I am looking to make a replica of the Washington DC area. Are there any premade layouts? Where can I get buildings and monuments of DC or will I need to build them from scratch?
I dont know of any models of monuments that are in D.C. but it probably would not be hard to build them. I built a statue out of one of those plastic green army men. Just a little paint and you are good to go.
I have seen minatures of the Washington Monument and other monuments at the souvewnir stands, but I don’t know what scale (s). Also they may not be detailed enough for you. IIRC there have been models of the White House and other famous buildings over the years, again don’t know what scale. You might do a search on ebay.
Good luck
Paul
Thanks. I would like to build it in N-Scale. I have seen the Washington Monument in souvenier stands but thought I could find the Capital Bldg and the White House, as well as some other buildings.
Aurora, the original importer of the N-scale Postage stamp trains (Minitrix?) offered a 1/200th-1/250th scale model of the White House, back shortly after JFK’s death. There supposedly were plans to do the Capitol Building as well. Don’t know if was ever offered though. Look on E-bay in the plastic models.
Funny you say that. There is a 3D puzzle that builds the whitehouse for sale at the LHS today. I dont know what scale.
Thanks for all the info. I am surprised no one has made any models for trains depicting the buildings of DC.
Classic Trains recently did a piece on DC - the railroads that served Union Station, as I recall, probably in the '40s or '50s. That’s worth checking out. You may be able to kitba***he Walthers Union Station model to look like our Union Station (one of the landmarks you DON’T want to leave off a layout!)
The Lincoln Memorial is essentially a large Greek Revival Temple: the hardest part is the scratchbuilt Lincoln in his chair, the rest is all pillars, roof, and steps. My suggestion would be that you make the Mall and the monuments a backdrop, since the whole thing would take up a lot of space: if you’re looking for something close to the railroad, the Capitol is best, since it’s right across from Union Station. The Mall’s a bit further away, but you can see the Washington Monument from the fountain in front of Union Station.
Non-monument architecture here is a lot of rowhouses: Victorians in the center of the city, and twenties-era (with some Spanish Revival elements, like terra-cotta tile roofs) as you move outward. Once you get into the WWII era, the government got a whole lot bigger, and the old rowhouses on places like K Street were demolished to make way for lots of large glass boxes. if you’re looking for modelgenic portions of the city, I’d research Logan Circle and Dupont Circle - you can probably find a lot of decent pictures on the web. Neither has much in the way of monuments (a Civil War general and an admiral at the center of each, although Dupont’s statue came down in the '80s, as I recall, and never went back up), but lots of interesting architecture. There was a DC museum that had absolute oodles of information on this stuff, but it closed a few months ago, and I don’t know whether a legacy website exists. You might also try the Smithsonian.
What era are you modeling?