Future Building Projects

As my city begins to take shape, I've discovered I might not have enough room for everything, but I still have several buildings and structures yet to be completed and make their debut on the layout.  In addition to my procrastination and delay with my attempt at my second skyscraper scratchbuild, I've also picked up a lot of kits, both old and out of production, as well as new, that will house the residents of Quinntopia.  I thought it might be interesting to share some of these if for no other reason that its interesting to see some of the building options out there.

Although this building from Heljan is advertised as HO, only the ground floor is really HO, with all of the upper floors more appropriate for N Scale people.  Strange, but not unsurprising given the somewhat liberal interpretation of 'scale' often found in model buildings.

Next up are a bunch of classically kitschy bunch of boxes from the fine folks at Faller.  First up is Faller 2291, which is a 'boutique' with apartments on the top level.  As it is, I'll probably hold off putting this one together until I can find another one like it to give it some extra height versus the existing 4 floors.  I do admit, I really love the 1960's style 'boutique' lettering that make up this buildings marquee.

I picked up this nicely modern looking building about 6 months ago, but once I recieved it, it seemed more appropraite for Z scale than N!  The floors are just way too short to look good sitting next to other N scale structures.  I like its general appearance, and I plan to give each floor a little more height by replacing the 'blue' sections with higher sections of styrene.  As I picked up the first one pre-built, I wasn't even sure as to its manufacturer, but came across this unbuilt kit of the Faller 2293 so that now I'll be able to give this building several more stories as well, which should look pretty sharp:

Speaking of 'doubling-up' buildings to add more height, I also now have 2 unbuilt "Columbia Hotels' from Faller (2294) which will be interesting with the right lighting and a fresh paint job....

One of the unbuilt kits I'm most excited about putting together is the Faller B-905 high rise...they just don't make them like this anymore!  It looks great on the box, and the built examples of it I've seen from other modellers look really good.

 

And just to show that not everything this big is out of production, a building that they apparantly do still make, are these Skynet/Aoshima apartment buildings from Japan.  I was amazed at just how big the boxes are that they come in and, in a case of possible overkill, I ordered 2 boxes of these, which could mean for some very high apartments in Quinntopia!

Another building that is apparantly an older kit now back in production (although seemingly impossible to find) is this Kibri 7120.  I'm debating on whether or not its 'high' enough or if I should hold out for a second kit to give it some more height.

Some future kit bash/ modifications include taking this already built (again, another building picked up for cheap on ye olde eBay) modern German train station, and combining that with my Kato Overhead train station.  While I like the Kato Overhead station, the 'entrance' (just a couple of covered stairways) was somewhat underwhelming (although I expect entirely prototypical of these types of stations in Japan) and the combination of this modern station with the Kato overhead might actually be quite cool. 

A couple of more buildings that I am thinking of 'combining' are these two.  I don't know the catalog numbers, but its almost possible with some trimming to make the large building the 'top half' of the shorter shops building.  In this way, I bring to the people of Quinntopia even more retail space and living room at the same time!

For the time being, that's my list of building projects, which will be fun and keep me busy at the workbench for a while!  Seriously, some day I will get back to running trains!!!! 

I should also send out a huge thanks to "Scaper" whose been giving me a lot of great tips on where to find these buildings on eBay! 

UPDATE - A late arrival from Germany....

This is an interesting kit, and a very retro-looking cafe with a definite unique look!  I came across this on eBay without any knowledge of Herpa's history of making N scale structures.  So here is a Herpa B605.   From the package design, this looks like it was 1960's era.  Quite cool, not sure if I even want to build it if these things are as rare as they seem to be!