I have lived in Florida for the past 25 years and always put up a two loop (outer Gargraves with 42 radius and inner using Super O) 4 x 16 layout of trains, operating accessories and Plasticville in my garage for the Christmas holidays until I contracted an illness a few years ago and subsequently sold a bunch of my mostly Lionel MPC and Williams collection. I opted to keep my postwar 726, 675 and 2032 engines as well as a couple of MPC engines and sets, and some favorite cars which are a mix of Lionel and Frank's Roundhouse. I'm feeling better and hope to be setting up the trains and village this year and am looking for some help since I'm looking to make a few freight car and building purchases on the in the next few months. Since I'll only be running postwar and MPC, I'm not looking to purchase scale size freight cars since they'll look out of place. I've been hesitant to buy anything unless it specifies the car dimensions which doesn't happen too frequently on ebay. I have just bought online a Williams reefer (Riverside Dairy) and a Stegmaier RMT covered hopper and likely will pick up some of the Menards cars since these should fit in with my current freight cars.
Does anyone know if there is any way to tell via the Lionel item numbers whether a freight car is scale or the smaller postwar size?
And what happened to all the Bachmann Plasticville buildings/structures? Are they not being made anymore? Does anyone have or know of a dealer selling these?
Coal Cracker aka Biff
