N Gauge Model Railway - Episode 13 - Secondhand Buildings from eBay

As I aluded to in my last episode, I bought a joblot of secondhand N Gauge buildings from eBay for the bargain price of £19.

I decided to buy kits because whilst I would love to scratchbuild every model on my layout, to be honest, I do not have the patience or the skills.  The aim of the game here is to get something on the layout to fill in the gaping void in the middle and to add some lighting.

Each building will have its own blog where I will document the customisation process in more detail and explain all the trials and tribulations involved when working with 40 year old plastic kits.

These kits are namely:

KleiWe - 203 Stadthaus (Townhouse)

I didn't realise that these kits are so vintage having been produced between 1967 and 1971 before being bought by the Arnold brand.  In unbuilt boxed condition these are quite the collectors item so I feel a tiny bit sad that I am going to hack them up.  I found a little bit of information regarding this short lived range on The Birth of N Scale blog. 

This is a very European looking structure, but I quite like it.  The fancy stepped gable detail is very reminiscent of Dutch "trapgevels" architecture. This is clearly a more upmarket or municipal building. 

On the layout it currently sits directly opposite the Heljan Meat Packing Plant I built last episode and it would seem fitting if this were the offices of the local district council.  Perhaps the fortunes of both entities are somewhat intertwined. 

Heljan 672 - Furniture Factory 

I appear to be missing some of the parts to this model namely the base which includes a sort of loading dock.  No matter, as this is going to be my "Tex Mex" restaurant in the style of Chiquitos or Nandos.

KleiWe - 202 Mietshaus (Tenement House)

Another KleiWe kit, but this one is a lot less European in it's roof detail an looks much more utilitarian.  I'm thinking that this would be a perfect fit as a police station.  It sits on a dead end which will provide ample parking for the MFP liveried Falcon XBs that I intend to police Upper Carrom.

Kick her in the guts Barry!!

Auhagen 14475 Factory Building

This kit is still in production and readily available.  Sadly I only have the rectangular administrative building part, but it will serve admirably as the Carrom College Halls of Residence.

Bizarrely this building had an entire set of windows with white frames instead of black.  This will not do and so I have already ripped them out and will replace with carefully laser etched replacements.  

Unknown Modern Warehouse x2 

Despite some hours spent searching I could not identify the manufacturer or model of this kit.  However, given that the rest of these models appear to be of german origin I expect this to be a long discontinued Faller or Pola kit.  Please feel free to comment below if you know the origins.

For my layout it absolutely screams budget German supermarket so I am going to make it an Aldi.  I have a second kit so if I get bored then I can always swap it out for a Lidl.

Bonus cardboard model - Builder Plus BPN9 Signalbox

I was surprised to find that hidden inside one of the buildings was this very dilapidated cardboard signal box.  This will be perfect sitting on top of the tunnel mouth overseeing the small shunting area and the station platforms.  

I understand that no railway architect in their right mind would ever dream of building a signal box on top of a tunnel and there is nowhere for the leverframes to go and all that real world stuff.  But this is my layout and I want it to be visually interesting rather than an exercise in prototypical modelling.

This thing is too cute for school, especially as it has an interior.  I feel it is only right and proper to do a full restoration and update it with some 3D printed replacement parts and lights.

I had never heard of the Builder Plus range but it was apparently part of PECO and after a bit of googling I discovered that some of the range is preserved in the Robert Freidus Paper Model Collection

Ressurection and Plug & Play

It is my intention to make all of these buildings as plug and play as possible and as I mentioned before my layout sits on top of a carrom table so there can be no dangling wires underneath the baseboard (as is tradition).  This means I have to carve out channels in the MDF baseboard to snake the wires from my 5V USB powered chinesium distribution box through to each foundation and then terminate in a 2-pin female JST socket.  Each building will then plug in with the matching male connecter and feed power to a hidden distribution circuitboard to which all the lights will be wired with the appropriate resistors.

I am taking this bold step because it will take me some time to ressurect each building one at a time and that is a much easier task if it is done at the workbench rather than huddled over the layout.

To make this a robust solution, I designed a JST baseboard adapter which can be glued onto the MDF and provide a sturdy location to seat each female socket.

2-Pin JST Socket Baseboard Adapter - Thingiverse - thing:7026971

I printed a bunch of these in resin fished the wires through the hole and glued them to the baseboard.

I bend over the pins of the JST socket before soldering on the wires.  I have adopted consistent polarity for connecting the pins making it a trivial task to wire up the male JST plugs safe in the knowledge that they will always be the right way round.  

What I love about the ubiquitous and cheap as chips JST connectors is that if you get this wrong you can quickly depin the plugs and swap around the wires.

Anyway here's a shot of one of my buildings with the JST socket baseboard adapter installed.

This is a free download from all the usual places including Thingiverse, Cults 3D, Printables.  If you like it and find it useful please drop a comment and give it a like wherever you downloaded it from.

Obligatory Running Video

Enjoy...