Questions involving standardization, like many other issues, can lead a person to conclusions that may or may not be valid. For the most part, railroads — especially the larger ones — followed standard plans.
While many stations were built to standard plans, many were not. I know of one small town that had a large brick manufacturer, but no station. When a station was finally built, it was unlike any others on the line, and was made of brick, rather than the wooden standard of that railroad. The local historical understanding is that the brick manufacturer wanted a depot, and could get it only by building it themselves. In other cases, I have heard that a community built a nonstandard station to influence the railroad to have their trains stop there.
Over the years, railroads often changed their standards. A station built in 1895 might look vastly different from one built in 1925 for the same railroad.
If two railroads merged, the enlarged system might end up with two routes with very dissimilar structures.
Hypothetically, let’s suggest that a depot burned down and had to be replaced. The replacement might be a different size and a different design — or it might be a close copy of the original.
There are lots of possibilities, but it is most common to have fairly consistent system standards regarding architecture and paint schemes.
I think that using a non-standard station concept is better for me! Havng each town have its own special station. Therefore I still am looking for inspiration for the stations and structures for the towns!
In that case, the Walthers catalog is your friend. Pages and pages of options. Be sure to look them all over, including Alexander and some of the other kit manufacturers that are often ignored.
Well, I guess that’s totally up to you, and your budget. If you want to just run trains, and let somebody else do the work, and your not into the personal “creation-modeling-satisfaction-and building” of your layout, then have someone do all that for you.
I don’t think you’ll find many members of this forum (and others) that have gone that route. Maybe a few that had someone help with the wiring, but the creativity and the modeling, no, except for a very few that have had custom made structures.
Well I what I mean is that I give my ideas to a custom builder and have them do the cutting and such. Then I could assemble them myself! I literally have NO experience in scratch building!
I guess whether to scratchbuild or not is a whole different subject, beyond the scope of the original questions. I have said before that a scratchbuilding project is nothing more than a kit that you design yourself. I would start by building a simple kit. Then a more complex one. Keep going until you have built up the confidence to take that next step. It’s very rewarding, and not nearly as painful as you may imagine.
Nobody on this forum was born with experience. We all got it by diving into new experiences.
I had posted a link recently to some station photos that have been added to the vast collection of the John W. Barriger III library on Flickr. It didn’t seem to draw too much attention.
You can browse MANY North American station photos there, with a few from Great Britain thrown in for good measure. Click on a photo and you can download a copy for your use.
The families of Mr. Barriger and Robert G. Lewis should be commended for preserving these photos and making them available for our research and enjoyment.
Be sure to see the other albums, particularly the AC&F photos and the Robert G. Lewis collections, too [Y]
Mr. Barriger was president of the P&LE, Monon, B&M and MKT. Mr. Lewis was editor of Railway Age Magazine.
I agree with what he said above, browse through Walther’s and see every possible choice on the market. Pick what you like.
In The Pacific Northwest lumber is king so everything is built with lumber. Bricks are an east coast thing. So a small depot is made with the local resources. Only a big city depot would be made of material from outside the region. It’s the big stations showing off that are the ones which are different than the normal.