Model structures you'd like to see.

Nov 23, 2005 4 Replies

Folks:



I thought of this one at the LHS the other day, over lunch break. What model structures do you feel are missing from the kit and ready-built lines? Are there any glaring absences?



Cordially yours, Gerard P. President, the house-hunting Sparta Railroad.



Well, off the top of my head I think the items missing the most are many that Walthers, in their infinite "wisdom" have "retired". The ones I'm thinking of were used, or are STILL used by railroads, so why all of a sudden stop making a needed item available? I'm thinking of things like the coal flood loader, transfer table (though I've heard it's a piece of crap, but that's not the point here), I think the ice house or is it the ice house or grain elevator extensions(?), rotary dumper, car float stuff, some or most or all of the steel mill structures. I may be wrong on some of these specific items as I don't have a current Walthers catalog available, but you can see what I mean.

Also, we need some (more) residential automobile garages and houses though the recent Atlas offerings are quite nice.

"Paul - The CB&Q Guy" (Modeling 1960's In HO.)

Speaking for N-scale, I'd have to say bridges. Sure, there's some nice brass available, but does anyone even make an accurate warren truss in styrene? That's a pretty basic item. The Kato truss is nice, but it's a Japanese prototype meant for lighter trains. Way too light for anything but branch service in North America.

I think this fits the definition of glaring. I mean, n-scale is the one place where you can use massive bridges without overpowering everything else, and yet there's virtually nothing available. Where's the vertical lift? The bascule? The through swing? The highway arch? These things are ALL missing. And don't even mention high steel trestles! Grrrrr!!!

Mac B.

snipped-for-privacy@gannon.edu wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

I would like to see a collection of tanks with both horizontal and vertical mounting kit. Also a collection of pipes, valves, pumps and flanges. A kit of solid material storage hoppers like you see around cement plants would be nice. Also convayers, lifts crushers. How about a rotary kiln with a proper coal stoker and infeed tower.

All of this in N.

Glaring absences? No.

It would be nice to see a somewhat-modern foundry of a fairly reasonable size. I haven't researched them much but the ones I'm familiar with have a myriad of air handling equipment on the roof (always a good thing for a model).

It seems that the models available are based very small or early prototypes.

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