Walthers Cornerstone 'Union Station'

[33212]

Hello

 

Just asking if anyone has used this kit, which is HO, on a British OO layout, after your opinion if it looks ok or too under scale. When I modelled German railways, quite a few things from various manufacturers was under and equally over-scale.. The appeal for this kit is that its massive at 49cm long, 20 deep etc, would make an imposing station with suitable British bits added..but don't want to invest if it will look silly.

 

many thanks 

 

Matt

[The Cat Called Charlie]

Tim Shackleton built it for the Hornby magazine OO layout "Grosvenor Square", the construction and layout appearing in the 2017 Hornby Yearbook (number 9).

 

It looked quite imposing despite, as you say, it being in HO scale.

 

Charlie

[The Johnster]

Currently building a H0 Faller 'Old Coal Mine' for my 00 layout, not on the same scale as Union Station and I had considered Walthers 'Diamond Coal Corporation', but decided it looked a bit too modern, tidy, and efficient for South Wales in the 1950s.  Digressing; the scale issue is the same of course.  It looks the part and doesn't 'feel' too small.  The giveaways when you are using H0 stuff are things like doorways and windows, which are often minimized anyway on RTP and kits in order to save space and give the impression of size, but the Faller kit is if anything a bit overpowering for H0!  Union Station is a bit grand and the doorways and scale of the thing make it suitable for 4mm; the only things that might be a bit undersized would be staircases, and perhaps downpipes and gutters.

 

The washery/loader part is the thing to watch with 'Old Coal Mine' as clearance beneath it must be adequate for 00 coal wagons, which can be 21ton hoppers or 9-plankers.  'Diamond' would be no problem being designed for American hoppers, but a European-inspired prototype might not be so generous.  In the event, all my coal wagons will clear inside it, as will a Hornby W4 Peckett.  The appearance is fine except for the roofing, which looks a bit Disney Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, but I will cover it with Wills corrugated iron sheets.

[Dungrange]

I haven't seen the kit in person, but looking at the photographs on the Walthers website, I'd be tempted to think it may be a bit under scale, though not necessarily unusable.  I bought the US Post Office building, thinking that being a relatively big three-storey building, 18 cm high, it would look okay, but despite being sold as H0, I'd think it's closer to 1:100.  I still plan to use it on a 00 layout, but the grand five foot high entrance doors need to be replaced, and I plan on losing the middle floor, so that it will allow a greater floor to ceiling height on the two remaining floors.

 

The Walthers website indicates that the Union Station is 17.5 cm high, which will be the height to the top of the clock.  The building itself looks to be slightly less than 16 cm high, which probably means that the columns on the front will be about 11.5 cm (they look to be almost 3/4 of the building height).  The bottom of the upper windows looks to be about 1/3 of the height of the columns, so somewhere around 4 cm from the base and the doors are probably around 3 cm in height.  However, that 3 cm height includes both a double width door and window over the top, which probably makes the doors themselves of similar size to the ones in the US Post Office building.  The doors on the side and rear look similarly under-scale for use in 00.  To be use-able, I'd think it necessary to increase the height of the building by adding styrene strips around the base and fitting larger doors.  Of course that would also mean building larger support blocks on which the columns sit.  Apart from that, I don't think it would look too out of place on a 00 layout.

[33212]

Thanks all, will give it some thought and check out the Hornby Magazine yearbook.

 

regards

 

Matt