Yep, Bachmann large scale trains will run on Lionel large scale track.  It does not matter if the track is metal (electrified) or plastic.  Quite a few folks will buy the battery operated large scale stuff (of all brands) and turn the trains loose on their metal G scale track.

This is what another person did with a small space - 9' x 18'.  Essentially a sort of 'folded inside' figure 8 with probably close toa hundred feet of mainline trackage.  Very very good job, inspiration for those confronted with tight spaces.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMlWTWNsMV0

My big hauler can and has pulled a ten car string on a level (more or less) table top, even around R1 curves.  These were normal 'full sized' box cars, gondola's (with assorted junk thrown in them from layout construction), and tank cars.  I did have a wee bit of an interminent derailment issue at one of the switches.  Because the layout is a badly mangled figure 8, ten cars is about the max there; its actually intended for4-6 car strings.

That same big hauler has also pulled three or four normal sized cars up a 4% slope without serious difficulty.  (grade of just under 0.5 inches per foot).

Quote
95001         Building kit, fire house
95002         Building kit, toy store
95003         Building kit, hotel
95004         Building kit, general store
95005         Building kit, ice cream parlor
95006         Building kit, town house

Yep, thats all of them.

I currently have all of them except the Toy Store (which is supposedly enroute).  I actually have two or more of all of the rest, though some, like the Townhouse just do not interest me all that much.

I should add that these buildings are set up to be lighted from the interior, with small flashlight bulbs and short lengths of wire.  The bulbs are apparently intended to be set in round holes in the bases.  Never bothered with this route myself, instead I decided to opt for a bit of minimal interior detailing.

Again, I have to stress that these buildings are made out of *cardboard*; not suitable for the great outdoors at all. 


 

QuoteCould the fire station door be small because the station is horse drawn wagon and steam pump era? Or even bucket wagon era? I haven't seen the fire house. Just a thought.

The signage on the Ice Cream Shop says 1933; that on the General Store says 1931, indicating a early to mid 1930's period (maybe right on up through the 1940's and 50's).  I don't know what sort of fire fighting equipment was prevelant in the early 1930's. 

I do know that these buildings are not very big; in 1/24 most would scale out to 9 - 12 feet deep by 10 - 16 feet wide, making for very small shops indeed!  The Hotel would work out to a one room per floor type deal, and even as a back ally gas station / garage, the 'fire station' is still on the small side.   And, as previously stated, the 'Ice Cream Shop' is more of an 'Ice Cream Booth'.

(This is also why I set the entry for the General Store on the outside of the shop, to leave room for at least a counter and some merchandise on the inside.  Otherwise the back wall of the entry would have been too close to the back wall of the shop.)

Doug...

...I picked up all of my Bachmann Buildings within the last year or so.

Right now, there are several of them on the auction block in the G scale section of EBAY - just run a search for 'buildings' and hit the 'Bachmann' button.  I do believe one of them is the toy store.  

I have picked up a fair number of these buildings off of EBAY - I actually have duplicates of most of them.

First off, they are indoor use only!  They are made out of heavy 1/8th inch cardboard

Second, the buildings are fairly small.  Their bases range from 7 - 9 inches wide, but are a uniform 9 inches deep.  The buildings themselves have depths of 4.75 - 7 inches.  The width of the buildings stop about a quarter inch from the edge of the base.

Third, there is a bit of a scale issue.  The fire station, for example, has an acceptable 1/25 -1/24 'man door', but the vehicle door next to it is far to small for a 1/25 - 1/24 fire truck.  It is actually just barely wide enough to admit a 1/32 slot car.  Likewise the parking spaces marked out on the base for each building are way too small for 1/24 sized vehicles.

The buildings do go together pretty easy - just punch out the cardboard sections, glue the brace supports together, glue the windows in place (and the doors, too, if you want to) and your most of the way there.  If you set the braces right, you can put second and third floors in them.  There are stiff paper corner sections which hide the seams and  theoretically allow for the building to be folded down, but I'm not too sure about that.

I've built the 'Dry Goods' store, which I envision as a sort of 'hole in the wall' type shop. It came with a alinset lobby which I reversed (set on the outside) of the structure to make more room for inside the store.


I combined two of the fire stations back to front to make a small garage.

Because if was such a redicuously narrow structure, I merged two of the hotels together side by side,  making it a bit more acceptable.