Why do you enjoy old trains vs new ones?

[Il Grifone]

I was young enough to avoid the conscript army  

 

The house building was necessary because so much had been destroyed in the war. I can remember large spaces where buildings used to be. Some of the replacements were little or no better than what was there before.

[sncf231e]

To answer the original question (Why do you enjoy old trains vs new ones?) I must admit that I do not. I enjoy both old and new trains 

But as long as it are models/toy representations of steam trains!

Regards

Fred

[sagaguy]

5 hours ago, Wolseley said:

 

Meccano Ltd may be dead and gone, but Meccano is still with us.....

Oh yes,still very much alive,new parts readily available from dealers in the UK.Parts are made in India by Ashok.I built this a few years ago,I had a lot of parts but i shudder to think of how much the extra parts cost to build it,still,it`s a grand hobby,still alive and well on a facebook page of which i am a member.The third pic is the strip and plate bender i built and used for certain strips.

 

                                   Ray.

Edited May 24, 2020 by sagaguy

[sagaguy]

3 hours ago, Il Grifone said:

 The final nail was the slot racing craze of the late 50s/60s. With Scalextric' Tri-ang were well placed but Meccano passed it off as 'just a phase' (in the long run correctly, but too long for them).

 

 

Meccano rushed in to the slot car market with the wrong product,Circuit 24.The name should have put them off,24 referring to the voltage that the cars operated,24v,AC i believe as the motors were of a vibratory type.It was a French cottage industry suppliying them,no spares, no extra parts & power units which didn`t supply enough current.They really should have known better but were casting around desperatly trying to find products that would sell.

 

                     Ray

[rockershovel]

2 hours ago, Il Grifone said:

I was young enough to avoid the conscript army  

 

The house building was necessary because so much had been destroyed in the war. I can remember large spaces where buildings used to be. Some of the replacements were little or no better than what was there before.

 

oh, I can’t agree. Most of my parents’ friends and neighbours fled the overcrowded HMO of North and East London to houses with gardens in the New Towns of East Anglia and the NE Home Counties. They spent years tracking each other down, and meeting with cries of glee at how well they had done. 

 

Oh, and my father got a Tri-Ang layout on the billiard table in the basement...

 

[Ruffnut Thorston]

One of the products bought in by Meccano in the dark days was...

 

Roller Skates!

 

Yes, really... desperate days indeed.

 

I did write a piece on the end of Meccano, and the start of Tri-ang Hornby for the 60th anniversary of 1965...

 

That's one thing that I can still remember.

[sagaguy]

Here we are,desperation i`m afraid.One of the products that promised to be very sucessful was PlayDoh which sold well in the USA.The problem arose when the dough was made in the UK to the UK specification on ingredients which were slightly different to the US spec.It hardened in the tins so obviously it caused many complaints & lost sales.Meccano was a very honourable company to its customers before the takeover so this must have been a bitter blow.

 

                              Ray.

Edited May 24, 2020 by sagaguy

[Wolseley]

I recently bought our eldest grandson one of these:

 

[Il Grifone]

On 24/05/2020 at 19:44, rockershovel said:

 

oh, I can’t agree. Most of my parents’ friends and neighbours fled the overcrowded HMO of North and East London to houses with gardens in the New Towns of East Anglia and the NE Home Counties. They spent years tracking each other down, and meeting with cries of glee at how well they had done. 

 

Oh, and my father got a Tri-Ang layout on the billiard table in the basement...

 

 

The post war reconstruction certainly wasn't all bad (I live in a sixties example) and these were obviously some of the better ones. Tilbury is blighted by tower blocks and there is a hideous estate of reinforced concrete in Wembley (I assume it's still there) which should have been pulled down ages ago.

I would think most didn't have basements.

 

Meccano is now made in France (based on 12.7mm spacing!) and there is an Indian copy also 1/2" (Zephyr Mechanix - the parts are cheap, but I don't know if they supply direct)). A lot of Chinese copies are available, but are usually 10mm (one set I bought used both!).

 

https://zephyrtoys.com/spares

 

I wanted the Dinosaur set. SWMBO said no of course. Finding it on eBay cheapest from Toys-R-Us,  I sneaked a visit to their store in Lakeside. Only a few Meccano set and no dinosaurs! A whole wall of Lego though. They went bust not long afterwards....

http://www.meccano.com/product/p10956/10-model-set *

 

*Sorry, it came up in Italian for some reason.

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by Il Grifone

[sagaguy]

The new Meccano sets are marketed by Spinmaster a Canadian company,a pale shadow of the original sets.Real Meccano and very good quality it is,is manufactured by Ashok Banerjree in India.Most UK dealers supply these products.

 

                 have a look here,

 

                       http://members.tripod.com/Ashok_Banerjee/Meccanoville/Welcome.htm

 

              The range of parts in most of the old colours is quite amazing.Another system that is available in the UK is Mettalus,Meccno compatible,i have an unbuilt Mettalus caterpillar track set,brand new,one of these days,i`ll find a use for it.

 

                 http://www.meccanoandcomp.com/page2.htm

 

                                Ray.

[rockershovel]

3 hours ago, Il Grifone said:

 

The post war reconstruction certainly wasn't all bad (I live in a sixties example) and these were obviously some of the better ones. Tilbury is blighted by tower blocks and there is a hideous estate of reinforced concrete in Wembley (I assume it's still there) which should have been pulled down ages ago.

I would think most didn't have basements.

 

 

 

 

Post-War construction varies greatly. There were pre-fab houses still in use in Cambridge in the 1960s, my aunt lived in one in Golding Road, although they were largely gone by then. The tower block constructions of inner London were always highly unpopular with tenants, if you could avoid them, you did; one of our neighbours had married a Canadian soldier in the 1940s and emigrated, rather than be rehoused in one from her rented basement. 

 

The New Towns were a 1930s concept, really, although in great demand post-War. New Towns developed for private sale rarely included blocks of flats! By the 1960s they were mostly high-density, low-rise designs, Peterborough is a good example of a late New Town. 

 

I’d say that the mass-market housing of the 1930-1960 period was a peak in design; widely available, generally affordable, modern by the standards of the time, durable, robust and capable of subsequent updating. Basements weren’t usual; expensive to construct (particularly at a time when mechanical excavators were not generally available and haulage of the arisings, expensive and problematic), not compliant with housing regulations for accommodation, and no longer required as staff/service areas. 

 

 

Our move out of London was precipitated by my father’s premature death in the early 1960s, the Cambridge house had no basement. The layout was in the basement of our Dalston house over the shop ... with hindsight, considering the number of people it supported over the years, and the fact that my grandfather had bought a billiard table in the early 1920s it must have been a good business in its day. 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by rockershovel

[Silverfox17]

On 19/05/2020 at 01:55, sagaguy said:

 

It never ceases to amaze me how things change. The original post was old trains v new trains now it is all about Mecanno and housing estates.

 

Surely if a topic is going to change direction then a new thread should be started?  

 

Garry 

 

Ps sorry about sagaguy's header but my phone will not delete it or allow me to post on an open page. 

Edited May 26, 2020 by Silverfox17

[D9020 Nimbus]

4 hours ago, sagaguy said:

Real Meccano and very good quality it is,is manufactured by Ashok Banerjree in India.Most UK dealers supply these products.

What UK dealers exist?

[sagaguy]

More than you would think happily.

 

                   https://www.meccanoshop.co.uk/PBSCCatalog.asp?PBMInit=1

 

 

                  http://www.meccanohobby.co.uk/

 

                 http://meccanoman.co.uk/catalog/

 

There are more but a Google search will reveal more.

 

                         Ray.

[roythebus]

The place where Meccano was invented is in Calais, we went past it 8 times a day doing Routemaster sightseeing tours of Calais in 2018.

[Ruffnut Thorston]

I didn't know that Frank Hornby was in Calais when he invented Meccano...

 

 

I thought that "Mechanics Made Easy" (which was later renamed Meccano) was invented in Liverpool....

 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by Sarahagain
more added

[Colin_McLeod]

On 24/05/2020 at 10:32, Lantavian said:

 

This article explains a lot 

Business Archives Journal on Hornby Archives Number66.pdf 1.92 MB · 13 downloads

 

And Triang's owner, Lines Brothers, went bust too.

 

That report makes very interesting reading; an eye opener.

 

It's a shame the eyes of Meccano's managers were not opened. A combination of stubborn old fashion management, deaf to new ideas coupled with an unreasonably militant union lead to the (deserved?) demise of the firm.

[sagaguy]

I think Mr.Roy is having a little joke,there is a Meccano factory in Calais,it used to be owned by Marc Rebiboe.I don't know who owns it now,it may  be Spinmaster. Frank Hornby got the idea of Mechanics Made easy in Liverpool in the very early part of the last century.

 

        Ray. 

 

[sagaguy]

5 minutes ago, Colin_McLeod said:

 

That report makes very interesting reading; an eye opener.

 

It's a shame the eyes of Meccano's managers were not opened. A combination of stubborn old fashion management, deaf to new ideas coupled with an unreasonably militant union lead to the (deserved?) demise of the firm.

Roland Hornby, Frank's son was not of the calibre of his father. 

 

        Ray. 

[Silverfox17]

I ASK AGAIN, WHAT HAS B****Y MECCANO GOT TO DO WITH THIS POST ????????? 

 

Garry

[Nearholmer]

That they made toy trains and model trains from c1920-1964, becoming in the process the biggest toy/model train maker in Britain, and a significant one in France too.

 

Does that help at all?

 

Kevin

Edited May 26, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Wolseley]

In my first post mentioning Meccano, it was in connection with the longevity of Meccano versus Meccano Ltd, which, I think, could be said to have a link with the subject of the thread.  My second post was purely concerning Meccano, for which I apologise.  I made the mistake of treating a forum thread as if it were a normal conversation, where one does tend to stray from the subject of conversation from time to time.  It's as if someone made mention of BMW motorcycles in a thread about BMW cars, I suppose, clearly not a done thing.

 

Anyway, to avoid stirring up the ire of certain individuals, I shall refrain from posting anything in this forum for the foreseeable future.

[Silverfox17]

6 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

That they made toy trains and model trains from c1920-1964, becoming in the process the biggest toy/model train maker in Britain, and a significant one in France too.

 

Does that help at all?

 

Kevin

 

I know Meccano was the company that made the trains but the post was about old trains v new trains NOT about Meccano building sets or real housing estates. If I wanted to read about them I would go sites/threads about them, I dont want to be reading more and more posts about something totally irrelevant to the post heading. 

 

Garry 

[Nearholmer]

Well, don’t then.

[Silverfox17]

7 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Well, don’t then.

How can I not read it when a new post under the heading "playing with old trains v new trains" comes up and the context is totally irrelevant to the thread? 

 

Garry