Railroaded

Shopping

Entry posted by Nameless1 May 29, 2006

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We returned from Europe with a new vice: vintage modern plastic HO-scale houses. The model railroaders who hang out on the Greenleaf forum will have a good laugh at me this time... although I had trains when I was a mid-sized child, I know nothing about this scale.

Earlier in the spring, I'd impulsively bought the Plasticville contemporary house and a swimming pool at Bruce's Train Shop so that my plastic wedding party from Half Moon Bay could have somewhere to get married. This was supposed to be my Only HO Building. You can almost hear the ring of "famous last words," can't you?

Here's what happened at Ingrid's Second Hand in Vienna...

and at a second-hand shop on the Via del Ponto Sospeso in Florence.

The house in the first two photos and the garden shed are from the German manufacturer Faller, which is probably better known for models of quaint European buildings. The garden shed really belongs in a community garden plot away from the houses. The twin houses are unmarked, though an afternoon's digging suggests Pola as the most likely manufacturer, simply because the company was in business in the 1960s and their products were widely distributed, sometimes boxed for other companies such as Jouef or Playcraft, making it advantageous not to mark the buildings.

The orange Italian house was made by Lima, a once-major brand that may (or may not) be revived by Hornby.

Although the streetcar -- a necessity for a European suburb -- advertises Viennese mega-brand Manner, it is made by German toy company Siku. It's new, thanks to a toy shop in a far suburb of Vienna that plied us with champagne for some reason we lacked the German to grasp. We had less trouble grasping the champagne flutes and the toys.

One piece I fervently wanted but could not find on this trip was a suburban rail platform (no station, just a platform with a doner kebab stand). So when a vintage Pola kit showed up on eBay, I promptly bought it and will count the days until it arrives. (No Pola link, as its HO and N scale lines are now part of Faller.) And then the husband said it was a good idea to order a set of four Smart Cars... from Germany. Okay. At least it'll be an ecologically sound community.

Although I never intend to run actual trains, I have to add this link to the site of a man who's building his own realistic fictional Austrian small town. I am hoping that if I stare at it long enough, I will not start buying HO scale OBB engines.