Has anybody built or is planning to build a giant-building downtown?

[eric220]

Pictures! Pictures!

A little intimidating following Roger, but here's what I've got so far:



There's about a 3'x6' space up there that's going to be the edge of downtown. The effect I'm going for is inspired by Philadelphia's 30th Street station (except with the station and downtown on the same side of the river).

[Blazeman]

Small to medium sized downtown here. Starts at the 1:15 mark.

https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=bob+gross+n+layouts&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-003

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I was hoping Roger would post. Always impressed with his work.

[Roger Holmes]

Thanks gentlemen.  My city is a 30 year plus work in progress. None of the buildings are glued down and you may have noticed that their locations changed from photo to photo.  Building structures is my favorite part of the hobby and I have the newest Lunde kit and a CMR that my wife got me for Christmas waiting for me to clean off the workbench. My problem is that I'm running out of real estate for placement.

The traffic bridge over the Chicago River is a placeholder (for longer than I had planned) and is a copy of actual blueprints on foam core.  I was planning to make a master from styrene and then casting three more but with the advent of Shapeways I may look into that as a solution.  I'm also intrigued by the new Tomy operating buses but I'm not sure if I would like the effect of one bus maneuvering among all the standing traffic.

[mmagliaro]

Well.. okay, I dusted off some old pictures of my PRR themed layout from years ago, when I was trying to work a city scene into the mix.
The photos ain't the best, and holy cow, there's no way I can compare to what Roger does.  But here they are.

First, my rendition of Roger Holmes' "Scale Changed Skyscraper".  He did a piece in Railroad Model Craftsman a number of years back on how to convert a Bachmann HO scale "city scenes" skyscraper to N Scale by cutting the windows in half and flipping the halves around.
I think it was a brilliant idea.  At the time, you could pick those kits up really cheap because they apparently flopped and Bachmann was stuck with a boatload of them that were being dumped at train shows for under $25.


 
One other one... this was inspired by the famous "Flatiron Building".  It is two DPM kits bashed together to get extra height.
I boiled the resin sides briefly in hot water and found I could bend them over a pipe.  It was dicey work.  If you go to far, you will easily warp and deform the window openings (and you can see some of that in this photo, but in real life, it was pretty well disguised).

I just wanted one of those rounded-corner off-shaped buildings to fit non-90-degree corners because I think they add so much visual interest to a city scene.

[Roger Holmes]

Max-- That really blows me away that someone actually did the Bachmann conversion that I wrote up for RMC and that it's a fellow Railwire member to boot. 

Your Flatiron Building is a great idea.  I'm sure that it took nerves of iron (pun intended) to bend that corner so smoothly over that many floors.  Very impressive!

[mmagliaro]

Max-- That really blows me away that someone actually did the Bachmann conversion that I wrote up for RMC and that it's a fellow Railwire member to boot. 

Your Flatiron Building is a great idea.  I'm sure that it took nerves of iron (pun intended) to bend that corner so smoothly over that many floors.  Very impressive!

Roger, you are too modest.  Your structure work is excellent, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who learned from what you wrote.
That "Flatiron" building is 3 Hilltowne Hotel kits.  If I recall correctly, I bent some regular wall sections one at a time and then stacked them up and glued them together.  I think I tried doing it as one tall piece already glued up, but the boiling water made the glue let go.

[GaryHinshaw]

I love this angle Roger; it is very effective:

I haven't posted since early February.  My older brother died of pancreatic cancer in February and my oldest brother was hit by a car in March and was just released from rehab facility this week.

I'm sorry for your loss.

[Roger Holmes]

Thank you, Gary, for both of your comments.

[Rasputen]

What issue of RMC is that in??

Max-- That really blows me away that someone actually did the Bachmann conversion that I wrote up for RMC and that it's a fellow Railwire member to boot. 

Your Flatiron Building is a great idea.  I'm sure that it took nerves of iron (pun intended) to bend that corner so smoothly over that many floors.  Very impressive!

[Roger Holmes]

August 2004.  As Max mentioned, at that time you could pick up these HO kits new for $25 at train shows.

[robwill84]

I've built a couple of large buildings- this first one is a combination of two DPM hotel kits. You can see where I cut the top off of one kit and the bottom off of the other. The architectural details line up pretty well. I also shortened one of the walls and made an angled corner. Worked out pretty well.



This one is the Lunde Studios Ashbury Hotel built stock. These are wonderfully engineered kits. Assembly is not difficult, but requires patience. I had to come up with a unique technique to glue the walls together, as they are quite thin and prone to warping. I ended up starting at the bottom and kind of spot welding the walls with dots of super glue every couple inches as I went up. To begin assembly I use cheap dollar store super glue, it is not very good quality and if you need to realign a part, the bond is easily broken. Then come back with high quality glue when you are satisfied of the fit. Use a square or triangle on the inside to keep the walls 90 degrees. Once everything is glued together it is a sturdy structure.

[SecretWeapon]

[pnolan48]

I used a number of methods on the Portsmouth Branch. The skyscrapers of Boston supported the deck above them. They were foam core boxes  (not always four sided) cover with printed paper. The backdrop was foam core flats covered with printed paper.



I did use a few hotel kits to built a more dimensional model. The "sky" is the bottom of the second deck, photoshopped.



And chopped up Bachman roofs for an out-of-place skyscraper.



And the same roofs for a long horizontal building.



When I am finally set up in Alabama (perhaps mid-July), I intend to start working on some styrene buildings as well as some new ships. Don't know how long before the first kit is out. Probably about a year.