Railway Buildings, advice required!

[John Rixon]

Hey folks, as a Tank and Battleship modeller (!) I'm pretty ignorant of things to do with Railways, but my neighbour is building a new layout, and I volunteered to help! I'm looking for a range of railway related buildings and infrastructure - sheds, water towers, signal boxes, etc, preferably as polystyrene kits. I don't fancy building any vacuum formed kits a la MiniArt, but I know I'll be fine painting and weathering styrene kits. So, names of kit manufacturers and good suppliers is my quest today, anybody help? Thanks in advance!

 

[spanner570]

John, Superquick make excellent OO/HO buildings etc. They are not plastic but press out card models and with a bit of work / weathering make fine buildings......Around £6.00 gets you two buildings.


Ebay have rucks of them all the time.


I've made these up and they go together easily.....Superquick!!

 

[peterairfix]

Metcalfe are another good make more expensive than superquick but better quality and for plastic ratio are good

 

[Gern]

Go on to ebay and type 'model railways' in the search bar. DON'T look in toys and games. For some reason they include them in collectibles!


Even if you don't like buying from ebay, you'll see who the manufacturers are and what they make.


PS. Forgot to mention. You'll probably be gobsmacked at the variety that's available!

 

[John Rixon]

John, Superquick make excellent OO/HO buildings etc. They are not plastic but press out card models and with a bit of work / weathering make fine buildings......Around £6.00 gets you two buildings.
Ebay have rucks of them all the time.


I've made these up and they go together easily.....Superquick!!

Ooh, sounds good! And they can take a bit of weathering then? My mate doesn't want it too dirty, just "lived in"! Will look them up. Thanks for this.

 

[John Rixon]

Metcalfe are another good make more expensive than superquick but better quality and for plastic ratio are good

I'll have a sniff around for some of this too, thanks for your swift response!

 

[John Rixon]

Wow! Both Metcalfe and Superquick buildings look amazing! My Dad used to make railway buildings from card years ago (over 50 years ago, as you ask!!!) and they came in large printed sheets on card, you had to cut them out and reinforce them with balsa where necessary, I still go back to that bedroom whenever I smell UHU glue!


I think I could get pretty enthusiastic about this....

 

[John Rixon]

Go on to ebay and type 'model railways' in the search bar. DON'T look in toys and games. For some reason they include them in collectibles!
Even if you don't like buying from ebay, you'll see who the manufacturers are and what they make.


PS. Forgot to mention. You'll probably be gobsmacked at the variety that's available!

You're not wrong there! I could be here a while

 

[rickoshea52]

It depends on the location and era that you are modelling. There are dozens of kit manufacturers like, Wills,Ratio,Airfix,Dapol and there are the ready to plant resin buildings from Bachmann, Hornby and Scenix. These are just some of the British ones.


Faller, Vollmer, Kibri and Auhagen are all continental with niche producers like Artitec. If American is your thing then DPM, Walthers and Downtown Deco (his stuff is sensational, google them). Many UK modellers Anglicise foreign kits successfully despite the difference in 1/87 v 00 gauge.

 

[spanner570]

Ooh, sounds good! And they can take a bit of weathering then?

Can they ever!


From this. The Superquick Swan Pub.


View attachment 116236



To this...Now that's weathering!...and a bit of half timber added....


View attachment 116237



View attachment 116238



John, I did this diorama on here a while back....The card roof became really damp, yet stayed in shape. Great fun to build and really easy to mess about with.


Well recommended....


Ron

 

[John Rixon]

Signal box and coal order office arrived this week, really impressed with the quality and I can't wait to build it. Would you agree with their advice to use PVA glue?

 

[spanner570]

No, not really John. PVA would be o.k., but it takes a while to dry.


I use one of those general purpose clear glues in a tube...UHU, Bostick or similar. About £1 a tube. These glues are more or less instant, so there's no faffing about waiting for the joint to dry.


I could have half the building done whilst waiting for one joint to dry!...sort of.


To get them looking more natural, they do need a bit of weathering, otherwise they do look a bit 'squeaky clean'.


Enjoy the builds.....

 

[John Rixon]

Ah, good, another UHU fan! That's the stuff for me