Keystone No. 251 Fire Department

Here's the last of the three known keystone Fire Stations/Fire Departments, the No. 251 from ca1950. My source claims all three stations came out about the same time but I find that unusual. This is a more modern looking structure. The doors on this one are lever activated vs. the dowel-&-string arrangement of the the previous two with the actuating lever on the outside front of the building. That alone make me believe that this station came out later than 1950. There is a water tank inside that fills from the top but has no outlet from the bottom, but apparently feeds the water hydrant placed on the sidewalk just in front of the tank. As my sample is incomplete I would need to see photos of how this feature looked when properly set up and how it worked. The siren mechanism is housed inside the building (and works great on my sample BTW) but is activated by a wire lever sticking out of the 'SIREN ALARM" standing on the sidewalk out front. The base measures 17 3/4" (45.08cm) W x 10" (25.40cm) D. The building measures 17" (43.18cm) W x 7 1/4" (18.41cm) D. It is 8" (20.32cm) H overall. Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

Keystone No. 248 Fire Department

In a sense this was a case of buyer's remorse. Why? Because it was also a case of undue impatience. I wanted all three of Keystone Fire Station/Fire Department buildings so that I could review them for the blog and also to flesh out my collection of vintage Fire and Emergency toys. My impatience meant I got one in much-less-than-pristine conditon. There were condition issues I told myself I could live with - and the price was right, not too expensive. But here's the kicker. Every time I see one of these buildings up for sale they all appear to be ragged. Of course I don't look for them all the time so there's a good chance I missed out on some really nice examples. Oh well!

Keystone made one Fire Station and two Fire Department buildings. The difference lay in the number of bays each had. The smaller No. 247 Fire Station was two-bay, while the No. 248 and 251 Fire Department's were three-bay. The No. 248 version featured today had the same dowel-&-string door raising mechanism as the No. 247 featured the other day here. It also has a large siren on one end of the building. Neither of these two features work on my sample :-(   My sample has a missing door and none of the strings are attached to the dowel. The siren plunger does work and the wheel inside turns nicely but no siren-like sounds emanate from the device. Only the bell ringing device inside the building works. The building base measures 17 3/4" (45.08cm) W x 9" (22.86cm) D. The building measures 15 5/8" (39.68cm) W x 7" (17.78cm) D. It is 9" (22.86cm) H overall. Enjoy!

BJ George - Built-Rite Fire Department

For Fire Engine and Emergency Vehicle Friday we have this nice paper fire station from B.J. George. This model was designed using my photos of the Built-Rite No.56-5 Fire Station and is about half the size of the original. You'll notice as you look through the photos that I'm not the world's greatest modeler and rushing through these projects didn't help much either, but I've been wanting to post these for years now and just haven't gotten around to it so when I did start it was a rush to get things finished. At the last moment I decided to put a floor in this structure and open up the doors so that fire engines could go inside, but it also needs a ramp for the trucks to drive up onto. That'll be a project for another day - or year :-)  Hope you - Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

You can see the cardboard floor attached to the inside of the building

The portion of the upper roof that juts down to meet the flat roof must be trimmed to fit

Here it's shown with a Kellogg's Corn Flakes Fire Engine premium from 1957