Not only is this the Year of The Dragon, it's also the Year of Tying Up Loose Ends here at Toys & Stuff. The scans for this Marx cardboard Fire Station were first posted back on Feb 3, 2011 (Fire Station scans) but today we're finally getting around to posting pics of the built-up model.
This is the type of station one might see in a small town or village and the firemen themselves would have been a volunteer force, quite unlike the fully staffed city fire stations which serve as both living quarters and fire engine garages. To me this represents a very interesting structure. Look at the first pic of the front wall - there are two bays, one with doors and one open. To me it looks like a firehouse that was built in the days when the apparatus' were pulled by a team of horses. One bay would have housed the horses and feed, while the other bay contained the pumper apparatus - but which bay was which? Were the horses housed in the open bay while the closed bay contained what would be a very expensive pumping apparatus? Did both bays have doors at one time? Hmmm, we may never know. As fire engines were converted from horse drawn to the new horseless carriage design, the space once reserved for horses could now be used for new equipment and even this tiny station could now be home to two separate apparatuses. Our Fire Station measures 5" (12.7cm) L x 3 1/2" (8.9cm) H x 3 1/4" (8.3cm) W. Without further ado, on to the pics Enjoy!Bettina & Fritz Berg :)
