Im sure that I am not the only railway modeller who wonders whether their layout would look better with a plastic or a card kit. Im one of those people who would rather spend some time constructing something rather than buying a premade building as I feel that the half the fun of the model railway is about the building of it.

When I first started building Mattington I was aware of many plastic kits produced by a variety of manufacturers but at that time card kits seemed to be just taking off in a big way so I tried a few out mainly for building the backscene. As time went on card kits seemed to be a cheaper way of building most of the items for a model railway, so as well as about half the backscene I have used card kits for the station as well. (which is in the foreground). I feel that the model railway looks good as there is a blend of plastic and card kits - (Key buildings that are plastic include engine shed, goods shed, coal merchants...)

However recently I have noticed that some of the buildings that are made of card look a little tired whereas some of the plastic kits that I built up at least 12 years ago still look reasonably ok. The station seems to have suffered from a warping problem which means I am replacing the whole platform, and platform buildings with plastic kits. A recent article in Model Rail suggested vanishing card kits when built as a way of preserving them, something that I wish I had tried when I built them.

Plastic kits also allow the model maker to paint them which looks good because often most of us use the same kits but they can look completly different if they are different colour or are changed in some other way. Sometimes it is not very easy to modify a card kit as there may be a blank wall and they are fairly difficult to paint to a high standard.

So in conclusion - Card Kits - Intially they look great - varnish them to preseve them against sunlight / fading etc - Generally cheaper & quicker to build but difficult to modify?

Plastic Kits - Depending on the modeller they can look very realistic and great deal of detail can be added. Usually can take a while to construct / paint. Can be altered to meet the modellers own eye of detail.

Which 1 would I choose - but probably if card kits need replacing I will use a plastic kit or scratchbuild something out of a variety of materials.