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Vintage Tinplate Station ID help


RateTheFreight
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Hi all,

 

By chance a few weeks back I purchased the below tinplate station from a well known eBay site for what I considered a reasonable price (£30) given it seems to be in great condition. 
 

The listing didn’t have much info only to say that it was stamped ‘made in the US zone, Germany’. 
 

it’s a lovely item that fits nicely on my tinplate shunting layout but I’d love to know more about it. Any help appreciated. 
 

greg 
 

 

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That is a station by HWN (Heinrich Wimmer Nürnberg) made in the late forties/early fifties; The same station model also comes in a simpler lithography in shades of green and beige. The HWN mark is easy to see:

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This and more HWN and other makers stations to be seen in my free to download e-book on tinplate accessories: http://sncf231e.nl/tin-stuff-from-fred/

Regards

Fred

 

Note (from Historytoy.com) on HWN:

In 1928 the company was founded. They mainly produced vehicles and aircrafts with clockwork.
1933 vehicles for the Wehrmacht were produced. After the war they even produced inexpensive railways of sheet metal and plastic in gauges 0 and H0 with clockwork or electric drive and rail accessories.
1958 the production was changed gradually to plastic.
1979 the production was stopped.

Edited by sncf231e
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Useful station. Because it is in nice plain Bauhaus-ish style it is very much international in application. good for keeping biscuits in too, I should imagine.

 

Is it a decent size for 0 scale, do the printed people look the right height for instance? So many of these things are lovely, but sort-of S-scale.

 

 

 

Edited by Nearholmer
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The people are not even 2 cm high, so it more H0 then S (and not 0). But many German toy train makers did not look at all at scale for their accessories; Kibri for instance sold different stations for 0 and H0 which had the same doorway size. Hornby did a bit better in this respect.

Regards

Fred.

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10 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Useful station. Because it is in nice plain Bauhaus-ish style it is very much international in application. good for keeping biscuits in too, I should imagine.

 

Is it a decent size for 0 scale, do the printed people look the right height for instance? So many of these things are lovely, but sort-of S-scale.

 

 

 


Indeed the scale seems to be slightly off but as you say it’s nice because it’s got a rather generic style and the colours aren’t too showy. 
 

that being said the pic below shows it next to an old Hornby offering with figures which rather highlights the scale issue! 
 

greg 

C20775E7-02D6-41DB-B981-378342085108.jpeg

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Hi. Another tinplate station for your expert identification, a bit rusty and the the plastic roof is cracking. I think it's British, based upon the nuts that I've started to undo (prior to me re-rusting and replacing the plastic sheet) the nuts that fit my 5BA spanner (I don't have any thread gauges). The 'bolts' might be threaded rivets, given that I can't see any slots in the heads beneath the paint. There are two 12v torch bulbs to 'light' the inside, doubt that they will provide much light though. Your thoughts please, do I just de-rust or repaint? I usually prefer 'as found'. 

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Don't forget that the BA standard, although British, is actually metric based, and derives from an earlier Swiss(?) spec. In spite of being mangled by the sort of weird, arbitrary mathematical formulae that C19th British thread developers were so keen on, some of the head sizes are sufficiently close to round metric numbers that the typical, slightly sloppy spanner fit is not a reliable indicator of which standard you've got. 

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As it's German, the threads will almost certainly be metric (yes I know B.A. is metric but the 'B' is for 'British' so it doesn't count*). 4 M.A and 4 B.A are almost the same diameter, but not compatible - the nut will start, but not screw on. 3 M.A. is larger than 6 B.A.

 

* We were to go metric by 1975, but the country voted Conservative and the plan was shelved and we're still lumbered with pounds and miles etc.. (My opinion is that the imperial system became obsolete the moment the metric system was invented !) The kilo was unpopular with sellers, because it meant supplying more goods than in pounds. Litres were OK for fuel, because 4 litres is less than a gallon. The metre being more than a yard problem was solved in the timber supply industry by taking a inch to be 25mm (they should have set this way back IMHO). A six foot length of 2 x 1 shrank to 1.8m of 50 x 25. The price didn't of course....

 

To restore, or not to restore: that is the question (Sorry Will!).

I usually base it on the equation: is it going to be 'worth' more restored or left alone. (A good restoration is valued about the same as a good/fair example - i.e. not much.) Rust does not take much deliberation. It has to go - it can only get worse! A brass brush will usually shift the worst of it without significant damage. I touch up small spots with acrylic paint. A spot of alcohol will shift it again if necessary.

Edited by Il Grifone
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Many thanks Fred. For the befit of others, there is a much better condition one for sale on ebay

(https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MARKLIN-MaRKLIN-424-B-STATION-PLATFORM-CANOPY-Bahnhofshalle-1950-VERSION-nl/142537132752?hash=item212fe00ad0:g:288AAOSwKPdZ37va).

Being H0, scuppers my idea to use it as part of my vintage 00 diorama/ layout, some of you may recall the topic of my Hugar track and 4 (or 3?) car Southern Set. Oh well, the whole idea is in danger, as my Diecast etc model train collection [Dinky, Tootsiety, Wallwork, Kilgore, S&R..,.] is growing rapidly. Also working on a working 5ft  long, 00 scale canal lock, hopefully with trains at phase II.

SWMBO will be happy, she allows me to trawl ebay, junk shops, auctions etc for finds such as this, selling on to re-invest in what I’m really interested in.

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3 minutes ago, Canal Digger said:

Being H0, scuppers my idea to use it as part of my vintage 00 diorama/

 Why? Unless the trains bang into it for want of clearances, I would suggest it to be a perfect inclusion given that "back then" ordinary buyers (as opposed to scale modellers) were less fussy about the H0 vs 00 distinction, and r-t-r stock tended to be designed using slightly elastic scales anyway. If it looks right, include it.

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The H0 models would have been designed for the Continental loading gauge so are almost certainly going to have sufficient clearance for 00. A lot of H0 models back then were made to 1:80 or 1:82 scale anyway.

This does not apply to length or lineside buildings. These were/are often 1:100 (or even smaller).

Platform height might be a problem, as other countries favoured low level platforms, though models were often higher to compensate for deep track bases (Trix for instance).

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