picked up this ancient Plastic Ville kit at a train show for a couple of bucks. Just out of the box it doesn’t look too promising. But it’s small, doesn’t take much space on the layout, and it can logically generate a lot of traffic.
So, to bring it up to standard, we have a few details and a lot of painting.
The loading dock has a real wood deck, stained with Minwax Puritan Pine. The walls are spray painted with red auto primer, and the roof with dark gray auto primer. The doors and trim are a white primer my son uses for painting action figures. The stove pipe is painted with Floquil “Old Silver” to look like galvanized sheet iron.
And, the new editor doesn’t insert pictures from Photobucket unless you use the “direct link” pointer. The previous version wanted the “IMG code” pointer. However, when you do insert the right pointer, the photo shows up in the editor. The old editor did not display the photo leaving you wondering just where the photo might appear in your post. So that much is better.
I realize many hobbysts back in the day looked down on Plasticville Kits, but really with detailing and paint many of their structures could be made to look rather good, as you did with the Freight House.
I redid the New Car Dealship as a Rug/Carpet outlet a few decades back, and while it looked pretty good I eventually gave it away (because I’m an idiot). Somebody a few years back kitbashed the famous Motel kit & a Hamburge Stand (aka showroom of the New Car Dealer) into a really good 2 story motel (scroll down till you see it, or search for JWP). There are many other example, but some (to me, the Factory) just are not kitbash material.
I picked one up cheap at a train show. I gussied it up like you did, though I did not add a real wood deck, didn’t think of it, but yours looks great- may have to “upgrade mine a bit”?!. I turned the ramp the same way you did as I felt it looked more realistic that way than the way they intend it to be. I painted the walls blue and the roof a gray which I further weathered with gray powders. I use it as a “country station” serving both freight and passengers on mixed trains like existed around the area I live in in older days gone by. I added details like sacks and crates and a bench with waiting passengers.
I always thought “MoPar” stood for Many Old Parts Are Rusting"!!!
Anyhow, my thoughts were always that that freight Depot was closer to “S” Scale than HO…it’s mighty big for HO.
I still have a couple of them that my Dad and I used on the old Lionel layout back in the 50’s as background buildings…just looks “huge” to me. As for dressing them up and using them I see nothing wrong with the idea. I have “rebuilt” a couple of their houses, replaced the windows and doors and made very respectable looking structures out of them.
This one is HO. The loading dock comes out level with the floors of HO box cars. The personnel door is 7 HO feet high, the freight doors are 9 HO feet high. The entire structure is 40 HO feet long. That makes it small for a freight house, but it’s going into a small town.
