Of Course, No New Structures In N Scale (Walthers Releases)

[Rossford Yard]

I did the same math on the blast furnaces, and yes, the HO is just a bit too big to pass as N scale.  But, not by much, LOL. 

[thomasjmdavis]

With the blast furnace, "too big" might be a good thing. In real life, they are huge compared to railroad cars and human beings, and a slight exaggeration for modeling purposes just increases the visual impact.

[mu26aeh]

While it does suck they don't want to play with us N scalers, for those who model specific locations, companies, subdivisions etc most kits are just kitbash fodder.  If I want some of the structures needed for my locale, scratchbuilding is the only way to get what I want.  And now armed with a 3d printer, anything is possible ( as long as someone can draw files for me )

[OldEastRR]

I would think the sets like the steel mill would be popular in N.  The smaller size of N would allow for a larger, more life like industry.  And the steel mill kits go for a good price so there must be some market there.

Various modelers did alter the Walthers steel mill structures to N scale details when they were issued -- N windows, doors, ladders, etc. to replace the HO sized stuff. The size of real steel mill buildings is huge compared to railroad cars. I modified their Electric Furnace building and some added styrene parts to make a distinctive model. Plastruct ducting, curved fittings, and pipe hangers finished the look. Since the ducts on real mills are big enough to drive a car through no problem getting the appropriate size parts.



The building with all the piping on it is the Walthers kit bash. You can see how it realistically dwarfs the N scale sized railroad cars around it, like in real life.

[spr1955]

I used HO water towers on my Steel Mill, the n-scale would not even reach the over any of the buildings there.  I did take off the ladders and have a pile from Plastruct to put on in n-scale.

[jagged ben]

So I was kinda ignoring this thread  cause I thought it would be just complaints.  But now we've got cool pictures.

Anyway, what I'm hearing is that Walthers should make the same kit for HO and N, just with different sets of doors and windows for each scale.  Since if they made separate kits with the buildings smaller for N they would be too small anyway.  Tell that to the next Walthers rep you talk to.

[nkalanaga]

Or, with the availability of 3D printers, someone could set up a business offering N scale doors and windows for Walthers HO kits.  It wouldn't be hard to offer multiple options for each kit, and let the customer decide which ones they wanted.

[John]

Or, with the availability of 3D printers, someone could set up a business offering N scale doors and windows for Walthers HO kits.  It wouldn't be hard to offer multiple options for each kit, and let the customer decide which ones they wanted.

It could be done - when I printed the 100 or so windows for Traincat, it took the better part of a couple of days to get it done -- its more work than I would want to do .. thats where services like shapeways could come in handy

[OldEastRR]

The old Heljan brewery kit came with windows/doors sized for HO and others for N. Didn't really look that good but at least the doors were the right size.

[jdcolombo]

The steel mill scene on my railroad is all from Walthers HO kits, including the blast furnace.  Old East RR's post above shows one photo.  Here are a few more:

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The Walthers HO Blast Furnace actually turns out to be approximately the correct size for N scale; before they released the "N" version of the blast furnace, one of my regular operators, Bruce Stikkers, took the HO version and lowered the floor so that N-scale torpedo cars would just fit underneath; added some N scale ladders, and this is what you see in the photo.  As Old East pointed out, steel mill buildings are HUGE.  They absolutely dwarf everything around them, including railroad rolling stock.

Most "industry" building kits are way too small to represent an actual industry.  They need to be bigger and more complex.  I'll end with an overview of an industry that Old East RR created by making "kits" for me to assemble and place on my layout.  This is the former South Plant of National Carbon in Fostoria, OH, which still exists, although most of the buildings you see in this photo have long since been torn down:

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Walthers could produce something like this.  They choose not to.

John C.

[sirenwerks]

There's also the issue that the "historic" portions of those product lines are not really southern, and only marginally midwestern.  The DPM stuff really screams mid Atlantic and may Chicago suburbs, but its nearly useless down south. Walthers few timber frame, wood sheathed structures like the Santa Fe freight warehouse and the lumber yard can be widely used.  Their modern HO stuff -  There's a half dozen of those I'd but in a heart beat.

Walthers offers nothing in the way of Pacific NW architecture. Nothing plywood sheathed, nothing with a vault roof, it's lumber mill is small by 99% of standards....

[prr7161]

Correcting the record on the blast furnace sizes...

For some real scale, check out the Duquesne Works listing at HABS / HAER:

https://www.loc.gov/item/pa1778/

The battery at Duquesne, turn of the 20th century furnaces 1-4, works out to about 185' tall from grade up to the top of the hoist.  Dorothy 6, also at Duquesne, judging from photos, was about 25% larger or say 230' for the equivalent dimension.  It's also larger in volume, so the furnace is fatter.

The Walthers HO blast furnace is quite undersized for HO - the listed height to the hoist top is 21.5", or around 155' tall HO. In N scale, that 21.5" height is ~285'.  So the HO is undersized by 20%-30% or so, but using it for N scale with no modification gives you a furnace that is oversized by at least that percentage.  Chopping the casting floor down to the correct height for N scale claws some of that back but it is still large.

The Walthers N blast furnace is 15.25" high, or just over 203'.  For an older battery, the N furnace is a good scale size.  A modern furnace would be larger, but not by as much as the HO model would represent, even for Dorothy 6, one of the last and largest built in the U.S.  If you are going for an impression of overwhelming size and like the HO kit, that's fine, but the N scale kit isn't shrunken down like the HO one is.  It is a good representation of an early 20th century furnace, many of which were in use throughout the peak steel production period in the U.S.

[signalmaintainer]

Somehow (call it a gut feeling based on 48-plus years in the hobby, the vast majority of that as an N scaler), N scale with survive -- nay, it will thrive -- without Walthers Cornerstone products, just as it did prior to Walthers Cornerstone products.   

[dem34]

Somehow (call it a gut feeling based on 48-plus years in the hobby, the vast majority of that as an N scaler), N scale with survive -- nay, it will thrive -- without Walthers Cornerstone products, just as it did prior to Walthers Cornerstone products.   

True, at the end of the day. Now that things like Laser CnCs and 3D printers exist. There always seems to be a plucky new company with a small catalogue of unique structures popping up. Not to mention Chinese firms that occasionally drop their own stuff direct even if they are sometimes a little... funky but relatively high quality and affordable.

[James Costello]

FWIW, I'm still thankful for the few new products we get in N each year from Walthers in the Cornerstone range. The new concrete warehouses are great, as are the evolving range of houses and commercial buildings.

Could they do more? Sure, and I wish more of the HO stuff trickled down to N as well.

But practically, no one else has chosen to compete for N structures with them.....