By Noel Widdifield LSOL.com Managing Editor

Author  Bio I have used "O" scale buildings along the wall in the city of Indianapolis on my railroad. "O" scale buildings gives a feeling of perspective to my 1/29 railroad.  They are slightly larger than the buildings in the painted backdrop and much smaller than the buildings in the front of my towns.

I decided that I needed some more buildings in the background for the town of Bellefontaine, Ohio on my NYC Big Four indoor railroad. I had finished the turntable and roundhouse, which serves Bellefontaine, and we were to take the Auto Train to Orlando for the beginning of our four weeks in Florida. I looked around to decide what project I could work on while in Florida and decided to work on a set of "O" Scale building fronts that I had purchased at the October TCA meet in York, Pennsylvania.

I have used "O" scale buildings along the wall in the city of Indianapolis on my railroad. "O" scale buildings gives a feeling of perspective to my 1/29 railroad. They are slightly larger than the buildings in the painted backdrop and much smaller than the buildings in the front of my towns.

My original idea was to put these building fronts against the wall, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that putting on short side walls and a short roof, the perspective would be enhanced even more.

Bardot Plastics made the building fronts for OGR Publishing called Ameri-Towne, and come in a variety of building styles.

I had six different fronts and sidewalls (I used them as fronts) that offered a variety of buildings for my town. I began by cleaning all of the materials with soap and water to remove the die oil. After letting them dry thoroughly overnight, I painted the brick walls with acrylic light gray paint and rubbed most of the paint off of the plastic brick with a soft cloth. This left the paint in the mortar lines and also gave a dulling effect to the very dark red and shiny brick.

I painted all of the concrete window ledges and moldings with acrylic Aged Concrete. Next I painted the window frames with a variety of colors depending on the building. Some of the buildings were stone or partly stone and I used several different colors on those stones. Most of them were done in Concrete or Primer Gray. I purchased a couple of sets of "O" scale advertising signs decals and applied them to the walls in appropriate places.

All of the building fronts were then weathered with "Grimy Black" and "Primer Gray" spray paint. I purchased construction paper in several colors and used tan, gray and green paper to make window shades for many of the windows. I put them at various heights to make the windows look more realistic and then glued black construction paper over all of the windows.

In some of the windows, I put advertising decals on the black construction paper.

I then glued plastic strips along the ends of the building fronts to make the buildings into two sets of buildings. The strips were painted flat black on one side to make the connection invisible and to cover the slight gap between the buildings. The strips also held the buildings together, creating a set of three buildings for one block and five buildings for the second block.

I constructed a frame to hold the buildings to the train table and for depth to allow the buildings to set in about 3 inches from the edge of the table.

This frame was made by cutting three 1" X 4" pieces of pine to the correct length. The back piece was eventually screwed to the edge of the table with drywall screws, which were also used to fasten the three pieces of pine together to form the frame. From this same photo you can see that I made the sidewalls from 1/4" birch plywood with the Plastruct plastic brick wall material (1/24, PS90) that I had used for the roundhouse (See previous LSOL article on my roundhouse). I cut all of the plywood and plastic brick to match the height of the buildings and glued the brick to the plywood using clear Acrylic adhesive caulk (White Lightning 3006). Again, I used the acrylic light gray paint to fill the mortar lines and dull the brick. I put a couple of windows in two of the end pieces and then glued the ends to the building fronts and frame.

As you can see, I glued cornices and pediments along the top of some of the buildings. They were finished with Aged Concrete or Primer Gray and also weathered.

With the sidewalls in place, I made roofs with 1/4" birch plywood and glued 3M No 2 Aluminum Oxide sandpaper to the plywood. I spray-painted it with Flat Black and Primer Gray and glued the roofs in place. I cut short sidewalls and roofs to fit the different heights of the building fronts in addition to the main end walls and roofs. It was necessary to touch up the finish where the joints came together

and to paint the steps and platforms for several of the buildings.

After fastening the whole assembly to the train table with the drywall screws, I stood back to admire my work.

I have had several of my friends over and they all agree that the building flats add to the look of the town.

At the April TCA York meet, I purchased several more building fronts to add to the town of Muncie on my railroad.

Like all of us, I am never close to being finished, and every time I go to a train show, I find more things to buy and that gives me even more things to do. Well, I guess I will go start on the Muncie buildings, since it has been raining for the whole month and I can't work outside wiring my outdoor railroad.

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