Why Doesn't Anyone Make true city buildings in O scale?

Very simple, you and a handful of others have the space for such structures.  The typical O-scale layout does not.  If the manufacturers don't see enough potential sales volume, it doesn't get made.  Choices are to pay somebody to kitbash or scratchbuild for you, or learn to do it yourself. 

O scale eats real estate.   A few have large basements, fewer have heated pole buildings out on the back of their lots.  I will be really lucky if I can get some of these grain elevators and the stations to represent a few towns along my tracks.  Wonder how many are modeling inner cities in G scale?  I do see some models of O scale city skyscrapers pictured on here, so some have learned to built them.  You can, and I have, kitbash Korber and other buildngs, several together, to build taller buildings, I to get a brewery and a sugar plant.  I guess I won't coat-tail on this and list all the locos and rolling stock I sing that same refrain for....

Limited available space even on a large layout for a commercial district, industrial sites and residential housing, especifically if switch yards, industrial spurs, and engine servicing facifities for steam, diesel or both are to be serviced trurntable area with lead tracks, roundhouse, run thru diesel servicing building and car rip site or car maintenance /repair building. Also consider a passenger train terminal with multiple lead tracks, long storage tracks against the dumping posts and passender terminal stub end or run through.

If one had the economuic funds and available yard/property a large pole barn would solve this problem but for many of us including myself this is a dream not reality. The second issue is what wouldd be the demand for these buildings, assembled or kits, and finally the manufacturring cost and selling price from the vendor. I remember years ago when Walters marked the O Scale Cornerstone kits, good quality kits for the price,but the line was dropped in O Scale, currently marketed in HO and possibly N Scale. It is an educated guess that the O Scale line was dropped because of insufficient demand.

Andre @ River Leaf produces scale anything to your request. I have personally had him produce over a dozen scale buildings.

However, space quickly gets eaten up. I am looking to build a scale model of our local Milk Condenser & Feedmill from the 1930's- However at over 600' in actual length...well- you see where I'm going, I don't have over 12' to dedicate.

I am not a professional modeller just an average bloke with limited funds and an average brain, but over the years I have turned out some large buildings mainly industrial things like factories, warehouses, and I am building at the moment a O Scale Steel Mill some of my buildings have been over six feet long I also have built lots of large cranes but that is not what we are talking about here my "ego" forced me to say that I'm laughing that was a joke....

What you need:

A large table for cutting on.

Sheets of styrene from a plastic firm.

And of course all the usual cutters, scribers, rules straight edges.

There have been lots of articles over the years for building large city buildings in various magazines OGR, Model Railroader the real secret though is that large cutting table without it you will have to kit Bash kits even then you still need a decent table to lay out your walls.

Windows ? With the laser cutting business taking off, if you can provide a decent drawing, these blokes can cut out any type of window you prefer and supply you in large quantities and saying that there are many ways to cut the holes for windows in the styrene without going nuts, you can sometimes make your own windows as well, the skies the limit. But you need that large table if your going to churn out a city.

That's my table behind me with a large freight house being built out of DPM modules.

Roo

All of the reasons stated above. It takes a lot of room for a O gauge city. In addition, cities are not big on railroad structures. Yards and industry that support railroads are either just out of the city limits oe underground where they can't be seen. That limits the potential customers. Not too many people build cities because of lack of room and because it is not a place with a lot of railroad supported industry. That is you don't see trains in a city.

Thanks for all the replies. Here are some comments:

First, it's an assumption that I have a gigantic layout and that no one has the space for a cityscape.   My layout areas slated for the cityscape is around 9 X 16.  Not nearly as big as many layouts of those who post here and in the mags  

Second, lots of layouts here and in mags feature cityscapes, but people choose to scratch build or "grow" unrealistically small or narrow pre-made buildings to accomplish the goal of a reasonably realistic cityscape.  So, there is certainly a market.  And people certainly have he space  

Third, I'm well aware of Ameritowne. Maybe the person who made the comment about my need to read "cover to cover" should actually read my OP and also look at Ameritowne buildings. I didn't say I was looking for kits. And just as importantly, the Ameritowne buildings, aside from having unrealistic corner seams on brick buildings that I'd never consider, there is not one true city building (e.g,. Things that look like the Chrysler or Graybar Building, the Waldorf or Algonquin hotel, etc.) in the line-up.  

Finally, I don't know Andre or River Models but my guess is having a building made is probably a lot more expensive than readymade.  And yes, I checked out Downtown Deco and the others listed. Can the person who said I should check them out post a photo of any ready made (or even kit) of even one building from any of them that resembles the types of buildings I've listed above?  Would appreciate it  

What I'm surmising is that no one makes true city buildings in O?

PJB,

You are right with "there are no city buildings.." well, there are.. Lionel and MTH makes some 5-7 story high buildings.. MTH has a big one that is brick which is cool that I tore apart and make a new england styled mill out of it. But, what I had did was research (depending on era) buildings in medium sized cities in the mid 70's... (mine set in may 1977 when Star Wars came out) Then I assembled or had assembled over many years, many kits from DPM, Lionel, MTH, Chooch-(Chooch has some great castings out there if you can get your hands on that are perfect for cutting up into city type buildings) Bar Mills, Model Power, Scratch building stuff and some other kits and whatever I had.. You can kit bash buildings into many great types of large and tall buildings.. In my research, there are downtown buildings that are only one window wide! that looks so great in a model RR.. So I have attached some examples of my work.. let me know if I can help with any other pictures...?

Thanks, Dan

Pat Kn posted:

In addition, cities are not big on railroad structures. Yards and industry that support railroads are either just out of the city limits oe underground where they can't be seen. That limits the potential customers. Not too many people build cities because of lack of room and because it is not a place with a lot of railroad supported industry. That is you don't see trains in a city.

This really isn't accurate at all. Most large cities, especially in the eras people model, had railroad facilities either downtown or very close to it. See Camden Yards in Baltimore, or the car floats into Midtown Manhattan and accompanying yards, or LaSalle St. in Chicago.

Harry Hieki makes full scale size city buildings and terminals that will bring that metropolis feel to any layout.

Check him out.  He is an OGR banner advertiser.  I was just at his shop, the stuff is crazy old, big and neat.  Also some compressed size sky  scrapers to fit modest size layouts.

"Everything o scale"

BXCXDAN - real nice layout!  Thanks for posting pics. The building on the bottom picture on the lower right corner looks like something you might see in the outskirts of a city - like lower Manhattan or Washington Heights, etc. if you recall, who makes that building and can you post more photos?  Thanks again!

TomTee - thanks for the reference. I've seen Harry's work on the GCT base and one or two other items. Don't want to start a debate, so suffice it to say I'm not a big fan, as it all looks a little "cartoony" to me. Maybe the items you viewed were more realistic looking than the stuff I've seen?  Curious ...

Pat Kn - I think you are assuming, and I think you may have it backward. Cities have trains. Elevated trains.  For our cityscape, that's what we are doing.  So buildings need to match the trains, not the other way around. 

Reminds me of when I bought the MTH 2-story station and platforms....dwarfed my town, so I sold it and built a small wooden kit station (AMB Laserkits #490) .......sometimes smaller IS better...

PJB,

Sure.. here you go.. I have a bunch for you review.. I have shots I will start with on the scene with nothing till there are buildings.. with that, I also did the whole row of buildings that were against the tracks as large ones and took them apart and made smaller buildings and added the church because the huge buildings took away the seeing the good stuff that I had did with the buildings in the back.. But it still came out well. I also added some mills that are being modeled and shows how I am using cardboard mock-ups to visualize how the scene would work.. wish I did that with the city issue above, would have saved me a week.. but live and learn... enjoy.. Ohh, to answer your question, the building to the right is a Chooch building.. cut up to 'fit' the scene..  Dan

PJB:

People are giving you the answers to your question ("Why Doesn't Anyone Make true city buildings in O scale?"), but you don't seem to want to hear them.

...lots of layouts here and in mags feature cityscapes, but people choose to scratch build or "grow" unrealistically small or narrow pre-made buildings to accomplish the goal of a reasonably realistic cityscape.  So, there is certainly a market.  And people certainly have the space

I disagree that there is "certainly a market" and I strongly disagree that "people certainly have the space".  

There is not one true city building (e.g,. Things that look like the Chrysler or Graybar Building, the Waldorf or Algonquin hotel, etc.) in the line-up

First, let's look at the space required for the specific buildings you mentioned.  A simple Google search yielded the following building heights:

• Chrysler Building - 1046 feet
• Waldorf Astoria - 625 feet
• Graybar Building - 392 feet
• Algonquin Hotel - 120 feet (this is approx since we can only tell that it's a 12-story building)

If these "true city buildings" were rendered faithfully in "true" 1:48 O Scale, their heights would be as follows:

• Chrysler Building - 21.8 feet
• Waldorf Astoria - 13 feet
• Graybar Building - 8.2 feet
• Algonquin Hotel - 2.5 feet

You might have a chance with the Algonquin and maybe -- maybe -- the Graybar, but I could say with near certainty that there is not one modeler who has the space to accommodate the first two.  So, to address your statement above, most people definitely  do not have the space.

If you accept this as true, then the answer to the overall question is easy:

Q: Why Doesn't Anyone Make true city buildings in O scale?

A: Because there is no market for them, because almost no one would have the space needed to display them.

The above are facts.  Here's an opinion: The dimensions of a true O Scale Algonquin Hotel happen to be quite similar to the Prewar Lionel 840 Industrial Power Station.  I had considered putting one of the modern reissues of the 840 on the 32' x 24' layout I am building, but I had trouble finding room for something with such a large footprint.

YMMV.

Steven J. Serenska

BXCXDan posted:

PJB,

Sure.. here you go.. I have a bunch for you review.. I have shots I will start with on the scene with nothing till there are buildings.. with that, I also did the whole row of buildings that were against the tracks as large ones and took them apart and made smaller buildings and added the church because the huge buildings took away the seeing the good stuff that I had did with the buildings in the back.. But it still came out well. I also added some mills that are being modeled and shows how I am using cardboard mock-ups to visualize how the scene would work.. wish I did that with the city issue above, would have saved me a week.. but live and learn... enjoy.. Ohh, to answer your question, the building to the right is a Chooch building.. cut up to 'fit' the scene..  Dan

 

 

Really well done!!! 

George

PJB,

As others have said, it's all a matter of real estate.  Even the steel mill buildings I model have to be foreshortened or placed 30 or 45 degrees into the wall so as to convey the illusion of being larger.  At some point I will have to consider a taller building for downtown Steubenville, OH.  I can't make it the full 10 stories or represent its footprint accurately; there would be no downtown left.

Economically, it doesn't make sense for a manufacturer to offer a large building.  They have a limited market, development costs, marketing costs, and shipping costs.  The price required to make a profit would be prohibitive, thus limiting sales even further.  It's much more profitable and practical to offer components and let modelers build / customize their own buildings to fit their individual spaces.

This is what I had to work with for my Steel mill (18" x 10') below:

Here's what I did.

There are plans for a 3rd building to cover the corner (to the left in the photo above).  That building will have a 42.5" (170 scale feet) front with 7 bays.

George

PJB , sent you an email , Bernie

I just saw this post and wanted to comment.  There are a lot of great suggestions about scratch building, and you can get some excellent results.

korber models offers a tall city building kit that makes a limestone type building either as a low relief building with a single kit or you can combine to make a full building. It was inspired by bill bramledges tower city.

I will post photos when I get to a PC but you can find it on our web site.

BXCXDAN - very impressive stuff!  What a nice layout you've created. Thanks again.  Is that building with the large oval top Windows from MTH or?  If so, do you happen to have the item number?  Thank you. 

Serenska - your post is a joke, right?  I say I am looking for true city looking buildings ... and you disagree?  And then you do a math project to point out scale heights of my example buildings to tell me it won't work?  I only mentioned those buildings to provide examples of the feel and look I seek (city versus townie, given most buildings touted as "city" are actually the types of buildings you see on the main drag is towns).  So, I don't know what I'm supposed to "accept as true" per your post, but thanks for deciding for me what I can and cannot model.  

George - yes, understood. It seems like kit bashing or building bashing (combining more than one premade) is where it's headed. 

Rich - will look forward to your follow up post - thanks for posting. 

Peter

PJB posted:

Serenska - your post is a joke, right?  I say I am looking for true city looking buildings ... and you disagree?  And then you do a math project to point out scale heights of my example buildings to tell me it won't work?  I only mentioned those buildings to provide examples of the feel and look I seek (city versus townie, given most buildings touted as "city" are actually the types of buildings you see on the main drag is towns).  So, I don't know what I'm supposed to "accept as true" per your post, but thanks for deciding for me what I can and cannot model.  

One of the useful things about communicating in writing as we do on this forum is that a record of what was actually said is preserved.

In the discussion above, the first time you said "true city looking  buildings" versus "true city buildings" was in your unkind retort above.  Up until then, you had used the term "true city buildings" throughout, including in the topic you created for the thread.  

I took your use of the word "true" to mean "true".  Clearly it was my mistake.  I won't bother to sift through the shifting sands of your thinking after this.

SJS

Serenska posted:

PJB posted:

Serenska - your post is a joke, right?  I say I am looking for true city looking buildings ... and you disagree?  And then you do a math project to point out scale heights of my example buildings to tell me it won't work?  I only mentioned those buildings to provide examples of the feel and look I seek (city versus townie, given most buildings touted as "city" are actually the types of buildings you see on the main drag is towns).  So, I don't know what I'm supposed to "accept as true" per your post, but thanks for deciding for me what I can and cannot model.  

One of the useful things about communicating in writing as we do on this forum is that a record of what was actually said is preserved.

In the discussion above, the first time you said "true city looking  buildings" versus "true city buildings" was in your unkind retort above.  Up until then, you had used the term "true city buildings" throughout, including in the topic you created for the thread.  

I took your use of the word "true" to mean "true".  Clearly it was my mistake.  I won't bother to sift through the shifting sands of your thinking after this.

SJS

Oh, you were serious. Ok, sounds like it was my bad.  Yeah, I meant "true city buildings" as described in my several posts - buildings that aren't townie buildings you see on the main drag of every town mainstreet. 

G3750.

Very nice work, great scenes, excellent modelling.

We are starting to get some good modelling here lately good to see, better than buying this and buying that posts I like to see the modelling side of things more.

I will post some of my average modelling (I don't have an artistic bone in my body) soon, have the flu at the moment everything is an effort.

Thanks for sharing.

Roo.

BXCXDan posted:

Ohh, to answer your question, the building to the right is a Chooch building.. cut up to 'fit' the scene..  Dan

 

 

Dan - sorry, missed the ref to Chooch. Thanks again. Beautiful layout. 

Peter

Peter,

Very well. I try to answer as effectively as I could. Stating there is a lot of kit bashing to be had to get the feel you want. I also had that issue you had and starting looking around at all the kits etc and how I can mash them together to get true looking buildings for the city I wanted in the space that was provided to me from my layout design. We all put the track in first, which of course is the only way! HA! We want to see trains run and have them run in our allotted areas... I get it.. but also I like to just go at it, then figure things/track out from there.. it works sometimes! HA! 

BTW, the Post by "Mr Korber" is good. He has some great buildings too that I have on the model RR. I just don't have shots of them yet on here.. well, I think I did once.. of my Candy Factory.. a bash of three of "Mr. Korber's" mill kits..  (thanks for being in business Rich as it is people like you that enrich the hobby we are in." 

Anyhow, Peter, here is my email address if you have any other questions.. etc.. 

dan@boxxcarco.com

Take care, Happy Memorial Day. 

Dan

PJB,

Alan Arnold, OGR's adman has numerous skyscraper city buildings on his fantastic layout. He has even posted some great videos of his trains running through his cityscape. He has done fabulous work. If you search his posts I believe you will find the type of building you are looking for. I'm not certain if he scratch builds these or if he has a source he purchases some of them from. You can e-mail him, but I'd search his posts. I don't think you will be disappointed! I was hoping he'd chime in here.

There was also a seller at the Metrolina show in Charlotte a few years back who made and sold beautiful skyscrapers but they were in the $200 - $350 range. Metrolina is in June but that was a few years back (3, I believe) so I can't guarantee he would be there this year.  Perhaps some posters on here might know of him and get the info to you.

Fred

Here are the photos I was thinking of.

Also here are some links to a kit bash of this as a multi sided building

https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/t...-structure-kitbashed

https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/t...ng-korber-structures

https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/t...tructure-in-progress

Rich,

I have a question on the tall city building you just posted.. and a link you put in there gave me an idea.. 

If you were to lay the top two layers on their side, can  you turn the windows sideways too and spread then out so as to have a Mill Type building.. see the pictures here from the link you provided.. Would look great I think.. 

Rich, Let me know your thoughts..  Plus too, can add some doors in there for freight car loadings and a foundation..  Dan

even add an elevator tower.. Like the below.. 

In response to the original poster--you can always try forcing the perspective:

The 1:48 scratch built building was constructed using Downtown Deco walls and Grandt Line windows. The last photo is of the building as it is today in Toledo Ohio. The building was the Grasser Brandt brewery in Toledo Ohio. Yes, it too time to construct the building nut it was worth the work and on a layout there isn't that many buildings and to me I want each building to look great. Scratch building only needs patience and an imagination.

Pete

Corte Madera CA

Cities consist of many buildings of different heights, size, style, and age.  The two photos below show New York City between Battery Park and Mid-Town.  The first is from a few years ago and the second is from the 1930s (you can see the Empire State Building under construction).

In both pictures the are between consists of buildings 3-5 stories (1916 zoning restrictions).  Taller buildings had setbacks and offsets established making them really truncated pyramids. 

NYC consists of buildings less than a year old to more than a century.  In the mid-1900s the cash strapped railroads found that they had a valuable resource -- air rights.  So yards and terminals started to be covered by bigger and taller buildings.  The Pan Am building built over the tracks at Grand Central Terminal.

It would be most proper to have buildings of 3-5 stories with groupongs of taller buildings.  Cities that are blocked from natural expansion by water and mountains or old tend to have taller short buildings while newer cities with room to expand have no tall buildings except for a core(s). Example is LA.

Just my 22¢.

Jan

John Sethian posted:

In response to the original poster--you can always try forcing the perspective:

John's work is very compelling and makes good use of this technique to set a city scene at the one end of his layout.

Dept 56 made a Chrysler building and a Flatiron building and I think a few others.  These are not scale or O scale, but they are large. I agree that space is almost always an issue. If I was doing it, I would rather use the space for train scenes with the city in the background.  I would then use a forced perspective technique with a few key buildings in front of a city backdrop. I think it could be made to look real good.

Andrew B. posted:

Pat Kn posted:

In addition, cities are not big on railroad structures. Yards and industry that support railroads are either just out of the city limits oe underground where they can't be seen. That limits the potential customers. Not too many people build cities because of lack of room and because it is not a place with a lot of railroad supported industry. That is you don't see trains in a city.

This really isn't accurate at all. Most large cities, especially in the eras people model, had railroad facilities either downtown or very close to it. See Camden Yards in Baltimore, or the car floats into Midtown Manhattan and accompanying yards, or LaSalle St. in Chicago.

In these situations, the trains are still on the edge of the tall building area of the city. If you are faithfully modeling, the city would still be mostly in the background.

26th Street in Chicago, near where I grew up.  Looks like city buildings and not "towny" to me. 

26th near California, definitely not a "towny" structure, part of the beloved Cook County Jail...

Rusty

mwb posted:

John Sethian posted:

In response to the original poster--you can always try forcing the perspective:

John's work is very compelling and makes good use of this technique to set a city scene at the one end of his layout.

Very nice work. The thing is, I am modeling NYC when the ELs ran through the bustling midtown. I can't used forced perspective because the buildings will be all around my El which itself runs tight in front of you all the way around the island.  And the cityscape will be on an island that you can walk around 3 sides so there is no "way back" area.  But all these posts are starting to give me ideas so thanks! 

PJB, go to youtube and lookup The City Edge Layout - Street Running Scenes it is HO but it's a model city with an Ell and street running, VERY well done.  It might give you some ideas.

Rick

A pal of mine into HO explained it best.

Layouts and structures on them, for the most part, are going to be the same general size regardless of scale. So that is why N scale, if done well, looks so much more correct as the buildings aren't really all that much smaller than even their O scale counterparts when you break out the rulers to measure their actual size, and they look much more correct in scale for that reason.

I've seen people measure structures on HO scale and O scale layouts to find in many cases, similar structures occupy the same size areas. So the larger the scale, the smaller the scale size of the structures you're going to find as they all pretty much take up the same 1:1 scale footprint.

Heck, look at G scale. Almost every structure looks like a bad stereotype "western town movie set" look to them, and are impossibly small for their size. Nobody would build structures that small, scale-wise.

And who the heck has the room to model anything other than a "Mayberry" style town in O, not to mention the money to do so? Or the time to do it right?

I think that's why rural layouts and narrow gauge are so popular in O because you can justify the smaller buildings.