Destinations For Our Toy Train Passengers

The Marxville plastic station was Glen Dale, two words, the large metal one was one word.

Steve

@CArolina Shagger do you mean where our passengers can go in terms of the world of toy trains? That is, limited to the names, unrelated to their real world location(if they have one), Example: Train #1 goes from Lionelville to Flyer Station to Girard Station?

Or, and this could be fun, trying to link stations with a their actual geographic location? Example: Train 4 leaves Girard Station(Girard PA) and arrives at Grand Central(New York).......BUT- it gets even better! If we have an Atlantic Ocean on our ;ayouts and some boats, they can make their way to J. D E P. Station(by JEP) in France and hop a train over to Bahnof Station in Germany(Bing- of all the German stations no idea why this came to mind first).

with oval, figure-8 and dogbone track plans for the most part, few tinplate passengers do not realize the futility of getting anywhere.  here is one from Katz...

good luck getting in or opening a window, though...

How about talking stations? The announcer/conductor calls out some cities,  e.g. something like... "New York Central train loading on track 7,  Chicago to New York and points in between...All aboard".

  The A.F. talking "City Station" I have is too incomplete to know if there is a city name attached to it. Lionel did do a repop of it a few years ago though. You could search Da Bay for talking station replacement sounds and review quite a few of those old recordings made by various mfgs.. They really have a decent selection, some rare I guess.

  I also recall some city named stickers for one of the plastic stations signs, but don't recall the whole station or who made it. (A.F. or Plastiville most likely, even though I never owned any A.F. trains)

As a kid, I assumed most cars were named after a city it stopped in.

  I'm not sure if it was ever done that that way at all, but it kept me content with variety. 

  I eventually outgrew any want or need for realism like that. Today, I stop at the Moon station, on the way to Mars if it suits my mood (a Looney Toones/Marvin the Martian layout with a Marx moonscape centerpiece and earth globe mounted on a floor lamp stand, set  just off the side of the layout.)

One stop, not on a sign, but always an option for me, is "A Stop in Willoughby; one of my favortite Twilight Zone episodes.

Adriatic posted:

How about talking stations? The announcer/conductor calls out some cities,  e.g. something like... "New York Central train loading on track 7,  Chicago to New York and points in between...All aboard".

  The A.F. talking "City Station" I have is too incomplete to know if there is a city name attached to it. Lionel did do a repop of it a few years ago though. You could search Da Bay for talking station replacement sounds and review quite a few of those old recordings made by various mfgs.. They really have a decent selection, some rare I guess.

  I also recall some city named stickers for one of the plastic stations signs, but don't recall the whole station or who made it. (A.F. or Plastiville most likely, even though I never owned any A.F. trains)

As a kid, I assumed most cars were named after a city it stopped in.

  I'm not sure if it was ever done that that way at all, but it kept me content with variety. 

  I eventually outgrew any want or need for realism like that. Today, I stop at the Moon station, on the way to Mars if it suits my mood (a Looney Toones/Marvin the Martian layout with a Marx moonscape centerpiece and earth globe mounted on a floor lamp stand, set  just off the side of the layout.)

One stop, not on a sign, but always an option for me, is "A Stop in Willoughby; one of my favortite Twilight Zone episodes.

We need a Willoughby station, "....where a man can slow down to a walk and live his life full measure." @Adriatic Top 10 for sure. There are so many good Twilight Zones, though, that ranking them is not only very difficult but possibly impossible.

overlandflyer posted:

with oval, figure-8 and dogbone track plans for the most part, few tinplate passengers do not realize the futility of getting anywhere.  here is one from Katz...

good luck getting in or opening a window, though... 'interior closed for maintenance"

@overlandflyer much appreciation for gracing us with the wonderful Katz Little Dynamo. A station platform next to this one and a sign in front of the doors "closed for maintenane" could solve the problem lol.

I thought about what you said regarding the loops and dog bones, the futility of those passengers and actually traveling. I feel your comment was just fun sarcasm, but for those with loops and dogbones, what's the difference between a loop that takes passengers from a Noma Station to Flyer Town on a loop vs. a round trip from 30th street Station to Palatka, FL, with a stop in Georgia(besides scale size distance ha)? Still A to B or B to A.  Of course most would like bigger layouts, but unless one plans to go North, South, and then East and/or West- a loop can suffice. And if you're @Adriatic, I guess you''ll need Cape Canaveral and some planets hanging above.

CArolina Shagger posted:

American Flyer station locations include: Mystic

As you may know, AF was a CT company, and Mystic, CT is still Amtrak station stop.

Pre-war American Flyer had the stations of Flossmoor, Hyde Park, Kenilworth, Terminal and Centrral.    The Flossmoor and Kenilworth stations did not have identifying signs on the stations - only on the boxes.  The difference between the two was that Kenilworth had an operating electric light and Flossmoor did not.

I didnt know Mystic was a real stop. I just thought it was an old pun on the "mystery of electricity" powering stuff.

Adriatic posted:

I didnt know Mystic was a real stop. I just thought it was an old pun on the "mystery of electricity" powering stuff.

with a name like AC ?  ... 

Gilbert did make Mysto Magic sets...

could you come up with a carload of caped dandies on their way to a Houdini fan convention in Mystic?

Robert S. Butler posted:

Pre-war American Flyer had the stations of Flossmoor, Hyde Park, Kenilworth, Terminal and Centrral.    The Flossmoor and Kenilworth stations did not have identifying signs on the stations - only on the boxes.  The difference between the two was that Kenilworth had an operating electric light and Flossmoor did not.

Pre-war Flyer also had Union Station

CArolina Shagger posted:

 

So I’m asking this group, “Where can our miniature passengers go?”  

Paris:

Joytown:

Baden-Baden

Crawford

Jouet La Ville

Bordeaux

Regards

Fred

Mack's Junction

With American Flyer you could go to "Suburban" anywhere.

Northwoods Flyer

Greg

Great Responses.  I guess this brings up a couple of other issues:

How many stations had names of real places?  Prompted by discussion of Mystic.  Both of Hafner's, Most of Marx, None of Lionel nor Plasticville.  Especially interested in the AF Mini-Craft names.

How many stations were marked with a name on the box but not the station itself?  I don't think the large AF Union Station had a sign.

On an interesting note, the AF Suburban Station is great.  Not to be outdone Marx made an even more generic station: Marx Universal Freight Station.  This was the name on the box; I don't believe there is a name on the station  itself.  And it wasn't only a freight station - it had a ticket window.

Finally which station name was the most obscure?  My vote is for Swoope which was on a K-Line station (OK not strictly tinplate but tinplate in spirit)

The knowledge of this group never ceases to amaze me.  Keep them coming!

My passengers complain that on my continuous loop layout, they keep coming back to the same two stations: a prewar AF 102 Central Station, or a Lionel Classics 126. My answer to them is always: ENJOY the RIDE! LOL!

Carolina Shagger  All of the American Flyer pre-war stations were named for specific places in and around Chicago.  Hyde Park is just south of the downtown area on the lake, Flossmoor is to the south and in the 30's would have probably been the equivalent of either an upscale blue collar or middle class town. Kenilworth is to the north of Chicago above Evanston and would have been more upscale than Flossmoor (indeed it is my guess that this is the reason the Flossmoor station is the same as the Kenilworth station but without the light).  There were two different Terminal stations in Chicago at that time - I've forgotten which railroads had them or where they were located in the Chicago area and there was also a Central station.

  The Hafner stop, Glen Ellyn is directly west of Chicago.  Given that both Hafner and American Flyer were located in Chicago for many years it isn't too surprising the choice of station names reflected the area where they were located.

Flossmoor and Kenilworth - names only on boxes

Flossmoor

  It is worth noting that even though Flyer was located in Chicago - someone needed a spell checker for the box labels back then.  I have no idea how many boxes went out with the mis-spelling but I have seen a number of them over the years.  This mistake was not made in the catalog.  

  At some point they corrected the mistake and Flossmoor got its real name back.

Kenilworth

Terminal

Terminal Station Sign - detail

Central

Central Sign detail

and since you mentioned freight stations - the Flyer freight station did have a name - Inbound Freight Station - with American Flyer in script on either side.  It's worth noting that all west bound freight consisted of lithoed farm equipment whereas all eastern point freight consisted of boxes.

Travel by Hornby O gauge in the UK, and you've a choice of destinations, starting with Windsor (very patriotic), Margate (for a nice holiday on the coast), Wembley ( handy for sporting events), Bristol (once a very busy port city), Reading (home at one time to one of the largest biscuit factories in the UK), Ripon (somewhere in the north of England with nothing I've ever heard of to distinguish it!) and finally Trent (which was a junction station where all you could do was change trains!).

Lol, I hadn't really figured out yet which forum section this was in; There is no way to tell which on an Android, pages don't carry that info anyplace.

  I really like the Bordeaux, Mack's, and Cambridge for the newer architectual choices. Cabridge reminds me of something Frank Loyd Wright-ish.

The Windsor name would suit me fine since I wouldn't have room for a version of Detroit's Michigan Central Station   No JEP with a French Detroit so I can "cheat" I suppose?

Robert S. Butler posted:

 

Flossmoor and Kenilworth - names only on boxes

Flossmoor

  It is worth noting that even though Flyer was located in Chicago - someone needed a spell checker for the box labels back then.  I have no idea how many boxes went out with the mis-spelling but I have seen a number of them over the years.  This mistake was not made in the catalog.  

  At some point they corrected the mistake and Flossmoor got its real name back.

 

Possibly typeset by an errant Dental Student trying to make a statement.

I never noticed that spelling and will have to look through the "stacks" to see if I have one.

NWL

Karl Bub (KBN) station, made in Western Zone Germany...apparently the town name is "Station".

OO Gauge Bing / GBN (Gebruder Bingen Nurnberg) station; I suppose the town name is Bing (?).

Postwar Hornby station that has no town name, but great lithography.

jay jay posted:

Postwar Hornby station that has no town name, but great lithography.

No, but the names were carried by the Island platforms, Wembley, Ripon, Margate and Bristol for the LMS, LNER, SR and GWR respectively and Trent to go with your BR era, very late, orange roofed station.

Some Hornby stations, French market,

The first one is Arras in the north of France and is similar to the British models,

And specific models for France all pre-war ones,

JEP never gave a name to his station, just called them JEP and passengers are waiting a train from nowhere.....

Daniel

Lionelville 126:

Heading home for Christmas.

Those European stations, even the more modest ones, outclass anything done here in the states. Bing, Marklin, Karl Bub, Hornby, JEP, etc. all produced some real architectual gems. The Marklin Leipzig station and its covered sheds is a great example of such a masterpiece. That having been said, I DO cherish my more modest and charming Lionel Classics 126 and my prewar AF 102 stations!

See this very modest 2 dimensional French Rossignol Joujouville station:

Regards

Fred

Interesting that Lionel seems to be the outlier among the train manufacturers regarding the use of prototypical station names. Maybe JLC's ego?  Even the Europeans were on board (pun intended).  Of course Joujouville (Toytown) is quite an exception, but very cute.  Wish I had one.

CArolina Shagger posted:

Even the Europeans were on board (pun intended).  Of course Joujouville (Toytown) is quite an exception, but very cute.  Wish I had one.

In Europe using prototypical station names was the exception and not the rule. Only Hornby (English and French) generally used real names on most of their stations. Of my (random?) collection of 59 European (English, German, French) stations only 6 have a name of which only 3 are real names (2 of these are Hornby). All these stations can be seen in my e-book (where you also can check my arithmetic): http://sncf231e.nl/tin-stuff-from-fred-2/ and of course in my home 

Regards

Fred

I use this metal "Oceanside" station by Hallmark on my "S" layout.

JOE: Is that NICE Hallmark station closer to S than O scale?

CArolina Shagger posted:

A recent post regarding the Marx Girard station got me thinking about the possible destinations of our toy train passengers.  I feel an article coming on and am soliciting input from the forum.  Where could our passengers go?  I am interested in the actual station, or accessory signs, that indicate the geographic location.

 

 

What does it matter? I've NEVER seen even ONE of those little twerps ever disembark from a car! They all just sit there waiting for the next loop, figuring that plastic (or maybe pewter) conductor ain't gonna bother to come around to punch their tickets, stinkin' freeloaders! 

Choose something that suits your fancy....maybe a local town/city or name it after someone near and dear. Your pike, your problem.

I'm going for fried green tomatoes at the whistle stop cafe!

Later,

Simon

My LGB 1920's era LGB passengers in my MTH state cars seem content in their metal bucket seats, as they go round and round and occasionly stop at the AF 102 Central Station, where a full complement of Barclay and Lionel figures perpetually wait to board the train! LOL!

American Flyer S gauge figures could actually get off and on at Guilford.  And most did just that: got off and then right back on again.  A loop within a larger loop!  You'd think all the passengers would get dizzy.

GOOD ONE!  

Well I don't have pics yet but I know my passengers stop at a station Menards made that must be in PA. as it list Paoli as one of the stops and I worked in Paoli, PA. when I was a young lad. 

rtraincollector posted:

Well I don't have pics yet but I know my passengers stop at a station Menards made that must be in PA. as it list Paoli as one of the stops and I worked in Paoli, PA. when I was a young lad. 

Menards is based in Wisconsin and there is a Paoli, WI also.