Modellings tips and answers - Inspiration by night - Industrial buildings

Tony Singleton sent us pictures of his layout. The layout started as a basic oval, but he says he got a bit carried away during lockdown. The models are largely ratio and Wills kits, with Dapol and Model figures. Click on the images to access them in full size and see one extra picture.

Feel free to send us pictures and descriptions of your projects, layouts, dioramas or work in progress so we can share them with other readers.

This week in history

On the 7th of May 1957, USA's streamlined 'Flying Yankee' was retired after 22 years of revenue earning service between Portland and Boston.

When modelling an industrial building whether it be a distribution centre, warehouse, garden centre or engine depot, we are used to choosing from purpose-built models or kits and if we fancy anything a little more bespoke then we have to rely on our scratch-building abilities. However, thanks to Peco we have an alternative option that offers the design flexibility of a scratch-build but comes in the form of a regular kit. Their 00/H0 'Modular Kit System' produced under their 'Wills Modern' brand is a series of plastic kits that can be added to each other to create a multi-use industrial building ranging in size from a medium to a large structure. You decide how to arrange the models with the two halves of their base kit offering the option of being placed side by side to form a double-fronted low-relief building or back-to-back to create a stand-alone industrial unit. From there, you can add extension kits to create a building of virtually any size, there are even add-on kits that alter the appearance of the building such as an HGV Loading Bay kit, Supermarket Frontage kit, Out of Town Retail Unit Frontage kit or Roller Shutter Doors giving the building many convincing identities from a supermarket to a modern train care or maintenance depot.

If all this talk of designing and scratch-building has got you revved up and ready for a bigger challenge, all of the materials used to create the kit are available separately in the form of moulded sheets. An industrial unit is a great place to start if venturing into scratch-building for the first time as convincing models can be produced from basic shapes. The moulded sheets are produced in plastic to imitate a range of common building materials such as corrugated iron, box steel, asbestos, clapboard and brickwork with ready-made intricate details such as windows and doors taken care of to give you a fighting chance. You can see the full range by clicking here.

Modelling tips

We keep on adding modelling tips to our website. Here are the latest ones:

You can also access all the articles by visiting this page or simply click the link called "tips" on our website.

Send us an email or give us a call to check availability or to reserve anything, whatever scale you model in. As usual, if we do not have in stock what you are looking for, we will order it for you and you will get it fast (usually within a week if the manufacturer has it in stock). We place weekly orders with most suppliers.

Upstairs Downstairs is open Tuesday to Saturday 10am till 4.30pm. If you are not on the Isle of Wight, simply place your order on our website as usual as we are dispatching daily.  

Upstairs Downstairs
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Sandown, PO36 8JR
Isle of Wight
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