Hi all… I am looking for input. I am looking to add a police station to a CITY layout. I am having trouble finding kits that meet my needs. I have not ventured into scratch building, I think that I haven’t reached that skill level yet… I model in HO and I’m looking for a fairly skinny building, about 3 1/2 or 4inches wide… and 3 or more stories high. Something that LOOKS like a police station or municipal building even if the kit isn’t designed for it. any leads or input would be appreciated!
What era are you modelling? If it is an older building then City Classics has a number of buildings in your size range that could be made to represent police stations with simple signage:
Their kits do require some work to build. For example, you have to sand the edges of the walls to make them fit properly, and painting is a bit complex because everything is molded in place. However, they are nice buildings when finished.
Here is one by Lunde Studios that looks the part, but it is a bit larger than you want:
Any city town house can be re porpoised into a police station. Put some garish blue paint on the lower level, put a couple of blue globes on the outsite flanking the entry, and don not forget to litter the place with empty donut boxes.,
Walthers Cornerstone has released several kits over the years based on the same basic design. The Public Library and Liberty Bank above are two of them. Before that, there was the YMCA building.
I bought one and “repurposed” it into a railroad station. In my case, the building was too deep, so I used a razor saw to shorten the side walls and the roof and take off about an inch.
This building out of the box is probably a bit wide for your space, but with careful planning (look where the windows are) you can usually find a line to cut top-to-bottom on each side and take off some width.
These are a couple of the City Classics buildings also mentioned above.
Again, I cut the side walls down a bit to squeeze them in between the street in front and the tracks in back. There are a couple of other models with the same footprint and a different front you should check out.
I used to be on the NYPD in both Queens and Staten Island. Keep in mind, that most precincts have a parking yard for the vehicles, and a gas pump. I don’t know about rural buildings, so you have to look around.
I guess it really depends on the most common architecture in the locale your layout is set in. Here in Fullerton, California, the police station is “Mission Style” and looks a lot like, well, a Spanish Mission.
Growing up in New York State in a small town we had our police sharing a building; the municipal building to be exact. They used a side entrance for the police and parked the patrol cars in front (diagonal parking). Just a thought.