Boxville Railway Station is built from a shoe-box and four shoe-box covers. Pencils are used for pillars that hold the long roof of the platform in place.

Inside view of Boxville Railway Station. This shows the ticket booth made from a shallow box about four inches square.

Material Required for Making a Boxville Railway Station: one shoe-box and four shoe-box covers, one small box about four inches square and without a cover, the shallow covers of two small boxes three inches long, two long pencils, and a small square of waxed paper.

Boxville's Railway Station is a real railway station. It is not a tin thing such as you buy ready-made in a toy shop. Boxville Station has a waiting-room with a real ticket booth and benches. You can make just the same kind of little station as you see in this picture. It is easy to make.

The building itself, you see, is the lower half of a shoe-box placed upon its side. The platform is made of two shoe-box covers placed end to end upon the floor, and the roof of the station is one shoe-box cover. The other shoe-box cover is the roof of the platform, and this is supported by two long lead-pencils.

Do you want to make a Boxville Station? To begin, you must make two doors and a window on the part of your box that is the front of the station.

About an inch and a half from either end of your box, mark a door space four inches high and two inches wide. Use a pencil and ruler for the work, so that it will be even. Half-way between the door spaces you have drawn, mark off an oblong window space two inches high and three inches wide. Now, you can take your scissors and cut the doors in the box. (To cut doors, see Diagram Two, A, page 167.) Cut the top line of each door space. Cut the bottom line also. The doors must open toward each other, so cut each door space down the side next to the window space. Push each little door inward.

Next, cut out the window space. Cut it around on all four sides, and keep to the line you have drawn with pencil. (To cut window, see Diagram One, A, page 166.) When you have finished this, take a piece of the waxed paper you have and paste it inside the station building over the window space to make window-glass. The waxed paper should be cut a bit longer and wider than the opening of the window. You can measure it by the cardboard piece you cut from the box.

If you wish, you may color the doors of your station building green or brown. Use whatever colors you have, but if you use your water-colors, keep the work as dry as you can. If you do not, the doors will not be straight. They will curl.

Place two shoe-box covers end to end upon the floor or table, for you can put the building upon them now. See, it is placed far back, so that there will be a platform in front. Place the building at the left of the platform made of the shoe-box covers.

The third shoe-box cover is the roof of the station building, and you must fit it down over the station. If you wish to have a roof over your station platform, you will need the fourth shoe-box cover to make this. To secure it in place, just cut two end corners on the box rim as far as the top of the cover. Then, turn this end rim upward and slip it under the right-hand rim of the cover which forms the roof of the station building itself. You will need two pillars at the right-hand end of your platform to keep the long roof up. These pillars are long lead-pencils. Press the point of a pencil down through each right-hand top corner of the long station platform's top, and secure the points below by running them into standards made of spools. The pencil point will be firm when run into the upper hole of a standing spool, and when both pillars are so fixed, the roof will be quite firm. (See Diagram Three, G, page 172.)

Next, make a signboard for your station, and glue it to the roof.

You will need to have a bench or two and a ticket office in your station building. A little doll can be placed in the ticket office. If you look at the picture of my Boxville Station, you will see a lady buying her ticket of the ticket agent.

The ticket booth is the lower half of a box that is about four inches wide and an inch or so deep. You will need to stand it on its rim and cut a window in the part of the box that is the front of the ticket office. You do this just as you cut the window for your station, only you must make the ticket-booth window smaller. Draw the outline of the window first with help of pencil and ruler. Then cut it out. To cut window, see Diagram One, A, page 166.) When window is cut, paste some waxed paper over the window opening on the inside of the box. Cut a round opening in this, near the bottom. The ticket agent will need this, you see. Now, the ticket booth is finished! Place it between the doors where it should go.

You will need a bench at either end of the station waiting-room. Cut these from covers of two boxes three inches long. (For cutting benches, see Diagram Six, B, page 176.) With pencil or pin-point mark a dot at the center of each short end rim of the covers, and cut through each rim thus marked till you have reached the top of the cover. Half of each division so made will be the high back of the bench. Half will form the seat and legs. Cut legs in the rim of one end. Leave the corners at the front of the bench and remove the cardboard that is between them, making your cutting to the right and left of each front corner. Then cut the rear legs in both side rims. Bend the other half of each box upward. This is to be the high back. Cut off the little pieces of cardboard that are left on the narrow end rims. Bend what is left of the cover's rim upward to make the rest of the high back for each bench. Color the benches black or brown.

Toot-too! Don't you hear the whistle of the toy train? The baggage, that is made up of boxes, is waiting on the station platform, and the little dolls are ready to start on their travels.

Miss Doll is waiting on the station platform. She has just purchased her return ticket to Boxtown.

Boxtown is the next stop. Everybody goes there on Circus Day — Mr. Doll, Mr. Mulligan, Mr. Swartzenheimer, Polly Ann, Susan Smith, all the Noahs! The station platform is crowded!

When all the sky is dark with storm,

Then with my train I play. I build a Boxville Station,

And I stay indoors all day.

It is always pleasant weather

When you're happy as can be; And when I'm playing Boxville,

There's no storm that I can see!