Can you tell me how to get... how to get to center street.

Way back in the mid-eighties the Hornby catalogue carried a full page photo spread showing an urban street with diner, shops and cinema.  The pictured scene really sparked my interest and I waited impatiently for the kits to arrive in my local model shop.  They never did, and by the next year there was no mention of the kits as they quietly disappeared from the release schedule.

I forgot all about those kits until a few months ago when I came across an ebay auction for a cinema kit from Tyco.  The kit looked exactly like the unreleased Hornby model from all those years ago and after some googling I discovered the Tyco 'Center Street' series of kits manufactured and marketed in the US in the early eighties.

That particular ebay auction ended at well over £30 which seemed steep for such an old kit, and I was far outbid, but over the months since then I've only seen a handful of them come up for auction.  This one was pre-built and ended well below a tenner so I've finally got a "Hornby" cinema after all these years. 

 The model is made from nicely detailed plastic parts, similar to the AHM or Heljan kits of the day, with coloured plastic and stickers for the marquee and posters.

The printing is surprisingly low quality compared to the decals that Revell produced in the fifties, with the marquee text being particularly low in detail, almost looking hand written instead of suggesting the removable plastic lettering that a real cinema would use.

The model makes use of the real-life 'Lowes' cinema chain name, which may explain something about why it has not been reissued, no doubt there are licensing issues with the brand name and because the lettering is moulded in it will be expensive to re-tool it for a reissue.

I'm planning to use this kit as part of my entry for the square-foot diorama at this years NMRA convention in October.

If you're interested in finding out more about these kits here's a great website dedicated to the Tyco range including a detailed list of these kits http://www.ho-scaletrains.net/tycokitsandbuildings/id49.html