Returning to the hobby

A good spot for Plasticville is the large on line auction site.

Steve

Biff, I have a bunch of 1950's 027 cars I will sell for $10 each. Box cars, tank and most everything else. All have metal trucks and are in nice shape. Don

WELCOME BACK to a great hobby and a super Form.  You can always look up the item number, check the measurements, and/or look them up in old cats.  MTH 30-XXXX is usually close to traditional size.

On Freight cars, as long as they run on the minimum curves on your layout, I would not worry too much..  I see many pictures of real trains from many years ago, and the cars look to be all shapes and sizes.  So, if you like it, then buy it.  

I look at Trainz for deals, lots of MPC and vintage equipment that can be acquired at good prices.  Usually, the second and third item bought will make the overall purchase reasonable because of the combined shipping charges is lower.  

Coal Cracker posted:

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? 

 

Coal Cracker aka Biff

 

try reading this thread.

https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/...-cars-are-scale-size

Plasticville is still made, although in China and not Philadelphia. Most on-line train stores carry it. Vintage Plasticville is still available at train or toy shows and E Bay.  My favorite E Bay seller is Glenn Bowman (GBPV) , who also has a website. 

Also, there are many other sources for buildings ,such as Ameri Towne, Menards, and others . Many are advertisers here; see the "buttons" at the top of the page.

Like John said, Plasticville/Bachman is still made and available from most of the on-line advertisers to this Forum. 

I know Charles Ro has quite a few - their link is below:

http://charlesro-com.3dcartsto.../plasticville_o.html

The Greenberg Pocket Price Guides default to traditional and specify when an item is Standard O.  Prior year editions are inexpensive.

WELCOME BACK!

Thanks to all for responding.  I've clicked on the link and read the previous thread on the topic of size and have a somewhat clearer picture.  Thanks for the Plasticville leads; it looks like I'll need to check ebay since it appears the buildings I'm looking for are no longer being produced--ie post office, 5 and 10, hardware, ranch house et al.

John, thanks for the tip about ebay seller GBPV.

Scale Rail Don, thanks for the offer of the PW 027 size freight cars but as a runner my preference is with the MPC and later cars.

GN Man, I'll send you an email later with what I'm interested in. My grandfather, father and two uncles worked years for the D&H in northeastern PA so my main interest is in the D&H, O&W and the other anthracite roads. I do have a large number of two bay hoppers decorated in D&H and Lackawanna livery which were sold by Frank Rasch as well as a couple custom painted O&W Lionel MPC short hoppers.  Frank lived in the Wilkes Barre area and produced a lot of product with local liveries.

Biff