Merry Christmas to all! And a blessed 2024 - with health, happiness, peace and playtime I am curious after new Z scale scenery items announced for 2024. It seems there are many new locs and cars coming these last years, but little news in terms of buildings and scenery items. Or am I mistaken? I did come across this new kit announced by Laffont, a German producer of lasercut kits. It seems it could fit a layout depicting an east coast city? Pricey but nicely detailed. Laffont makes sturdy quality kits including some for Marklin. https://modellbau-laffont.com/p/art-nr-z7401-grand-hotel-excelsior-neuheit Instructions include english text: file:///C:/Users/cathy&matthijs/Downloads/Z7401.pdf (website in German, but Laffont ships worldwide - email in English should not be a problem). Any new items from our well-known US scenery producers? Matt
Me too! I am building a small industrial area single/double high, with/without dock, 1-2 cars long, flat/peak roof. Dock platform laser/3D print boards 1 side (other side smooth for concrete. Happy Ho-Ho’s
The right link to the instructions: https://www.modellbau-laffont.de/.cm4all/uproc.php/0/Z7401.pdf?cdp=a&_=18a7a2c0c6c Matt
NO, you are not mistaken. There is very little news to pass on in regards to new buildings and scenery. A few of us with laser cutters and 3-D printers are doing our own details but that’s about where it stands. ARCHISTORIES seems to be the only company that is active.
Well, at the risk of seeming to promote one particular supplier... (not my intention)... Laffont is now offering another new kit that seems like a good addition to the current range of z scale buildings. It is a German railwaystation, but it kind of reminds of a US station building that Micron-art offered in brass. Price is about the same, too This kit is conceived as a half relief background model but the detailing looks pretty good. https://modellbau-laffont.com/p/art-nr-z8401-hauptbahnhof-aachen-als-halbreliefmodell-neuheit Matt
made from: "architectural hard cardboard" omg i lived long enough to the see the wheel come 'round again. At $131 plus shipping from europe for a cardboard box, i nearly swallowed my chew. Mr. Ellison and his Delta Lines ca. 1935 layout: "Frank (Ellison) authored a series of articles on all aspects of model railroading. Of particular note were his “How-to” pieces on scratch building the structures he created for his railroad. Back then, there were no building kits and detail parts like we have today. He made everything out of cardboard with the features like corrugations drawn in with ink and colored with oil base artist colors." " Dr. Sachs purchased the layout and most of Ellison's rolling stock. The railroad was carefully loaded into a truck for the trip to Massachusetts. Unfortunately, the truck experienced a mishap with a low bridge in Maryland and the contents was reloaded into another truck. During this reloading, some of the heavier pieces ended up on top of the lighter ones and many of the layout sections were severely damaged. While parts of the layout survive to this day, the Delta Lines was never reassembled." From roll your own cardboard buildings to injection molded pre-colored buildings and now back to 'kit built' cardboard buildings: the wheel has come full circle. i am happy i grew up in the era when Testor's styrene plastic glue stuck FOREVER and smelled like toluene, not some citrus lemony bouquet with half the holding power. My old ship models from that era are still intact, even after having been kept in a hot attic for over 50 years. When you could get a plastic model of everything railroad for pennies, IN PLASTIC, with molded-in color, and Plasticville structures even snapped together. Model power even today sells FACTORY ASSEMBLED and colored ready to display plastic buildings, for n only though, sigh. But now the industry has embraced cardboard, and burned-lines balsa wood. But the "advanced tech" for paper and balsa wood priced diy kits sure don't reflect the manufacturer's savings on not having to buy injection molds. maybe one day some manufacturer will come up with a working ATM machine in cardboard spitting out paper money and hanging off a cardboard supermarket facade. meh Because i believe these new gigantor buildings with lithographed on paper facades have also gone off script. Mr. Ellison's vision: portray the operation of a model railroad as a theatrical performance in which the tracks are the stage, the buildings and scenery are the setting, the trains are the actors, and the operating schedule is the plot. (Who wrote the best schedules for his layout? Gomez in the Addams Family. Who didn't tune-in to see where the next "meeting in the cornfield" would occur?) These gigantor detailed cardboard box buildings dwarf the actors of a model rr, the TRAINS. i put my money in the most highly detailed injection molded shell with detailed add-on parts locomotives and train cars i can buy, they are my STARS. I don't want the scenery to distract from viewers attention to my stars. So in scenery and buildings, the KISS guidance rules: Keep It Small (and) Simple. just sumgai's thought. That, and people who build layouts with cardboard boxes shouldn't put their layouts in basements under water pipes, or in trucks.
Hi all, @sumgai, I like plastic molded kits, lasercut wooden kits and lasercut cardboard kits. Printed paper kits no so much, I find them too shiny and lacking relief. Risking that we're further off topic here (this thread is intended to show new scenery products, not discussing pros and cons of cardboard), but just to show that lasercut cardboard kits can be very affordable, I would like to bring to the attention the kits by Sankei. Not new, but new to me. I ordered a few via PlazaJapan. This kit cost me less than $7,50, and is now even on sale: https://www.plazajapan.com/4580236850380/ I'm starting another little thread to share my findings when building this kit. Matt
New in Z, traverser in several dimensions and two options for the traverser bridge: https://www.markenburg.nl/en/webshop/infrastructure/traverserbridge From short... to wide... Choice of deep pit or flat pit and pit sizes ranging from 100x300mm to 150x700mm. Set complete with controller, btw, it is a kit so you will have to assemble some parts: Matt
