Statues at the GHR Stations (Guide)

Early Railroad Content and Onwards

At every Station of the Great Hellbound Railway, you, the Director, have a singular choice: You can build a statue!

For most Stations, your choice of Statue determines the key options and rewards of the corresponding "Under the Statue at _____" card. Of course, each Statue has different building requirements, spanning items, Favours, Connected/Renown qualities, otherwise-esoteric achievements such as Poet-Laureate, and specific GHR Board Members. All this information is brought together in this guide.

Note that in Unlock Requirements for Statue-specific actions, the level of the location's Commemorative Development is omitted, since obviously you have to have the statue in question to get its options. You can go to the page for each location's Under the Statue... card if you really want to find out, but this page has been created so you don't have to know that.

General notes and rating system

Most statues can be broken up into three types:

• Regular statues allow you to call in 1, 2 or 4 of a particular type of Favours. Obtaining their rewards is usually about 6 EPA, assuming 1 action to get each Favour. This generally means rewards valued at 12 E, 18 E or 30 E depending on the necessary number of Favours. Some statues' profit can be further increased through the Bone Market, the Rat Market, or similar profitable exchanges.
• Favour statues allow you to gain a specific type of Favour.
• Special statues don't follow the patterns noted above.
• A few statues have options that fit into multiple categories, to keep us on our toes.

When rating the statues, there are several relevant factors:

• How profitable is the option? Are the item rewards useful or hard to obtain? While reward values are generally similar, some items are objectively more useful than others.
• Are the relevant Favours available? Are there preferred ways of cashing in those Favours? (In particular: how does it compare to Offering Tribute to the Court of the Wakeful Eye or Call in Favours at Jericho Locks?)
• Does the option require many Favours? If yes, you'll need to draw the card fewer times, making it more valuable.
• How hard are the unlock requirements? If the statue is very hard to build, you're likely to build it later. Statues are most useful when you spend a lot of time at that station, and you'll spend the most time there when first playing through its stories.

The statues are rated on a scale from 1-4, where 1 is very bad, 2 is situationally good, 3 is pretty decent and 4 is exceptional. This rating doesn't take into account synergies between statues that share the same Favours, or statues that depict yourself.

Reward for Building All Statues

After building a statue at every station, a branch on the Under the Statue at Marigold Station card will grant the , a Home Comfort that grants +6, +1, +1, and +1.

Reward for Building All Self Statues

An additional story and reward is available if all of the statues are completed as statues of yourself. This begins via the Under the Statue at Marigold Station card and unlocks a storylet to build a final statue: . This achievement in vanity costs , , , and . You cannot do this if you have any Stains on Your Soul.

Pan-Station Options

Most Statues can be reset at the cost of 10 Fate. That isn't a ton of money, but it is still real-world money, so choose wisely before building a statue—don't just grab the first option that's available! As the statue at Balmoral has no card, it can be replaced without Fate at cost of a .

You may also want to develop a plan for an overall build of Upper River Statues. It is a matter of preference whether you wish to build towards material in-game rewards, or towards lore associated with certain Statues, or towards whomever you or your character would honor (minmaxers, loristorians, roleplayers and egotists are equally valid in this game). Just bear in mind that if your statues give you three places to spend Urchin Favours and none for, say, Church or Revolutionaries, it may be inconvenient.

The option to Practice Sketching the Statue to (Subject) appears on every Under the Statue card. Each has the same base difficulty , modified by the lighting at that station, and the same reward.

All Statues at all Stations cost 50 × ([Location] Development + 1) and require not having a statue there yet.

Pan-station Statue actions

Action	Challenge/Cost	Success	Failure
Practice sketching your statue to (Subject)	250 - (10 × Station Darkness)		+2 CP
Have This Statue Removed	10 FATE	Removes (Location) Commemorative Development quality	N/A

Ealing Gardens

Your first Station! Of course you want a statue there. And it's got to be of someone on your Board. Why would you even consider anyone else?

Statue / Building Requirements	Option	Cost	Reward	Value ( )
	Call in favours from Urchins		up to at least 552	28.50
	Call in favours from Tomb Colonists			18.00
	Call in favours from Revolutionaries			30.00
	Call in favours from Hell		or Rare:	20.00 or 12.50
	Call in favours from Rubbery Men			18.00
Yourself 21	Call in favours from Bohemians			35.00

Analysis

All the statues are regular statues, giving roughly 6 EPA worth of items, assuming 1 action per Favour.

• Sinning Jenny

This statue is pretty good. You probably will get less echo value than from the other statues, but the bundle has the potential to regain your soul or give many different kinds of items. The bundle has an expected value of at least 3.5 based on Bundle of Oddities (Guide). The Bombazine is useful down the line in Balmoral, but later on Urchins Favours are better cashed in at Jericho Locks. This is a decent statue in the short term but not amazing.

See also the virtually-identical statue of the Widow at the Magistracy of the Evenlode.

Rating: 3

• Feducci

This statue is interesting. Magnificent Diamonds are fairly easy to acquire by this point in the game. Sapphires and Venom-Rubies are less useful, but quite hard to get in quantity when needed for something. However, Favours with the Tomb-Colonies are some of the rarest in the game, and their Jericho option is generally better once unlocked. Situational, but potentially useful.

Rating: 2

• The Jovial Contrarian

Profitable, and much more efficient than trading in Favours in the Flit by far. is hard to get efficiently via repeatable actions, and Revolutionary Favours are common enough. It provides no , which you may consider a positive or a negative. Revolutionary Favours also won't be usable in Jericho until reaching the Hurlers, though it's a good option once unlocked. Definitely a solid choice.

Rating: 3

• Virginia

It's somewhat hard to estimate the value of this statue, as the reward is variable. It could be assumed that it averages around 18 for 6 EPA. The brandy could be used to Hire the Polite Poisoner for assassinations, but otherwise neither of the items are particularly useful. The strength of this statue is that you won't be able to call in Hell Favours in Jericho until Marigold, so having a lategame way to call them in could be useful. That's situational at best, though.

Rating: 2-3

• The Tentacled Entrepreneur

This statue gives a combination of Warm Amber and Trembling Amber. You'd think would be useful for skeletons, but by the time you need a lot, you will probably be able to sell skeletons to the Zailor with Particular Interests, by-passing the need for this statue. In addition, you'll be able to exchange Rubbery Favours in for two skeleton torsos as soon as you reach , one station further. Not particularly useful.

Rating: 2

• Yourself, the Poet-Laureate

Yes, you! Why is there no Board Member requirement? Well, in case you forgot, you're on the d__n board! If ignoring the long grind to be a Poet-Laureate in the first place, this statue still has several flaws. Ivory Humeri aren't that useful as they can only be sold through building skeletons, but are only compatible with restrictive primate body plans that don't benefit from Zoological Mania bonuses. It's more profitable to spend Bohemian Favours on Tribute instead. This statue may be cool, but it's not useful.

Rating: 1-2

• Conclusion

The Jovial Contrarian and Sinning Jenny are probably the best statues. Who would have thought that!

Jericho Locks

All the Jericho Locks statues use , which are easily available in both London and the Upper River. The biggest issue with these statues is that you might want to spend your Church Favours elsewhere for more profit, primarily by converting them to at the Labyrinth of Tigers.

When you reach Jericho Locks, you start unlocking new permanent options for calling in Favours with factions. Options for Bohemians, Rubbery Men, and the Docks are available from the get-go, with other factions unlocking as you extend your railroad further. This makes statues that give Favours more useful, while statues that use Favours may become worse in comparison.

Analysis

• Dean of Xenotheology

This is a regular statue and gives 6 EPA, assuming 1 Favour/action and valuing amber at 10p each. Though amber has its uses, it's easy to obtain in bulk through the Bone Market and hard to spend excess, making this option less useful. It's an okay option if you value Warm Amber, but not very special.

Rating: 1

• Bishop of Southwark

This is a regular statue, but gives 6.25 EPA, which is above average. It's also a good source of , which can be hard to get efficiently. Labour has several uses, including Palaeontological Digs and Archaeology. Using this statue to source your Labour will improve profit from either by a fair amount. The main issue with this statue is that you're only able to exchange 1 Favour at a time. This means more card draws necessary to cash in your Favours, and if you later build in Burrow-Infra-Mump (not recommended) you will gain Favours faster than you can convert them to Labour. At least you can cash in excess at the permanent storylet.

Rating: 3

• Bishop of St Fiacre's

This guide is incomplete. You can help by expanding it.

What needs work: Needs reanalysis after spider-pope nerf

This is a regular statue with an unusually valuable reward. Similar to the Bohemians option described above, this statue converts four Church Favours into two Relics of St Fiacre, plus some bone fragments for even more value. Although Relics are more difficult to convert to useable resources, this statue is the clear winner in long-term value. Every four statue cards and sixteen Church Favours enables up to 410 echoes profit for 48 actions. Fortunately, Relics stockpile well and can wait until you're able to make good use of them.

Rating: ?

• Yourself (Scholar of the Correspondence)

Although studying the Correspondence has become easier over the years, the grind to SotC 21 still has a well-earned reputation as painful and expensive. If you've made it to these heights of cosmolinguistic expertise, I don't have the heart to tell you not to take this option. Capping SotC is something to be proud of, d__n it.

Unfortunately, this statue is not very useful. The is virtually useless, if convenient for a single laboratory experiment, and s can be gained from many other sources. But then again, studying the Correspondence was never about convenience.

Rating: 1-2

• Conclusion

Fiacre's is by far the best for power palaeontologists, while Southwark has some use as a good source of Strong-Backed Labour.

The Magistracy of the Evenlode

The Magistracy's main concerns are matters of the law, and the Statue rewards here reflect this. One even has an option to gain , so you can save up to buy s. Or you can now cash in your Constable Favours in Jericho Locks instead.

Statue and building requirements	Option	Cost/Challenge	Reward	Value ( )
	Call in favours with the Gracious Widow		Up to 659+	29.37
Clay Highwayman 5	Receive an offering from the Clay Highwayman		[150 to 450] + 10 × Banditry	21.94
Yourself 21	Set a Watch beside the Statue of Yourself	200		1 Favour

Analysis

• Gracious Widow

This statue is pretty much identical to the statue of Sinning Jenny in Ealing Gardens. You probably will get less value than from the other statues, but the bundle has the potential to regain your soul or contain a variety of different items. The bundle has an expected value of around 3.9 echoes. The Bombazine is also useful in Balmoral. This is a decent statue and is easy to build. However, it won't be useful long-term as Urchins Favours are better exchanged in Jericho after reaching Moulin.

Rating: 2-3

• Clay Highwayman

The bundle is similar in value to the Gracious Widow's, but the reward only costs 2 Favours, so it's actually better with regards to EPA. However, Criminal Favours are better converted to and eventually used to get s for the Rat Market. The requirement for this statue also takes some time to reach.

Rating: 2

• Yourself, Defender of Public Safety

This is notable as the first statue option that generates Favours instead of spending them. The proximity to the Magistracy is convenient, since it takes 7 Favours: Constables to get a Special Dispensation and there are no other card sources of them in the Upper River. The Favours can also be called in in Jericho for 5.5 EPA. However, obtaining the Favours this way is much harder than in London, requiring a difficult Dangerous challenge.

Note that is a lengthy grind, so by the time you've unlocked this statue you may not spend much time in the Evenlode anymore. Still, Constable Favours are valuable enough for the card to be worth most players' time.

Rating: 2-3

• Conclusion

None of the statues here are amazing. The Widow's statue is marginally the best when the Magistracy is first unlocked, while the statue of yourself is best, if rarely relevant, in the long term.

Balmoral

The statue at Balmoral does not add a card to the deck and is only necessary for the all-statues reward. There are three choices for subject: The Empress's Consort, which requires no special features; the Captivating Princess, which requires her acquaintance; and the statue to your Cover Identity, which requires crafting an appropriate identity in Balmoral.

Reaching Balmoral means you can cash in both Criminal and Great Game Favours in Jericho. Criminal Favours are usually better used for Tribute.

Station VIII

None of the statue choices in Station VIII materially affect player rewards; only the descriptions are affected. The Correspondent profession unlocks an extra option on its card.

Reaching Station VIII allows you to call in Favours with Society in Jericho, again usually worse than exchanging them for Tribute.

Options	Cost/Challenge	Success	Value ( )
Read the graffiti on the Statue to (subject)	(125 + 25 × ) ASotC (unknown)		2.50 - 3.50
Write something to sear the eyes of fools and lift up the great powers			3.00

All statues cost [50 × ( + 1)] x . Some statues have additional non-cost requirements to unlock or have variants depending on Ambition choices.

Station VIII Statue Building Requirements

Statue	Option	Additional Requirements
Veteran Revolutionary	Put up a statue honouring a Veteran Revolutionary	-
Mr Fires	Put up a statue honouring Mr Fires	-
Mr Spices	Put up a statue honouring Mr Spices	-
Mr Wines	Put up a statue honouring Mr Wines	-
Mr Veils	Put up a statue honouring Mr Veils	Variant with completed
Mr Cups	Put up a statue honouring Mr Cups	Variant with 4300–4500
Mr Iron	Put up a statue honouring Mr Iron	-
Mr Stones	Put up a statue honouring Mr Stones	-
Mr Apples	Put up a statue honouring Mr Apples	-
Mr Pages	Put up a statue honouring Mr Pages	-
Yourself, Expert in the Uses of Extracts!	Put up a statue honouring yourself for your culinary experiments	20
Yourself, Companion of the Masters	Put up a statue showing yourself in the company of Masters	10
Mr Cards, which is to say, Yourself	Put up a statue honouring Mr Cards, which is to say, yourself
Mr –, Yourself on the Road	Put up a statue honouring Mr –, the self you are destined to be (FATE)

There is no particular gameplay advantage to any of these choices, just roleplay and lore. Some do require Ambition completion, high levels of Connected: Masters, or Meals Served. Of those, Meals Served is the easiest requirement to achieve. The rest just cost Scrip, proportional to how much else you've built at Station VIII.

Burrow-Infra-Mump

The Statues at Burrow-Infra-Mump are heavily connected to the location's main storyline, A Church in the Wild. Making a Statue of a Custom-Made Saint requires having dedicated your Church to a Custom-Made Saint. Reaching Burrow allows you to call in favours with the Church in Jericho, a competitive alternative to Tribute.

Statue and Building Requirements	Options	Cost/Unlock	Success	Rare Success	Failure	Echo Value
St Augustine	Dinner with a Curate			N/A	N/A	-0.20
St Hildegard	Supply Honey for a Theological Salon			N/A	N/A	-0.20
Custom-Made Saint 2 (Custom-Made Saint) 5	An Evening of Palaeontological Discussion	<41	increase	N/A	N/A	2.50
	Trade Favours for Bones	20	-70 CP	-200 CP	-60	12.50 312.50 6.00
Yourself, death AtGotG 50	Meditate on Death	AtGotG 50				3.00 4.50 2.50
Yourself, Bishop 400 (The Sinking Synod) FATE	Make an addendum to the Church in the Wild's Theology FATE			N/A		2.50

Analysis

• St Hildegard and St Augustine

These statues are completely worthless. Both trade one Favour for a less valuable kind, and the statue of St Augustine additionally consumes hard-to-obtain Bottles of Greyfields 1868 First Sporing.

Rating: 1

• Memento Mori

Using this statue has no requirements, and it provides several rarer resources. Unfortunately it has poor value. Situational, but more convenient than other options.

Rating: 2

• Bishop

This statue could be okay if you need many Verses of Counter-Creed, but requires uncommon items and has low value. As such it's situational at best.

Rating: 1-2

• The statue to the Custom-Made Saint

This is unambiguously the best choice for paleontologists. An easy source of Flourishing Ribcages, plus the occasional highly-valuable Prismatic Frame, and it can provide for other uses. However, using it effectively requires advance planning to have an appropriate skeleton preassembled.

This statue also requires dedicating your Church to the Custom-Made Saint. If you chose a different dedication, it is impossible to obtain without paying Fate to restart the entire Church in the Wild story.

Rating: 3

Moulin

Reaching Moulin allows you to call in favours with the Tomb-Colonies and Urchins in Jericho. The Urchins rewards can be sold at the Rat Market, while the Tomb-Colonists can provide Antique Mysteries needed to dig up Prismatic Frames.

Statue	Building Requirements	Options	Cost	Success	Value ( )
Yourself, a Legendary Zee-Captain	Violist or Doctore 150 x  Palaeontology notes 150 x  Archaeology notes 150 x  Theosophy notes	Share a drink with a Zailor		Rare:	30.00 Rare: 62.50
		Share a tale of your travels	Requires		1 x Favour
Yourself, London's Ambassador to the Khanate	50 5 5	Make contact with an agent			36 (18 E)
Yourself, Moulin's preeminent Archaeologist	8 40 "You must have concluded an exceptional Monograph"	Various, see Under the Statue at Moulin		or one favour: Bohemians The Church The Great Game Hell	3.50 or 1 x Favour
Clio

Analysis

• Captain

This is a combined Favour statue and regular statue, allowing you to both spend and gain Docks Favours. Docks Favours are valuable and have fewer sources, so the option to gain Favours is pretty good. The option to call in said Favours is less great, as the Docks option in Jericho gives that sell at the Rat Market for added value. That said, the Salt Steppe Atlas from rare successes can be sold at the Khanate for Rat Market items. As such, this is mostly a Favour statue with a bonus cash-in.

Rating: 3

• Ambassador

This is a regular statue that gives 6 EPA in Scrip. The only other profitable way to spend Great Game Favours is in Jericho, so there's not a lot of competition. The reward is useful, but the lack of Great Game Favour sources in the Upper River hold it back.

Rating: 2-3

• Clio/Archaeologist

The Clio and Archaeologist statues both unlock the same options. These statues are highly flexible, as they allow you to get four different kinds of Favours depending on your current monograph's subject. All four types of Favour have potential uses with other statues, and Bohemians and Church Favours can be used for Tribute. Keeping an in-progress monograph is only a minor inconvenience, though switching between Favour types is a little more of a timesink.

Rating: 4

• Conclusion

The Clio and Archaeologist statues are automatically best because they can produce Favours for Tribute. Outside of that, all the statues here have reasonable uses.

The Hurlers

Upon reaching the Hurlers you can call in Favours with Revolutionaries in Jericho, the rewards of which can be sold at the Rat Market.

Statue	Building Requirements	Options	Cost	Reward	Value ( )
Liberation of Night	10	Call in favours from Revolutionaries			30.00
Fingerkings	4	Sleep beside the statue	None	based on	5.40 (at 8)
Anchoress	The Legacy of the Anchoress 4	Call in favours from the Church			30.00
Goat-Demons	1	Call in favours from Hell			60
Your Overgoat	1	Ask your Overgoat to perform a trick			30.00
Your Übergoat FATE	1	Ask your Übergoat to perform a trick FATE			30.00
Your Heptagoat FATE	1	Ask your Heptagoat to perform a trick FATE		Decreases	15.54
Yourself (Steward)	4	Meditate in your statue's shadow			30.00

Analysis

Most of the statues here give similar values, but require different Favours. From the top:

• Liberation of Night

Provides 6 EPA like most statues. This statue is notable for giving Nights on the Town, which otherwise are hard to acquire. Unfortunately, they have few uses at this stage of the game. You can still Bring the celebration home for or Swap tales with the locals for , but for profit you're better off calling the Favours in at Jericho and selling the rewards at the Rat Market. Plus not everybody wants a statue dedicated to the Liberation of Night...

Rating: 2-3

• Fingerkings

This is a very interesting choice, as it's one of very few non-Parabola sources of . It's less profitable but is a decent choice as it doesn't require Favours to use. And again, not everyone will be comfortable with making a statue dedicated to the Fingerkings.

Rating: 3

• Anchoress

Provides 6 EPA like most statues. The only issue with this statue is whether you have enough Church Favours to use it effectively. You probably have at least one statue that uses Church Favours already, and it's competing with the Tribute and Jericho cash-ins. The Collated Research is useful in Balmoral, but is better obtained through the Bone Market.

Rating: 2-3

• Goat-Demons

Provides 6 EPA like most statues. This statue literally gives you poop, which has some uses for the railway and elsewhere, but can also be sold for Scrip. Scrip which can be exchanged for echoes at a profit. As such, this statue is one of the best EPA and SPA sources at the Hurlers, but you'll need to find a source of Hell Favours.

Rating: 3-4

• Your Overgoat

Similar value to the other statues. Gives for Hell favours. Not directly useful, but if you have the Urchins Favours to upconvert it to Storm-Threnodies, you can sell it at the Rat Market for additional profit.

Rating: 3-4

• Your Übergoat

Congratulations on obtaining an Übergoat! This statue is basically the same as the Anchoress, except it requires Favours with Hell instead of the Church. On the plus side, it will not compete for Church Favour uses.

Rating: 3-4

• Your Heptagoat

Wow! Just wow! Building this statue is an achievement. Unfortunately the reward is terrible. 15.5 for 7 favours is really bad. Primordial shrieks aren't the easiest resource to get, but at this rate it's more efficient to build a different statue and sell the rewards to buy shrieks from the Bazaar. But then you wouldn't have a statue dedicated to your Heptagoat...

Rating: 1

• Yourself (Steward)

Unfortunately, this statue relies on Memories of Discordance, which are near-impossible to obtain efficiently. If you are one of the few players with , you could plausibly use this alongside a Helicon House grind. Otherwise it's simply not worth the effort just for Correspondence Plaques.

Rating: 1-2

• Conclusion

Most of these statues give 6 EPA. The Overgoat and Goat-Demons statues have an edge over the others in value, while the Übergoat and Anchoress statues provide more useful items. If you're okay with the lower value, the Fingerking statue is also a reasonable choice to acquire rarer resources.

Marigold Station

All statues here allow you to sell surplus Railway Steel for Hell Favours.

Reaching Marigold means you can now call in Hell Favours in Jericho.

Statue	Building Requirements	Options	Cost	Reward	Value ( )
Any Statue		Sell surplus Railway Steel to the Moloch Line
[Leader's name] and the Tracklayer's Union or Tracklayer's Union	: Furnace Ancona, Cornelius or January. or none	Call in favours with the Tracklayer's Union			60 (30.00)
Marigold Devils	None	Admire the statue			30.40
Yourself, a Respectable Industrialist	21	Sit by your statue			30.00

Analysis

• Furnace/Cornelius/January/Union

The Union-related statues are mechanically identical other than the building requirements, so deciding between the four mostly comes down to your own aesthetic/character preferences. The January and Union statues also advance the Liberation of Night, which may not be what your character wants.

These are regular statues, and provide 6 EPA. The reward can also be sold for scrip, potentially making this more valuable. Both and s are useful items with fewer sources, and are notably useful for activities at Balmoral, so this is a decent statue. However, if you're looking for direct echo value, Revolutionary Favours are worth more called in at Jericho, which benefits from the Rat Market.

Rating: 3

• Marigold Devils

Considering that Society Favours are among the most ubiquitous, this sounds like a good choice, especially as no other statues work with them. However, your Favours could simply be spent for Tribute instead for more profit. s aren't particularly exciting at this point in the game either.

Rating: 1-2

• Respectable Industrialist

Reaching 21 requires a lot of rare resources, but it's not worth the effort just for this statue. The Unlawful Devices from the statue can be sold for extra profit at the Rat Market, but it's again more profitable to simply exchange your Favours for Tribute, which benefits from the Rat Market too. The Cave-Aged Code of Honour can be sold for Legal Documents, but these can already be obtained from calling in Great Game Favours in Jericho.

Rating: 2

• Conclusion

The assorted Union statues are the best options here, as the rewards take the form of rarer items with some good uses. None of the statues here can compete with easier Favour cash-ins when it comes to straight profit, though.

Statues by Favour type

This table allows you to compare sources and uses of each Favour type of the statues throughout the Upper River. It also shows other Favour sources in the Hinterlands, good ways to cash them in in London, and their Jericho Locks trade option (with required station).

Note that Tribute from cash-ins can be then exchanged for s and sold to the Rat Market for further profit.