James River Branch: Front Street Bank

Front Street Bank, Part 1 of 4: Design

As was the case for a number of other structures in Naughtright, the Front Street Bank has followed a long and winding route from start to finish. Conceptually it began as a fairly straightforward project: build Miller Engineering's Mid State Bank kit as-is, add a couple of their stock neon signs, and call it a day—a quick and simple way to fill a street corner.

When I ordered the neon signs from Miller Engineering, I received one of their catalogs. That's where I first saw the Logan Savings and Loan kit. To my eye, it was a more interesting-looking building than Mid State Bank. But I'd not seen it offered by any of the retailers I frequented—reason being that it was long discontinued. So, I set out on a quest to find one, certain there ought to be one sitting around collecting dust on some hobby shop shelf somewhere in this great big world.

As it happened, I found two, which was perfect because I'd wanted to enlarge the building. But while the modified building acquired the size and shape I sought, it also acquired an abundance of cosmetic flaws owing to all of the modifications—it was one of my earlier efforts in brass bashing, and I wasn't as good at it back then as I am now. It was also one of their "fussier" kits, with many small, difficult-to-bend parts (which may be why it was discontinued). I tried compensating by turning it to face the back of the layout; I'd even thought about adding scaffolding to help obfuscate the blemishes. But in the end, I just couldn't bring myself to put it on the layout.

Then one day, as I sat sifting through the pile of leftover parts and lamenting the failure of my bank (sounds like a recent news headline), out of the blue I decided to see if I could find new windows for the Mid State Bank kit. Aside from being a kind of boring building, the windows bothered me the most—even if they're accurate, they look "clunky," like the thick windows from really old plastic N scale kits. In a stroke of pure, almost spooky luck, I discovered that the Scale Link N scale Window Set #SNF014 (right) had round-top windows that fit so perfectly one might suspect they were specifically designed as replacements (save for their height, which was a trivial fix), and this provided the inspiration needed to give the project a fresh start. I just had to bite the bullet and get several more Mid State Bank kits to make a symmetrical, two-story structure, loosely along the lines of the aborted Savings and Loan version.

If the window coincidence wasn't strange enough, though, now we come to something truly remarkable. Originally the building was to be vacant, and it was simply called "The Old Bank." But having been given a new lease on life, it needed an identity. After completing the new building design, I wanted to add some authentic details, so I did a little online research—whereupon I found that, by pure coincidence, my "new" bank looked strikingly similar to a real one located at One Front Street in Brooklyn (now a restaurant); furthermore, by an even stranger coincidence, my model bank was located at One Front Street in Naughtright! And so it was only natural that my model would become the Front Street Bank.

This is the Micro Structures Mid State Bank base kit in its original form.

The Micro Structures Logan Savings and Loan kit is long discontinued.

The aborted version of this project was made from two Savings and Loan kits.

This is the window set from Scale Link that re-started the project.

The revised version combines parts from four Mid State Bank kits.

This is the real Front Street Bank (photo courtesy of MK Metz).