This is 100% Plasticville you can make up your own mind.

I have a few plasticville items and like them.  Some are OK out of the box, others you might want to consider painting.  I have the trailer park and I think I have a blue, silver and hot pink trailer in my set.  I think I sprayed them with a Krylon Matte finish to take some of the plastic look off of them, but the pink one at least could use a new paint job.

You do have to glue them together.  Once they're together though, they look pretty good. Especially for a carpet central (which is what I have).  I'd post some pictures of my buildings, but my camera is in Germany with my dad until he get's home tomorrow.

I have the roadside fruit stand, the trailer park (three trailers and three flags), the union station and the hobo junction set (which brushed with black paint and wiped it off so they look weathered, came out pretty well).

If you're going to add LED's to them, I'd probably consider painting at least the insides black to prevent light from escaping.  I've never lit any of mine up so I don't know how bad they are.  I have a K-Line suburban station (similar to the plasticville station) and it was really bad for light seepage until I painted it.

By and large, Plasticville structures are more toy-like in appearance.  It that is your desired look, then yes they will be OK.  If you going for a more scale appearance, then generally the answer is no.  With some weathering, there may be some buildings that can be made to look good. 

If you are on a tight budget, you might look at cardstock buildings.  My understanding is that they have realistic exteriors but do not cost a lot.

George

Love 'em!

As you can see, I sort of keep my Plasticville in one place, and mix in other makes elsewhere.  Because they're a little less than scale, they look good segregated to the mountaintop. 

Jon 

Here's my kitbashed Plasticville trailer park....

If you're going for a toy train look, Plasticville kits are certainly OK. You can then decide if you want to modify, paint, light, add signs, etc. For cardstock, I'd check Clevermodels.net. Some very realistic structures. Also, the OGR buildings, particularly the fronts are very reasonably priced. You can build sides out of foam board, etc. sprayed the same color as the fronts, to make them into more self standing buildings (rather than background buildings), put the fronts close together and you'll have a main street. Lots of creative solutions to be had for not a lot of $$$. 

Jerrman

I've carefully painted buildings and other Plasticville items, and they look great. Try to get newer ones without boxes for the best prices. Remember, collectors are paying good prices for the vintage stuff. The least expensive are ones that have been glued together, but those are hard to paint.

Terrence, I also use Plasticville on a CC layout, and here's my 2 cents. They look,or seem to be more S scale. They can be spruced up a bit with weathering, and that's actually good time spent learning techiques. I never glue mine together.....after all it's a temporary carpet central and the pieces will go back in the box.

          As for lighting.......the whole structure can GLOW and looks non-realistic, so maybe spray the interior with a paint, or mask it off a bit. I took a thin piece of platic sheet, like from an office supply store, cut a narrow strip like 2 inches wide and formed a short fat tube. Put the LED (dont worry they dont get hot) in the middle on a stand of some sort.The open ended tube diffuses the light very well. I'll say Plasticville does have "credible" detail. But hey!!!!!!!!! add parts..........go kitbash!

They are toy-like and underscale for O Gauge. That's perfectly fine with me. I have about 70 of them, mostly PW US-made buildings. They are especially good for a carpet central layout, and they can be painted and otherwise "upgraded", if that's your desire.

Plasticville can be made to look very good with some paint and weathering as other here have posted. Here is a PV switch tower and water tank I have on my layout.

I have since pulled the base and have used it as a roof top tank

Here is my coaling tower.  It is too small and will eventually get replaced but looks OK for now.

Dave

Dave,

  Nice tower, seems to me that I have seen that before!!

  Jeff

I love Plasticville!

S scale always fits somewhere in O.

Love my plasticville structures from the 50's and 60's but ALL are repainted and detailed.  This is a must on MY layout.  All building and accessories are Plasticville in this farm scene.  You can just add them right out of the box and they still look good.  It's your layout and you build it the way you want to.

Wow, guys!

I never expected to get so many responses to my question about Plasticville structures. All of the photos have truly impressed me, especially the work by those of you who weathered or painted your PV buildings. 

I was most interested in PV stations/platforms and track side structures like the coal station and switch tower. They look great on the trains layouts in the photos. NICE JOB!

Even the photo of the PV mobile homes look good. 

I will hit my LHS (I'm starting to learn the lingo around here - haha!) to see what PV models they carry. One shop in Bay Shore has tons of model kits and they carry a good selection of Lionel and MTH trains. I have always overlooked the models kits. Now I am ready to check them out. There are also two more shops to explore (in West Babylon and in Deer Park).

Thanks again for the sharing all of the Plasticville information and photos. 

Your OGR buddy,

Terrence

Long Island, NY

I did an article for the TTOS periodical on Plasticville kitbashing.  You can buy parts

and loose buildings galore, and dirt cheap,  with glue (I scrape old glue off and use epoxy for permanence), and did detailing and weathering.  I wanted a number of stations that did not LOOK like the Plasticville station, and had a good time cutting and lenghtening various components, (walls, roofs, moving windows and doors around) to come up with a Y shaped one, a two story one, and several others,  BUT I decided that all were, when compared with scale kit built O scale stations, S scale.  I reduced a Lionel Rico station kit down to Plasticville size, also, but decided not go go with them.  At the back of a layout, if trying to gain visual distance, they would work. Since just about everything in this hobby, definitely including empty boxes, is collectible, I was careful to avoid anything that looked mint, boxed or marbled (this last seems collectible in PV).  If buying new...go wild.

Painting with flat colors, or even clear flat, greatly takes the plastic sheen off and

enhances the "realistic" appearance.

I had Plasticville on my childhood layout, and loved it...wanted and would have

bought more...it was an upgrade from cardboard Biltrite...but I have long since been to layout viewings at conventions that were literally acres of Plasticville, and, to me, they all look alike.   And I have read too many MR's since my youth to want to use it out of the box today. (I have thought about doing another set of their stations, this time, 1/4 to 1/3 LARGER!) How about that common Plasticville

station lengthened to match the Lionel Rico kit, and made the correct height,

Grandtline doors and windows installed, etc.  Should be, as were my kitbashed

small ones, worth a couple of double takes.

One Plasticville itme that is close to dead-on accurate is the switch tower. Its copied after a 1906 B&O design for a 12' x 12' signal tower.  The main dfference in the P-ville tower is in how the steps come down from the top level, and the lack of windows on the door side up there. The other fairly accurate P=-ville model is the two track signal bridge.

Here are two P-ville structures I had on my layout.  First is a P-ville suburban station which I altered and oufitted with added details. Would even be better if I replaced the original P-Ville windows and doors. Maybe sometime later ????

Next, the P-Ville tower done in B&O red with black trim (1920s to 1940s). I moved the chimney pipe and added an LP gas tank, indicating an upgrade for the heating system.

It's not always a question of what a thing might be, it's what one can make of it!

Got to use smaller files. These got 'squished,' making them look taller and narrower than they really are!

Hi Terrence, IMHO, Plasticville has become iconic, immediately recognizable for what it is and has been for many years. The buildings are fun and representative of structures seen readily throughout the USA for decades. They do not try to be something they are not. They are Plasticville and insist on being accepted for themselves. However, if you want an adventue in bashing or painting them, you can have a good time of it and get attractive, even amazing, results, as has been shown so well among these replies to your inquiry.

There's a really nice little Plasticvile bank (I believe I see one in the center-ish section of Dusty's wonderful village - the grey structure, photo 1) that seems to easily adapt to many talented hands, imaginations, and layouts in our hobby, for example, which can look well standing on a layout as it is right out of the box, or wonderous when kitbashed in a variety of ways. I feel, Dusty and Kooljock, for example, have used their charm for exactly what they are with positve results to prove their effectiveness.

If as you say, you may use them on a carpet-layout, you may want to affix them w/ a little glue, here-n-there, onto some type of baseplate, esp. if you are not going to glue the pieces/sides together, to keep them from falling apart when moved around, unless you want them totally portable.

In my observation, they are "a look" and have a charm all their own. Once you have a few of them in your hands, you will either "fall for them" or not. They'll grab you or not. Let us know if you get "grabbed." Many of us have been.

Frank

Some of the posters have done really great jobs with the Plasticville buildings they constructed, kitbashed or weathered.  I forgot to mention that I do like the coaling tower and the water tower, which I own.  The switch tower is OK, too.  I know that Neal Schorr was able to make an amazing Pennsy 4-track signal bridge by modifying several Plasticville signal bridges.

George

Plasticville can be made to look very good with some paint and weathering as other here have posted. Here is a PV switch tower ...on my layout.

Wow.Now, here, folks, we have some expert weathering by a master. Al even crafted the marks where a man's hard-sole workboots have hit the stair risers as he ascended the steps, countless times, to the upper level tower room. I mean, I'm tellin' ya', ya' see things on this forum you may have just never thought of before; at least, I didn't, but I sure will remember this li'l fantastic detail!

My hat's off to you, Al, and my cup is in the air - a-salute!

Frank-the-amazed

I combined 4 coaling towers and added some Walthers lights. Still have to build 3 more Grandt Line Chute Gates.

Cesar

Cesar I've never really been a fan of Plasticvilles O gauge coaling tower, I prefer the look of the HO version but yours look great the way you've done them.

Jerry

Thanks Jerry! I didn't like them either, in fact I had these 4 laying around for years until I saw some custom model builder in the orange hall at York with one. I kind of stole a page out of his book

Cesar

Ed, I like that old billboard, I wonder who made it?

Dongan Hills? Could only be you!

Cesar

I have always been reluctant to use Plastic ville except for maybe the trailer park...

However FatBoy's posting of how He combined the towers to make a bigger building gives me pause for further thoughts.

Maybe I am the one with lack of imagination I don't know.

The tower with the steps, I see nothing wrong with that work, maybe the lower door step boards might sag a little in the middle from those muddy boots the signal men having to come and go as they maintained the plant.

I'm glad you asked the question on the scenery forum.  I am a firm believer in that the layout is your layout and should reflect what YOU want and not what a bunch on knit pickers tell you MUST be done.  I love plasticville for a couple of reasons.  The first is of course the bang for the buck, they are certainly inexpensive when purchased new and at train shows you can get a box of them for a few dollars.  The second reason is that this is the scenery forum and we all love to make our model worlds look like the real world within reason.  The Plasticville pieces are great learning tools that can be kitbashed, super detailed or whatever.  The posts above attest to some of what can be done.  Additionaly if you look at detail parts for scratch building you will quickly notice that things like windows and doors can get expensive.  Pick up a couple of basket case PV buildings and walla you have a bunch of detail parts to play with.  I think that the PV models are just terrific.  My 2c!   Russ

You guys are scenery wizards!

I nearly fainted when I saw the pics of some of the stunning detailing, painting and weathering effects done to some of the Plasticville structures. That quadruple multiplex of coal towers is jawdropping! The water tank and signal and switch towers are the absolutely beautiful! 

I am inspired to go out to the LHS tomorrow to search for some P-ville goodies! It is truly incredible what can be achieved when applying one's imagination.

To everyone: great photos and comments!

Thanks,

Terrence

Long Island, NY

I also took this Plasticville crossing gate shanty, added a light, bum and detail parts. Thanks Lee and Terrence!

Cesar

Terrence

Here is one more example:  A modifed Plasticville Large Gas Station

Frank, thank you for the kind words,

most all of my buildings are plasticville or older lionel. painting and weather brings the models to life.

dkdkrd Now that is what I was talking about! Well done, you and your wife have done a great job, PV never looked so good.  Nice use of the airport hangers very clever.  Russ

Wow...I thought I was alone in the world and feeling a lttle bit guilty for kitbashing

PV, with all the emphasis on "keeping it original" in train collecting, and here I was surrounded by a creative and imaginative army!  I now wonder what people have done with some of the rolling stock?  For one, since I favor side door, combine, and

drover cabooses, I completely moved all the walls around on an MTH caboose, to

get a different configuration....(it's in a box somewhere and I can't find it  or its original box, either, to identify it) but I think I turned it into a side door caboose.  It might have been an MTH Civil War one (not a recent project).  (there are old O scale kits on eBay, so you don't have to do this to get different cabooses) but this series of posts make me bet other people have wild creations.  For engines, I converted a Marx 1829 4-6-4 into a 2-8-2 and built a Vanderbilt tender for it utilizing oneof the old Marx tank cars...engine looks and surprise (to me), runs, great..would like to redo the tender body(I made the rear tender truck revolving, so one direction has a Marx tilt fork coupler, and the other a Lionel type operating knuckle so it

can run with either brand of trains, with the out of use coupler under the car

body)  I used O scale brass engine parts for Elesco browmounted water heater and flying pumps.  Have not got around to kitbashing a Marx 2-4-4-2 articulated...keep hoping a commercial one appears, but I suspect somebody has been there and done that.

As you can see Terrence Plasticville Buildings can look prototypical if you are willing to do some painting and weathering. I have a lot of Plasticville Buildings on my layout and everyone has been painted to more realistic colors. 

The newer buildings from Lionel, MTH, and even OGR are usually painted very well and can be used as is but even my higher cost building sometimes get repainted or customized if I don't quite like the look of them.

The short answer to your question is yes, Plasticville Buildings will suit you well as you build your layout and look good on the carpet central too.

Steve Tapper

We have the Plasticville TV station and signal bridge.  They look good just not next to one of the MTH sized buildings that we have. 

Curious if anyone has any good ideas for how to improve the look of the tv station?

This is a great thread, just goes to show what a bit of imagination can do.

The Plasticville cathedral makes a pretty good country church, the tower next door is freestanding from the Town Hall kit.

The Town Hall reversed makes a good Ale house.

And, don't forget OGR's Ameritowne kits and kitbash parts, they are inexpensive and they look great. Here's a couple of shopfronts.

Currently on my layout I am using only one Plasticville strusture. It is a switchtower which I painted and put window glazing into about 23 years ago. Most of the rest of my buildings are from MTH or Lionel. It is all just a personal preference. I would reccomend painting ATLEAST the inside of PV structures if you plan on illuminating them at some point.

Cobrabob.

Two views of a modified PV Coaling Tower.  Part of the mods are scratched, part are a kit that used to be available through MicroMark but will soon be available again directly from BVM.

I still have detailing to do, but you get the point.

I like what Jerry Kimble of Atlas O did with his Intermodal Railyard Module! He used the Plasticville Toll booth as the entrance to his intermodal yard!

Here's my Plasticville Station kitbash.

I am in awe at the amazing work you guys have done with your Plasticville kits. 

Palallin: I love that black coal tower! 

prrshorseshoecurve: the PV toll plaza looks like a security gate for the yard - WOW! Brilliant idea!

Dennis B: your PVille station looks better than any of the expensive stations out there! 

While I have babbled on here about kitbashing Plasticville and have not posted

photos, photos of Lionel kit buildings I kitbashed were just published in the just received quarterly  TTOS (Toy Train Operating Society) magazine.  These were in

35mm and turned out great in the magazine.  These Lionel kits were the branchline water tower, one of the stations, and the grain elevator, and photos are in the Winter 2012 "The Bulletin". 

As an update to the round stone based water towers kitbashed

from the Lionel branchline water tank kits, when I did the article, I did not have

at hand the photo where I'd seen such towers.   I have since found that the

towers were at Gunnison, Colorado on the Denver, South Park, and Pacific and

their photo is in the Mallory Hope Ferrel book, "The South Park Line.  They are, with variations as shown in the article,  the standard tower I have elected to use for my layout, to provide a distinctive "signature".   My Plasticville efforts were in an article (which I do not have at hand) some months ago in "The Bulletin".

To add to my comments about kitbashing Lionel and Plasticville kits, another version

of the Lionel #6-12711 water tower kit that I did after the TTOS article was one with

an octagonal base done with the Chooch "foam stone" wall material.  Since the Lionel

stations kit #6-2787 is kind of plain Jane, looking at the photos in the mag suggests using narrower Grandtline windows to angle the bay in more, the bay roof could be

reshaped to follow the angles, another kit would be a great asset for more freight

doors, either side of the building could be shortened, if you need the space, or to create a distinctive station,  and two other kits could be built into an L shape for a crossing junction.  And with more kits that eave trim on the bay could be also applied to the end eaves, which would spark up the appearance.  Freight doors could be

raised in the walls with a modified Plasticville platform added.

I can visualize those water tower kits with square or octangular log bases on a

backwoods or logging road.  Junk box Lionel kits are less common than the Plasticville

ones, but can be found, as mine were.

The above is a kitbash of two plasticville airplane hangers, re-arranged as the Union Station train shed, with the sides of the hanger as the upper hallway. The red brick building at the very top is an HO scale power station, arranged as the union station offices.

The row houses are plasticville, painted and arranged as row housing in an industrial town. The roofing material is flat black hockey tape, that makes for good looking rolls of roof material.

Joe K

I am in full agreement that Plasticville structures have a place on  our layouts.  Several are of decently close to scale, but more important, I really like their designs which capture the style of postwar buildings as well as any I've seen.  Here are some shots of those I've used in building my town of Ash Fork.

First are those I kitbashed for the downtown where I doubled the depth of the stores and reversed two of the sides on the bank so the drive in window was on the "correct" side for me.

The next are of an industry where I used two aircraft hangers.

Here are two homes.

Finally, here is the back of the Ranch House where I added some roof trim, a back porch and raised it a little with a footing.

PeterA, You really captured my imagination w/ this adaptation of Plasticville structures - very, very clever usage. Cool.

Frank

I see Pravda has local delivery.

There used to be an old saying  during the cold war: "There is no Izvestia in Pravda and no Pravda in Izvestia", meaning truth (Pravda) and the Communist Party newspaper

were not a match.

Best,  Mark

Plasticville structures are excellent basic structures and quite collectable. They even have a club, the PCA. Many kits are common in average condition and can be picked up on the cheap. Nicer kits are collectable and command more, then there are the rare colors which are quite pricey. It all depends on what you want to do. If your going to paint them and modify them, I suggest you buy complete kits in a bag instead of original box. These typically command half of a boxed items price. There are a few sellers out on the web you can check out.

One is:  http://plasticvillekitsforsale.webs.com/

If you contact him and ask about unboxed kits he usually has a few stashed away. Or you can pick something out from his web page listings or inquire about a specific building in the color you want.

Gandy

I remember that years ago (back in the mid or late 90's, there was a layout presented in OGR that was all Plasticvile. The hobbyist presented himself as "The Mayor of Plasticville" (if that jogs any memories; it may have been the title of the article.) It was a spectacularly handsome layout, a real homage to the genre. I looked to see if I still had the Run, but no. If anybody finds it (or is the actual "mayor,") that would be very nice to share here, if I may suggest.

Frank

TCA member Bill Nole styles himself as the Mayor of Plasticville. He has written a comprehensive guide on Plasticville structures, which is in color and is quite well done. He posts Youtube videos...search "Plasticvillemayor" ( if I recall correctly.)

Hi, Mark. Sorry for the late reply. I've been to Russia a couple of times, so when I found this Mack truck in that livery (at a diecast shop in KC, back in the '90's), I purchased it. Notice that the Pravda truck is parked outside the Colonial Church, so even the Commies have "seen the light". By the way, Pravda is now a "scandal sheet" a la National Enquirer, which is probably a fitting end to it.

Plasticville has been around for about a zillion years, so they must be doing something right. 

They sure were my buildings-of-choice back when I was a kid, although it wasn't until many years later that I learned what could be done with them with a bit of paint and some added details.

Folks on this thread have demonstrated--very nicely--what can be accomplished with a bit of creativity.

Plasticville Diner:

Harry, That's one of the most authentic, realistic scenes I have ever seen. Congratulations on your many skills. And the Plasticville diner is perfect as you have worked it and placed it. The lightpoles and sign-painter's scaffolding are exactly right, too. The whole atmosphere is believable. Wonderful.

Frank

Terrence,

I'm guessing you're not in the "Plasticville collector" category, but more in the "scratch and dent" operator part of the hobby.  If I'm correct, you may want to look at the Plasticville items as a canvas for O-scale artwork. Bear with me for a minute.

For example, I picked up a pretty beat up looking Plasticville chapel and made it into a unique item using some textured spray paint to achieve a "pink quartz stucco" look.

If you stop by our web site, you can read the details on this project.  If you belonged to LOTS, you would have seen the same info in the June 2011 edtion of The Switcher. 

While it isn't a Plasticville item, the Lionel switch tower kit lends itself to some simple "back of the layout" modeling.  Here's "Railfan Tower" on the back part of our layout.  It's pretty much "out of the box with nothing more than some minor lack of maintenance weathering, "window shades" made from brown lunch bags and grain of wheat interior lighting.

The K-Line buildings lend themselves to being a canvas too.  Here's a work in progress, namely making a K-Line 7-11 store at the far corner of the layout look good without all the bother of super-detailing it.  (It's a work in progress and will eventually be a decent candidate for a magazine article.  I still need to build a shield to hide the interior lighting's wiring)  Notice how we illuminated the exterior 7-11 sign using a cannon light from Model Power.  (My 33 y/o daughter walked in to the train room, pointed at the 7-11 and said, "Dad, I remember all the times you would sit in front of a 7-11 having coffee while I had a soda."  I guess I re-created a scene from her childhood with this building!)

My one caution would be some of the K-Line and Plasticville buildings may be closer to S-scale than O-scale, so you may want to put them towards the center or distant parts of your layout in relation to where people will be standing when viewing the scene.

Just so I understand this correctly, the Bachman O-scale Plasticville snap together kits are actually S-scale?

Thanks.

BTW, great work guys!

To answer the original question I think they are perfect for a traditional layout and plan to use them when I build a small layout for children to run.  When I was little our layout had all Plasticville buildings.  Now I almost only have scale Lionel trains so I am currently using Dept. 56 and plan to add Ameritowne flats.

As for the scale for Plasticville, if you look at the old boxes they say "Scaled for O & S scales."  I think this was done to go after both the Lionel and American Flyer markets at the time with one product line.

I love the plasticville buildings.  As you can see from the photos, they look good as is, or even better painted and weathered.  As you can see there are some incredible modelers on this forum who can turn any biliding into something amazing.  But I think you can have a nice layut of all plasticville buildings right put of the box.  And, you can buy them fairly cheap in a lot of places.   I think the trick to making them really nice is to light them all up and then add a little detail around them.  My brothers and i had a 16'x 16' layout in the 50’s and it was populated with a bunch of plasticville.  It looked like a wonderland to us all lit up.  

Ed

Here is my Plasticville police station, in the town of Beawslaiw, on my layout.  Matt

A delightful scene and a handsome Plasticville building, if you ask me.

Very nice.

Frank M.

I too use some plasticville on the layout.

I have a farm set, the Ice cream shop and the trailer set  in use and several others awaiting details and placement.

Yes, some of them run a bit small, perfect for those back corners and tight spots.

But for the Trailers I much prefer them to MTH's massive ones. Those look entirely too big.

It's all in the perspective and use.

As luck would have it, I've recently been painting some plasticville buildings from my childhood train collection to add some reality.  It is underscale, but with some paint it looks pretty good.

The cathedral makes a nice small country church, the town hall makes a nice pub.

I used the clock tower as a stand alone in the church yard and replaced it with a large chimney.

I'm an O scale 2-railer and I like Plasticville models. In fact there are several of them on my Ironbound RR. Here's one of my favorites which is your basic P'ville Diner with some interesting additions including a full interior with jukeboxes, etc.

~Andy

They're great for kitbashing and when painted up look great. Only problems are they're more S scale than O and light can shine thru walls so you may want to paint insides of walls to make them opaque rather than translucent. Also weathering and painting them does wonders for their asppearance. Since on smaller side, you'll want to be careful ablout placing 1:43 vehicles directly by them.

I have accumulated quite a few Plasticville items through the years.  They do have that "look" that instantly takes me back to the late 50's early 69's.  I usually keep a few up in a small town area I have. They have been altered and painted mostly.  I love the look.  

For those of you who like Plasticville (I have always found it charming) and are going to the TCA Meet this April at York, I recommend a very pleasant gentleman and his son who have a huge display (20'x10') of Plasticville structures for sale, right next to me (WW-05) in the Orange Hall (Toyota), just next to the large open roll-up door on the east end of the building. He always has a good crowd who seem to enjoy the huge variety his makes available for sale. He is an authentic gentleman.

FrankM.

Layout Refinements

Plasticville is easy and farely inexpensive, I also like the

plasticville vehicles. The go perfect on my Marx Southern

51000 autoloader cars. I like the white wheels better than the

original Marx black wheels.

1) first pic lower left corner.

2) second pic behind the Lionel 2065.

3) third pic background.

Popi, I agree - they do look good on the Marx flats.  They give some added variety to what Marx offered, too.  At a recent Greenberg show a dealer had them for $8 each, across the board, regardless of style or color.  Can it be that they're that valuable now?  Or is it because it was a large show?

probably just a large show.

I have paid anywhere from $1

to $5 each, but no more than $5.

My ave is about $2.50 ea.

Thanks Popi.  I appreciate the reinforcement for my shock at the price.

Yep you can do a lot with them.

I read sometime ago that Plasticville structures are loosely based "S" guage with "O" guage doors and windows. That seems pretty accurate to me. As a young boy, my model railroading hobby began with the Plasticville white fencing placed around the edge of my Christmas layout and a Colonial house and passenger station. Each year thereafter my parents took me to the Hobby Hangout in Easton,Pa. during mid-November (anyone remember Jim Emory? He and his entire family were great people to know) to purchase several additional Plasticville structures. They are great structures to modify as has been shown in this posting. 

Every kid I knew with a layout in the 50's had Plasticville buildings. They were easy to build, came apart, and only cost at most a dollar. The only other buildings I had were the cutouts on the back cover of Toy Train magazine. 

You can still do a lot with a little detailing and paint. I made my Vicky's Trailer Park from Plasticville. Hit the picture to enlarge. I don't think they look bad. Don

IMO; OK, yes, great,no. Don

I think the trailer park is fabulous, Don; what more would anybody want in one.
Love it.

FrankM

Yes Plasticville can  be used effectively.  They are smaller than scale and allow you to build a bigger more interesting town then you can with full sized buildings such as MTH makes.  And as seen here several times, the trailer park is wonderful. If you use Glue Dots to put them together then they come apart easily if you need to do that

Don, nice work on the trailer park. Great looking layout too.

Cobrabob.

These are just three Plasticville buildings.. The Firehouse was made so for a paid fire dept.  living quarters.   the church was detailed a the hobo shacks are already in place

Only thing missing is the tornado!

Oh, and the white guy with no shirt being arrested!

Jerry

I found some old photos of Plasticville station kitbashing (and of a Lionel station kit). 

The Lionel station kit was reduced down to Placticville size, which I decided was S

scale, and so do not plan to use them unless I build a different layout for Marx 3/16.

What I do like about them is the family resemblence.  Here are a few of them, and the

Lionel station:

I have several Plasticville buildings on my layout. I usually repaint them which to me is half the fun of modeling. My layout is not strictly scale so I have no problem using the Platicville structures.

Steve Tapper

Be honest: are Plasticville structures okay?

Yes - Spray them with Testors 1260 Dullcote and or Spray Lacquer.

& have fun. Great product, most be over 50 years old???

Here is the Bachmann coal tower that has been customized

This has an interior floor and a doorway off the stairway to the interior. Completely painted inside and out.

Modifying a Bachmann O scale Barn kit.  This is Bachmann kit #45602.  It is a very basic structure that can be modified and painted to provide a nice background structure.  It would be useful in a rural scene.

The attached photos show the original barn and two paint variations.  Notice that the large barn doors have been modified, painted and then mounted on the barn.

I have the coal tower and the barn. They both look good on the layout.

Don-great trailer park. I'm going to have to get those also.

Great product, most be over 50 years old???

Advertised in 1946, produced in 1947.  Hard to believe, 67 years old.

Scalerail Don, How many kits did you use for your trailer park? How many trailers come in a kit? Thanks, MilwRdPaul

Certainly not the first or last Independence Hall that you will see. It was a lot of fun to build.

Great way to start developing your model building skills. This was my first attempt at doing mortar joints. It is more "S" scale, but it serves well as "Santa's Mansion" on the Polar Express scene with the Modular club.

Gilly

For the beginner they are great. You can build a few or go wild and fill up your entire layout .

Several years ago, OGR presented a man's layout in OGRmagazine which was completely Plasticville. He was referred to as the Mayor of Plasticville in the article. I thought the layout was gorgeous and clever.

FrankM

When I built I my small S gauge layout under my main layout I went for a more traditional look using mostly Plasticville buildings. 

I like them, and use more than a few on my layout. I also belong to the PCA (Plasticville Collectors Association) and would suggest anyone interested in Plasticville to at least look at their website:

http://www.plasticvilleusa.org/

Here's a couple of shots around my layout:

J White

I remember the "Mayor of Plasticville" article, and a layout I saw when I attended

a train club? convention some years ago....and one in the Wheeling, W.Va. Marx

museum.  Except for the roof, which I would make to look like metal sheeting,

as was my grandfather's, I like the shape of the barn, but, as P51 notes,  would want to put two or more (4?) together to double its size.  Craftsman O scale kits are often designed to take as little space as possible, and can look grotesque to me, and I have to enlarge them....which means I can use fewer.  So it is with Plasticville....the PV

barn models garage predecessors, buggy barns, with room for the buggy before

automobiles, and the stalls along the side for a couple of horses and a small loft for

hay.  Koley and John, my grandfather's mules, used to mow slopes too steep for his

tractor, and to plow the fenced garden where the tractor could not fit, spent much of their lives in stalls along side his barn, which was many times larger than the PV one.

I love them as a starting point.......

I have both Plasticville and MTH buildings, keeping the Plasticville more together in a group in the background for better perspective due to the differences in scale.  I deliberately do not alter or change Plasticville to not destroy the integrity of the piece with one exception:  I installed a small light in the modern rendition of the fruit stand.  The original USA Plasticville I have date from the 50's with original boxes and I do not alter nor glue the pieces.  I fully realize that Plasticville is not true to scale or comparable to other building manufacturers in terms of detail and realistic style, but it does have a certain charm.  I have a sign on my layout with the words "Plasticville" in the section where they are principally located.  Most visitors smile, but they also read a small explanatory note on the edge of the platform that I included about Plasticville and why it was so significant for kids in the 50's who had layouts.  BTW, I also incorporate Dept. 56 buildings in another section.  If you enjoy nostalgia (perhaps more than realism) show off your Plasticville proudly!!!! 

Coal Tower, and Gas Station I'm working on to convert to one that I remember in our town.

http://i191.photobucket.com/al...4652_zps3e426490.jpg

http://i191.photobucket.com/al...4650_zpsb1a8a2d5.jpg

http://i191.photobucket.com/al...4651_zps1dc07b0b.jpg

Exactly the right weathering touches! You did a masterful job, AMCDave.

FrankM

Awesome thread! Terrance, you asked a loaded question! Look at all the creative expressions reflected with PV! Love it!

Though the buildings are diminutive, the doors and windows seem more to O scale.  The packaging mentioned that the buildings were usable for both O and S.

It depends. If you are wanting scale structures, (scale looking), for O gauge or even S, then Plasticville is not for you. If you are doing a Post War style layout, toy like, then Plastic Ville is just what you want. Some, not all, pieces are good starting points for a good kit bash, or even just detailed up. Some are too small for normal use. Good for background. Example is the Plastic Ville gas station. If you put a 1:43 car near a garage door, it will be obvious the door is too small. But again ok for the toy look. If you are not a scratch builder, or cheap (like me) you can do a lot with them. Paint and detail can make them look very good. I do not have a lot of space, so I need compressed buildings. If you put a ruler to them you will discover that they are very small square foot wise. But I try for a realistic, more or less, appearance. Here are a couple of examples.

First a U Toke M, play on the convience store U Tote M. I didn't want another 7-11. These were very common here, Texas, until some other chain bought most or all of them. My girlfriend's brothers called it the U Toke M. Hey it was the mid 70's. So here is my rendition. Using a Plastic Ville store. I believe this was the Hardware and Pharamacy. I blocked one door section off. Added window glazing, a counter, drink coolers and some interior detail. With the exception of 3 Micro Icon figures, aprox 1:35 scale, and a cash register, the remainder of the interior was made from printed pictures. I found them on the internet and scaled and cropped them in Photo Shop. The drink coolers are back lit, printed on transparency and glued to frames made from mat board.

Oh the cases of Coke I found on the internet some time back.

The second, not finished, is the Plastic Ville Apt building. I thought it looked like an art deco motel, hotel, from Florida. It will be a Holliday Inn. I have to make one of those signs. It re-mind's me of the old motels when I was a kid in South Florida, late 60's. I have repainted it, and so far added window glazing, plastic from gift box windows saved from Christmas. And a second floor, the actual floor, so I can add figures etc.

I had several others, but the fire station for example had doors so small my 1:50 fire engines would barely fit thru the door. Gave that one to my Grandson. The gas station, previously mentioned, will probably also go to him.

So really depending on your use, look you are after, or how close to scale looking you are after, these can be used very well. Out of the box for a Post War layout. Or a little paint and a few detail pieces and you wouldn't hardly know that they were Plastic Ville.

This is the future motel, the picture didn't do what I wanted, but here it is.

FWIW, it seems that many of the manufactured village pieces made by Lemax and Dept 56 are closer to S scale also and, although styled differently, fit better with Plasticville pieces than Lionel and MTH buildings. 

     Buck Wheat sais DAY O TAY!!!!!! sorry just kidding. Choo Choo Kenny

For all of us who run around York and explore SE Pa., and drive through places like

Strasburg and another with an unusual name, also near Lancaster, I see Amish living

in town.  I have not noticed if they have buggy houses and/or horses in the garages?

(property seems to sell back and forth from Amish to the "English", and of course

the Strasburg RR seems to run through an Amish farm, but I am thinking of the

small towns around there).  Just wondering about zoning, as most towns elsewhere would go tilt if you tried to keep chickens, and one of my childhood homes had a chicken house  (that we used for storage). An interesting and I think oddball thing is that the Amish raise tobacco.  Central Kentucky was once full of tobacco barns, usually the second barn on a farm (it was for one of my grandfather's, and for my maiden great aunts), with one barn a dairy barn, described as Josef has above, and the other a tobacco barn, for the curing of tobacco, hung up inside on "tobacco sticks",  four foot? long, one inch thick wooden strips.  These barns were often narrower and taller than a dairy barn, and, in their later years, were often black...I assume with creosote.  If I was modeling Kentucky (and possibly Tenn., Va., N.C., and it was/is grown in southern Indiana)  I would have to model a tobacco barn, and have one of the industries, as still exists in my mother's home town, a railroad served  tobacco marketing warehouse.  In Kentucky these barns had a small room attached that was the "stripping room", where I think leaves were pulled away from the stalk after curing, and leaves were bundled for sale.  I saw all this at a very early age, so may not have it correct. (my brother and I fought "sword" battles with tobacco sticks, and used them for stick horses when playing "cowboys")

Oh, yes, there was "worm picking".  At that time (I'm way out of touch now) my grandfather would have to walk the rows of tobacco and remove and kill tobacco worms, that ate holes in the leaves.  For some years I have wondered that some

insect could eat a nicotine laden plant.

Continuing east in Kentucky, past the capital, and home of Diecast Direct, you are in

the Bluegrass, where tobacco is raised, but horse barns, low and rambling, with many stall doors, and big buck thoroughbred farms surrounded by white wooden fences,

become the norm (although white there has given over to creosote, too).

Barns do differ, and there are model kits of New England barns that are connected to the house, to avoid going out doors when it is not, uh, warm.  I have not thought to

photograph a ranch barn, as opposed to an eastern style as described above.  I am not

sure how western barns differ (I have not paid attention, but have not noticed a

distinctive difference).

OK, I'll be honest.

I don't like structures of any kind on my layout.  They represent clutter on an otherwise clean railroad running through virgin wilderness.

But as far as appearance...I dunno...I guess they're alright.

RIP TRACK

The hand of man, as the attacking Indians would have said, while the rails were pushed west, leaves little virgin in this wilderness...culverts, rotted ties pushed down an embankment, short and long trestles, cuts and fills, and miles of marching telegraph poles... at least not around a railroad, even in the desert, across Utah or ?  I have certainly followed the trace where no rails remain.....but in populated areas,

the trace soon vanishes...

I really like your Erector Set truss. Haven't seen anything like that built into a layout in years.

Just posted a bunch of pics of recently completed new or updated scenes on the Ironbound RR layout. Find ‘em here:

http://www.trainutz.com/ironbound.shtml

~Andy

GREAT work Andy!!!!

Awesome pictures! Plasticville buildings can look fine sometimes right out of the box, others you might want to detail or kitbash, I'm in the middle of rebuilding my layout so they're boxed up right now. You can use some Krylon Stone paint to make a building look like stutto on a building for a different look. Great especially on small layouts where place is a premium and a big money saver when you're on a tight budget like me. 

Yeah, they're OK for me.  Many Plasticville structures from Bachman in the '50's are postwar survivors if they have not been glued or otherwise altered.  For those of us that have a similar nostalgic attachment for them as we also have for our Postwar trains, they are a must on a layout.

Beyond that, they are reasonably priced if found at a show, and can't be beat if you want to kitbash them.  The other newer highly detailed structures that are already weathered are much nicer looking, however, you get what you pay for, and you will pay a lot more for them.

Good point as written by several, that many Plasticville buildings, acc. will fit with no problem into an O scale/gauge layout. Repainting, altering will improve many also. Here's an Apartment building I'm working on. Has been re-painted only. The figure, an "O" scale from Woodland fits perfectly. Some work on the interior and lighting will take away that distinct "Plasticville" look.

http://i191.photobucket.com/al...4683_zps1692fd7a.jpg

It looks like Plasticville has no Desert foliage in its entire line of Trees.    I guess their designers and artists have never heard of Southern California's Mojave Desert, or Arizona or New Mexico.

So I'll have to order my O-Scale Joshua Trees from Scenic Express, for 12 bucks per tree for the 4-1/4" size (17 scale feet).  They'll go on my High Desert layout, where I live.

Saguaros, Joshuas, Yuccas, and Mesquites, WELCOME...Oaks, Pines, Poplars, and Elms...KEEP OUT!

RIP TRACK

(Click on image to enlarge)

Pegasus Hobbies makes some nice Cactus plants....and they are kinda Plasticville like!! They make 3 or 4 different types. I have all of them plus the Woodland sets.  Available online from many sellers. Check them out.

Flawless. Handsome as can be. Congratulations, Ironbound/Andy !!!

FrankM

Thank you AMCDAVe!  I did not know these were made.  They make two different sets and I found them with a simple search: less than $15 for the pair.  

Lee.....there is two sets of just Cactus. The other sets are a mix of plants, cactus, dead tress etc. Not as well done as the other sets but I picked them up cheap.

I just go the cactus.  I have dead trees and such on my present southwest themed area, but no cactus - and I want a few.  Have to find a coyote or two, also, and a rattler or two! (Ugh, I hated those things!)

Snakes are easy......I made some for a display out of epoxy putty.....like a 5 year old.....first thing they make in clay is a snake!!! Some detail and paint!!! Rattler!

Excellent idea.  I always have a little dab left when I am using epoxy- I'll just make some snakes and set aside.

I figure I can make coyotes out of some dog figures.

My Pegasus cacti arrived.  Nice models.  Unpainted they would look way too "plastic-y" but I'm going to pick up a couple of nice shades of green flat paint today.  Definitely a great find for me.  I'll be putting them on the layout this afternoon, I hope . . .