Thats a question thats been asked many many times.Why do little crappy,ugly pieces of plastic cost so much? Walthers has wonderfully detailed buildings for not much more than the Plasticville crap. And the Lfe-Lke and Model Power offerings are quite good too. Even old TYCO and AHM are 000% better than those rip-off Plasticville things. Maybe Bachmann can enlighten us as to why they feel the need to overcharge people for junk? Seems to be a pattern here.  I 