Years ago my wife found a collection of railway stations that I thought were very unique to say the least. They were collectables; famous railway stations cast in ceramic. I have set one on the WTRR. Believe it or not, it is not wood or plastic it comes from a mold and is hand painted.
Now the WTRR runs from Memphis to Nashville, but who says I can't have an Ottawa Junction.
In fact, that's a Pennsy K-4 arriving at the Santa Fe station and passengers are ready to board.
Below is the same shot taken with a flash, I can see the difference. I am getting ready to purchase better lighting.
I have many more stations like this one. As they are added I'll post pictures.
Robert Sylvester, WTRR
OK, you piqued my curiosity. I can only think of one place this type of collection might come from, the Hawthorne Village. We have one of their railroad stations as well, but it's not based on any prototype, it's part of the Christmas Village set.
From a model railroading standpoint these kinds of structures have serious limitations, you can't do much in the way of kitbashing or super-detailing because of the nature of the material. It lookes pretty though.
And I would not expect to retire on the proceeds of the sale of your "collection".
I have figured out what is wrong with my brain! On the left side nothing works right, and on the right side there is nothing left!
Are these actually "ceramic," that is, kiln-fired clay?
I'm thinking more in the line of the Downtown Deco buildings, which are Hydrocal castings.
Yours looks more like a "model" than a lot of the Christmas Village stuff.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
- Harry
MisterBeasley wrote: Are these actually "ceramic," that is, kiln-fired clay?I'm thinking more in the line of the Downtown Deco buildings, which are Hydrocal castings.Yours looks more like a "model" than a lot of the Christmas Village stuff.
It could be cast resin, that is what my Christmas Village structures are made of. They are cast to look like ceramic pieces. I do have one structure, from a different collection, that is truly made out of porcelain. Usually there hallmarks on the bottom that will tell you where it comes from and what it's made of. But if they are not marked, another way to tell is that the bottom of the resin castings will be smooth and in no way different from the rest of the structure. The bottoms of the porcelain castings will most likely be rough and more claylike in contrast to the upper surfaces, because they don't get fired passing through the kiln.
Back when Ertl was in HO they had a number of buildings that had a sort of ceramic feel to them. I do not recall this depot. The Ertl buildings were actual scale structures not Christmas village types.
Dave Nelson
Actually there many companies that reproduce various buildings, some are fantasy, such as the Christmas Villages by Department 56 and Hathorne, as well as Thomas Kinkaid. Some are more realistic.
One company, George Lefton produced fine china for years then started in the building area which were ceramic. About 12 years ago the company produced HO scale railway stations out of ceramic and they were hand painted. I have the entire collection. I also have the Mayberry scenes with Barney and Andy as well as the Wonderful Life set. These two are not to scale, they are more for O guage or G scale.
Lefton is now closed, there pieces are collectables, I have a half a garage full.
Fascinating. I shall expect to be seeing you on "Antiques Roadshow" one of these days.
Actually just for fun I popped over to E-Bay and did a search against Lefton. They have 35 pages and over 1740 items. Mostly figurines, as well as ceramic lighthouses coming out of their ears. They also have several dozens of structures from something called the "Colonial Village Collection", which looks to be another Christmas-themed set. But not one RR station. So who knows, you really might have something there.