After building the Ambassador Hotel from Bachmann Spectrum and the relatively small Argosy Booksellers from Walters, it is time for a building closer to a real skyscraper in HO scale.
Recently, Walthers Cornerstone presented a new kit of a high-rise hotel with the wonderful option to combine several kits into a larger building.
An experienced modeller can of course always choose to kitbash models into different ones, but it is very convenient that the manufacturer have prepared the kit for expansion from the start.
I purchased a single kit of the Ashmore Hotel, #3764, from eBay and was quite pleased with what I saw and wondered for a long time how to use this kit.
As this new kit for the first time presented an opportunity to easily construct a skyscraper in standard HO plastic kit form, I decided to buy two more kits, combining all three into a single building with probably lots of great bits to spare!
I began by preparing the lower floors by removal of the top floors. I temporarily assembled the building with scotch tape to get a feel for the proportions.
I always base my larger buildings on high quality plywood – five layers of thin wood for stability and lightness. There was plenty of room for more buildings, so I decided to place an older, lower brick structure next to the skyscraper to emphasize its height.
Some time ago I bought “Derry’s Pub”, #3467 from Walthers Cornerstone Main Street series, which fits perfectly next to the new skyscaper.
After playing with the placement of the buildings and some sidewalk from Bachmann Spectrum, I finally settled on their positions and cut the plywood to fit the final layout.
After the wooden base was ready, I began gluing in the sidewalks and bases for the buildings.
It took a loooong time cutting all twelve walls for the main floors from the three kits! Plenty of interesting pieces was left over, so I imagine using those to add more floors on top with a smaller footprint, sort of a tower on top.
After all the tedious cutting, it was a great pleasure being able to stack the walls to get an idea how the lower 22 (!) floors would look like.
The finished model will be around 70-90 centimeters or a bit less than 3 feet high, so perhaps a couple of wooden columns in the center of the building would be helpful in maintaining the stability of the model?
It is a pleasure building the new kit, but unfortunately all roses have thorns. I kept wondering about the size of the windows and floors on the kit and decided to compare it with the Ambassador Hotel from Bachmann Spectrum.
The total height of a floor in the Ambassador Hotel is 39 mm or 3.4 meters/11 feet in 1:1. At the Ashmore Hotel the same distance is only 28mm or 2,4 meters/8 feet in 1:1. Calculating a foot for floors, ceiling and installation, which is probably not even enough, leaves a interior height of about 7 feet, which is extremely low, even in the 1930’s standard.
So unfortunately the model is most likely not in 1:87 scale, rather in 1:100 scale. 😦
The designers of Walthers have probably made the model smaller to make it fit on the typical model railroad layout, but that means that the building looks somewhat odd in the foreground and would be better suited to be seen from a distance.
I would definitely have preferred the building to be in true 1:87 scale, but perhaps a later kit will be in correct scale. What do you prefer?
Epoch 
Depending on the size, or rather the depth, of your layout/diorama the solution about buildings of different scales seems simple: Use the differences in to your advantage and create a sense of death; place buildings of a lower scale further away from the observers POW (point of view, NOT prisoner of war), this could create the illusion of those buildings being even further away than they actually are.
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