New Greenmax city building kits

Greenmax have just announced the first items in their long-awaited N scale city building kit series …

Although these kits are of Japanese origin, if you have ever seen pictures of Japanese cities, they are full of square shaped modern looking buildings of type similar to those seen anywhere in the world. So these kits would suit N scale modellers of any nationality that want to add a more modern look to their urban scenery.

These are tentatively due for release in late February. The actual items are …

• 2101 – Business building A 3 floor base kit (dark brown)
• 2102 – Business building A 2 floor extension (dark brown)
• 2103 – Business building B 3 floor base kit (beige)
• 2104 – Business building B 2 floor extension (beige)

The ‘base’ sets contain parts for the floor and a flat roof, as well as a selection of ground floor doorways/entrances and a selection of 1 & 2 floor window section of various styles (with window glass). The ‘extension’ sets contain just the window sections.

‘Base’ sections can be combined to make a building with a larger footprint – the standard base size is 80mm x 74.5mm. Not surprisingly, the depth of 74.5 is the same as their other city building kits. You can fit all the parts together and experiment with the style/shape of your building before committing yourself to gluing it together.

The items are made up of sections not unlike the DPM modular buildings series, except that the DPM parts are of a brick finish (which is definitely not used in Japan) and is an older looking building style.

As far as I can tell, the only difference between the building items A & B is the colour – and of course you could paint these any colour you liked anyway !!!

Greenmax originally displayed the following sneak previews at trade shows late in 2007 & early last year …
   

Later in 2008, this is what they previewed …

 
These samples appeared to be multi-floor full wall sections with the same type of window shape, whereas the latest announcement shows smaller sections so that a wall can have a combination of different windows, therefore making it more interesting and versatile.

The current releases are displayed as follows …

 – a sample of the ground floor wall sections and entrances

 – a sample of the upper floor wall sections and windows

 – join the sections together to make the shape you want

 – join the floors together in blocks

Greenmax have supplied some ideas of the buildings you can make – of course the sky (and your imagination) is the limit !!!

 – using just the base kit  to make a single floor building – eg. convenience store, bookshop or post office.

 – using the base + extension kits to make a 5 floor building – eg. business hotel, amusement tenant building or commercial office building. With this type of building, you could go up as many floors are you wanted !!!

 – combining 4 base kits to make a larger size 3 floor building – eg. bank, police station or museum.

 – using a combination of kits to make an L-shaped building – eg. government office, library or hospital/clinic.

I can tell you that these items will form the basis of many new buildings to be added to my Enoshima layout before it goes to the exhibitions in Japan in July/August, and I think some of them will be made narrower than the suggested base footprint !!!

If you have any questions or wish to order any of these items, please contact “GM at Japanese-Trains dot com”.

(information supplied by Japanese Model Supplies.)