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Hornby Book of Trains The First One Hundred Years


Robin Brasher
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Pat Hammond is well known for his detailed books about the development of Tri-ang Railways from the 1950s.  This book has a foreword by Simon Kohler and  shows how Hornby developed from Meccano and eventually merged with Tri-ang to become Hornby.  There are lots of illustrations and it brings back happy memories of the development of the two model railway systems.

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I am slowly reading the book but it does give the impression that Hornby evolved from Hornby 0 gauge trains and Hornby Dublo whereas it has its roots in Rovex and Tri-ang.  Hornby is still making the Tri-ang black point switch R44 that appeared in the 1950s.

 

All that remains of Hornby Dublo are the excellent SD6 plastic goods wagons and utility vans that are still made by Dapol on plastic chassis, any odd spare parts may still be produced by Wrenn and the new Hornby 0 gauge number 1 locomotives.

 

I am pleased that the last 25 years of Hornby are now recorded in a book although not in as much detail as the Rovex Trilogy produced by Cavendish Books.

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On ‎21‎/‎02‎/‎2020 at 19:46, Robin Brasher said:

I am slowly reading the book but it does give the impression that Hornby evolved from Hornby 0 gauge trains and Hornby Dublo whereas it has its roots in Rovex and Tri-ang. 

Seems quite honest as to what  happened  in the 1960s and if you take it was being the story of the Hornby brand then it roots were the O gauge trains. I was once told that every factual book has at least one error in it so anyone copying it could be readily identified. Whether that's correct or not but I have found the need for an errata having spotted a few inaccuracies (and possibly by no means exhaustive);

 

Page 240 Last paragraph first sentence. Ivatt Class 3MT should be Ivatt Class 2MT (also same in the index on page 440)

Page 275. Heading The World of Thomas Tank Engine in the 1980s should have "in the 1980s" deleted as a number are far later additions.

Page 304. Caption ...2P, ex-Airfix should read as is stated in the text on the page ...2P, ex-Palitoy loco with ex-Airfix tender.

Page 307. End of penultimate paragraph all the newly acquired...should read most newly acquired... On page 293 three of the acquired toolings are noted as not being put into production.

Page 347 Bottom of LH column of text. The Class 153 'Super Sprinter' railcar was a new tooling not a former Lima model as stated.

Page 407 First column centre paragraph. the first batch contained SE&CR lined green 263 - the loco was 308 as per the photo on page 406.

 

 

 

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On 21/02/2020 at 19:46, Robin Brasher said:

I am slowly reading the book but it does give the impression that Hornby evolved from Hornby 0 gauge trains and Hornby Dublo whereas it has its roots in Rovex and Tri-ang.  Hornby is still making the Tri-ang black point switch R44 that appeared in the 1950s.

 

All that remains of Hornby Dublo are the excellent SD6 plastic goods wagons and utility vans that are still made by Dapol on plastic chassis, any odd spare parts may still be produced by Wrenn and the new Hornby 0 gauge number 1 locomotives.

 

I am pleased that the last 25 years of Hornby are now recorded in a book although not in as much detail as the Rovex Trilogy produced by Cavendish Books.

From a tooling point of view that is correct, but from an ownership point of view Triang (Lines Brothers) acquired the entire share capital  of Meccano Ltd in 1964 and then made changes as a going concern. For example, the 2245 E3002 loco, a pure Hornby-Dublo model made at Binns Road was released after Meccano had been bought by Triang. The subsequent development of the Triang range was also influenced by the lessons learned from the Hornby Dublo 2-rail range, particularly the development of a finer scale track range and finer scale wheels.

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