Price: $149 (no. BR5851)
Features: Plastic construction; fully assembled, painted and weathered; interior decoration; and inside/outside illumination
For many, the shop down the street might have been a full-service grocery – small by today’s standards, but still a friendly place where your big brother worked after school, and whose proprietor sponsored your Little League team. It might even have been an IGA store!
The IGA, or Independent Grocers Alliance, was started in 1926 when a group of 100 independent grocers banded together to pool their resources for marketing and logistic support. The IGA flew the proud flag of local ownership and operation that gave the grocer down on the corner the resources to complete with, say, the A&P grocery chain.
The latest release in the Woodland Scenics Built-&-Ready series is the J. Frank’s Grocery – an IGA affiliate. It is an amazing O gauge structure, all the more notable for me in that I’d never really considered where the people in my Train Town actually bought their food!
Opening the box
The first button this pushed for me was nostalgia, but you’ll find grocery stores of roughly this size in urban neighborhoods and farm towns alike. The overall building design could be dated anyplace from the 1930s to the early ’60s and could be dubbed as functional but with character.
There is a lot of eye candy here, but what caught my attention first were the windows. They give ample light for 1:48 scale shoppers, provide a platform for sales fliers, and offer an excellent view of the interior detailing – which is absolutely outstanding. But let’s walk around the building before we go inside.
The overall paint scheme is brown on three sides and sand on the front and along the top. The very top has a gray accent stripe. Four columns on the front are tan, but they have a mix of brown and red bricks as an accent, while the remaining bricks are tan/sand. On the lower part of the front, you’ll find a tile pattern of stone. The same pattern is used on the front entrance floor. In all cases there is a time-worn look to the design.
The two main display windows have something I don’t recall seeing on an O gauge structure before: rolled-up front awnings with the simulated hardware to lower them. The front also has a mechanical riding horse (non-functional, of course) and a gumball machine.
Details equal character
Looking inside, there is actually three-dimensional depth to be seen. There are three cardstock shelves full of products and you can see wall shelving with print- on food products. There was even a printed door to the warehouse on a back wall. Very cool! This is a giant step beyond a simple printed flat interior backdrop.
The right and left sides of the building each have a window and water drain pipe. The right side has what looks to be a water line and meter, and both have ads on the sides (the left for Mickey’s Milk and the store’s butcher shop, and the right side for Munsterman’s Premium Cheese! This is a design element I never get tired of seeing because it is harder and harder to find on vintage buildings where I live.
The rear of the store looks just as good. It has a recessed loading dock with both real (LED) and simulated (overhead lamp) lighting. I liked the use of colors: gray on the steps, red on the handrail and truck bumper, brown for the wood floor and door, green to accent the door supports, and the general grimy state of the bricks which suggests there might be a steam-powered railroad nearby.
The rear also has a drain pipe, vent, overflowing garbage dumpster (is that spinach I see hanging out of the dumpster?), a power hook up and meter (with a painted dial face), and a rear door with simulated overhead lamp.
Let me not forget the rooftop detailing. You have the terrific J. Frank’s IGA sign with the red and white IGA logo and its support structure. The top also has a typical heating/air conditioning, a vent, an access hatch, and best of all, a broom and two cans of what looks like tar for sealing the flat roof. Well done! The weathering of the model was superb.
The lighting system for the IGA consists of two white interior lights and an amber exterior light. The model comes with a sheet illustrating the circuit board controlling illumination (power and light dimming), and it relates to using a transformer or the new Woodland Scenics illumination system.
You can simply connect a transformer to the wires attached to the circuit board, or integrate the board with the new no. JP5770 Just Plug power supply. This is simplicity in itself. Just pull out the installed plug (with wires attached) and insert a connector from the Just Plug.
I wasn’t sure Woodland Scenics would be able to top its Morrison’s Door Factory from last year, but they did just that. The J. Frank’s IGA grocery is a comfortably familiar building that shows its age. It also packs tiny details like the riding horse, gumball machine, and extra trashy trashcan that make you smile and so adds personality to your business district.
While nobody I’ve spoken to had said these Built-&-Ready structures are limited editions, we all know the vagaries of the marketplace. So you might want to score an IGA store when it’s factory fresh and easy to locate. The hungry folk of Train Town will thank you.
