As you may recall, on my little office switching layout I included this little gem of a vignette...
Now that I'm fiddling around with TTrak modules, I'm thinking about including some of those little crowd pleasing Easter Eggs that visitors to train shows like to find and photograph, so when I saw this scroll across my screen, I knew I needed to put my money down.
For what it is, I'm not dissatisfied with the price I paid, although, there are some things I should point out to wise consumers if you are considering a similar purchase from this vendor.
Here's what I got:
Not too bad at first glance. The building is proportional to the photos, and measures (in N scale feet) 26' wide x 79' deep, with the three stories and upper parapet wall rising a total of 44'6" or thereabouts.
Detail wise, it includes the lower and upper cornices, the quoin work around the windows, the corbels at the cornices, and the frames for the front windows. There is a separate piece of the arched bay door that has some nice detail in it.
The model is printed in a red plastic, so it has a reasonably good base color to start with. The striations of the printing are pretty obvious, which is fine for the upper floors which should be finished as brick, but the surface is pretty rough for the cut stone of the first floor and quoins, and provide no mortar joint details. There is a thin band printed across the bottom of the bay door to provide a sill for the door casting, but it could probably be cut off or painted to blend with the bay floor or outside sidewalk that might be used when setting the model into the scene.
I like the overall detail of the front facade, which, along with the right side, would be the most visible if the scene is built to follow the original movie location. Happily, the left side is also detailed just in case your scene requires it to be exposed.
The window frames are a good size, and reasonbly cleanly rendered, although it may be a little dicey to sand them smooth to remove the printing striations.
There are some problems with the rendering of the lower cornice. On both sides, it appears that the outermost band consists of one or two strands of the printed material, and these have separated from the main printing and will have to be cleaned up somehow.
You can also see there's some random flash that will have to be cleaned up around the windows openings.
The roof has sort of a moiree pattern going on, but that's not a big deal because I'll probably put a layer of cinders on it to finish it. The back wall has no detail on it other than the upper cornice. Overall, the building, which is printed as one solid piece, is stable, sturdy, and has no bowing or warping. The corners and openings are good and square, and it's a good place to start for a detailed model.
So far, apart from the coarseness of the printing, the only beef I have with the model is that it includes no window castings to fill the openings on the sides. One could get away with putting some clear styrene behind the front window frames, but down the sides are just big openings with no window detail whatsoever. For the price of the kit, and with the separate casting of the door, I don't think it would be unreasonable to provide enough windows to at least do the front and one side (The openings are the same on both sides of the building). I have a variety of Tichy window castings, as well as numerous cast-offs from various kits, so I'll be spending some time mixing and matching when I get around to finishing it.
The structure is offered by Scott's 3D Scenery, and sold on ebay by outrageous.deals-4u. The seller offers a variety of scale structures and accessories that look to be of similar quality. Whether you are facing down challenges of the spectral variety, or just looking to fill in a city block, this looks like a pretty good place to start. It is about twice as deep as your garden variety DPM or Walthers structure, so you'll want to plan it's location carefully around the other buildings in your collection.
I'm going to put this project into the queue to work on at some point. When I get started on it I'll start a build thread. If anyone else has worked on one of these kits and would like to share tips and pointers, please do.
All the best,
Lee
