I only have one semi city scene and the rest of the layout is small towns and rural scenes. Probably less than 100 structures total in a 13’ X 22’ double deck layout.
I am building to finescale standards so things could get (will get pricey).
My biggest concern is not money. It is time. I would like to scratchbuild everything but I don’t have enough hours left on the planet to do this and live a semi-normal life. I already have lots of super-detailed kits and several sratchbuilding projects going. I suspect that in the long run I will be employing the good enough principle.
I deal with the situation in a few ways:
I buy quality at a discount. Yorke kits, old Columbia Valley etc. All have been picked up for good deals over the years. I have spent lots of time bottom feeding.
I don’t buy kits just to have them on hand. If it doesn’t fit my scheme, I don’t buy it. I pretty much know what structures are going in every scene on the layout at this point so this is easy.
I use lots of flats. My industrial scene on the lower deck is mostly flats.
I scratch build using styrene etc. While this is not super cheap if you build to high detail standards, it can save some bucks and gives you the exact building that you want for a specific scene.
I am not above using hand me downs etc, that meet the standards and work in the scene. I have lots of cast-offs from my friends etc that work very well for their purpose on the RR.
I have seen a couple of the card stock buildings in person and I think they are good in the background. As most of my layout is foreground, they don’t work real well for me. I do like the paper corrugated roofing and siding from Paper Creek.
