Deliberately Old-Fashioned 0 Scale - Chapter 1

[F-UnitMad]

9 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

If you choose the right ones, those that run from the main via a carbon-filament lamp and a rheostat acting as a potential-divider and controller, it is possible to experience considerable risk, because the open-circuit voltage on the track is ........... mains voltage.

 

Don't. Unless you really know what you're doing.

I seem to recall, possibly in this very thread, a picture from the 1930s or so where the controller was plugged into the ceiling light pendant.

[St Enodoc]

40 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I’m sure I recall 4-SUB being three 240V 60W ES in series across the compartment. They used to suffer flash overs in the lamp holders if the bulbs got broken.

 

 

You could be right. I'm pretty certain though that the 2-BIL, with which I was involved while at Brighton, had strings of 10.

[Simond]

Certainly remember light boxes with three bulbs in series on my depot visits to the London Underground.  
 

then again, I remember standing in a pit, shouting to the LU Engineer to move “forwards a bit”, or “backwards a bit”, whilst the set was powered from the umbilicals - and my head was a foot or two from the centre-rail shoe as I inspected the disc braked prototype.

That was a few years back, probably 1985.

 

atb

Simon

 

[Hroth]

2 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

I seem to recall, possibly in this very thread, a picture from the 1930s or so where the controller was plugged into the ceiling light pendant.

 

I remember an illustration in a very old "Arthur Mees Childrens Encyclopedia" of an all-electric home. In the nursery, the children were playing while their nanny ironed some clothes.  The boy was playing with his electric train, the nanny had an electric iron.

 

Both train and iron, plus a couple of lightbulbs were being fed from a festoon of connectors dangling from an electric light pendant...

 

[Mark Carne]

2 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

I remember an illustration in a very old "Arthur Mees Childrens Encyclopedia" of an all-electric home. In the nursery, the children were playing while their nanny ironed some clothes.  The boy was playing with his electric train, the nanny had an electric iron.

 

Both train and iron, plus a couple of lightbulbs were being fed from a festoon of connectors dangling from an electric light pendant...

 

It's useful to remember the less than obvious fact, at least from an early 21st century view point, that when electricly first came to the domestic setting, there were no electric appliances. It was purely for lighting, then came thoughts of other things that could be powered by this new source of energy.

 

Mark

[sncf231e]

23 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

If you choose the right ones, those that run from the main via a carbon-filament lamp and a rheostat acting as a potential-divider and controller, it is possible to experience considerable risk, because the open-circuit voltage on the track is ........... mains voltage.

 

Don't. Unless you really know what you're doing.

I sort of knew what I was doing, Märklin "starkstrom" train set (and I do not have a cat or dog):

 

Regards

Fred

[Simond]

I wonder how many people (and pets) were electrocuted before they realised that uninsulated mains voltage toys probably were not an inspired idea.  I don’t suppose the statistics were collected in those days.

[Nearholmer]

There was a very interesting special edition of the HRCA journal a few years back, all about Hornby's one* essay in this direction, the HV Met. set. I accidentally got rid of the copy I was given, so I can't check the details, but I recall that it described how the Home Office (I think) had words with Hornby, resulting in the sets being withdrawn from sale during 1926/27 while a particularly lethal design fault in the controller was corrected, so I think that somehow a mechanism did exist for coroners' concerns to be routed to those in high places. I think the HV version did go back on sale after that, but I can't remember for how long, and the Graebe's book is a bit unclear on that point.

 

Does anyone have a copy of the relevant HRCA magazine to hand?

 

*Leaving aside the few No.2 4-4-0 electric sets.

Edited April 27, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Nearholmer]

On 26/04/2021 at 22:13, Ben B said:

It's a Mettoy set,

 

Best box art of any toy train makers, ever.

[sncf231e]

And just to show that I can also play safe:

Regards

Fred

[Nearholmer]

Brilliant.

 

Did you use a proper vintage "Eveready" battery that ran out after five minutes, and cost a week's pocket money to replace?

[GRASinBothell]

The HRCA supplement came with journal #450 in February 2010. The bit you recall was:

The Hornby O-gauge HV Metropolitan loco was manufactured between 1925 and 1929. In 1926, however, its sale in the UK was temporarily suspended in response to concerns over safety and, allegedly, following a Home Office request. Interestingly, during the time it was unavailable in the UK, the HV version could still be readily bought in foreign markets, giving those buyers a choice of HV, 4-volt or clockwork traction. Whether the HV model was produced during this time, however, or whether all the sales were old stock, has not been confirmed.

Hope that was what you wanted.

Gordon

[F-UnitMad]

9 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Best box art of any toy train makers, ever.

And most misleading, compared to what was actually in the box...??!!   

[Keith Addenbrooke]

On 26/04/2021 at 22:13, Ben B said:

 

 

I found this amusing when I bought it from the second-hand sales coach at the SVR, Hampton Loade.  It's a Mettoy set, I just love that selling point printed so boldly all over the packaging about how there's no electric shocks...

 

 

9 hours ago, sncf231e said:

And just to show that I can also play safe:

Regards

Fred

I’m not sure it looks particularly safe for the two workmen standing on a running line with trains passing either side though?

 

[Welchester]

A Google search leads to this advertisement for the Hornby HV set. It's clearly designed to be plugged into a light fitting.

 

My grandmother's house in the 60s and early 70s had electric lighting, but no sockets (and an outside privy).

[Simond]

“There are no difficulties or dangers”...

 

 

[Nearholmer]

I'm trying to recall exactly what the great danger of that innocent-looking Hornby rheostat-controller was - hopefully GRAS can refer to the HRCA magazine - I dimly recollect that the arm of the controller remained live when in the "off" position, so that if you touched it, and at the same time anything connected to the return-side of the circuit (running rails, train touching running rails etc), you experienced the full force of the mains - it being "off" created false assurance of safety. I think the re-design disconnected the arm from the supply when in the "off" position, which would have eliminated only that cause of disaster, but left plenty of others inherent in the set-up.

 

 

Edited April 28, 2021 by Nearholmer

[spikey]

12 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

... so I think that somehow a mechanism did exist for coroners' concerns to be routed to those in high places.

 

But of course.  It was simply a matter of bumping into the right chap in one's club and having a quiet word.

[Hroth]

11 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Brilliant.

 

Did you use a proper vintage "Eveready" battery that ran out after five minutes, and cost a week's pocket money to replace?

 

Though definitely NOT O gauge, my first Christmas train set was a Triang RPC set with a maroon steeplecab 0-4-0 and dummy pantograph, two green 6" coaches and a circle of Series 3 track.  Power was supplied via a P40 Battery Controller which consumed 3 EverReady  No126 battery packs at a time at a rate of knots. The first set of batteries probably didn't survive Christmas...

 

It was soon replaced by a proper mains controller!

 

 

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Welchester said:

A Google search leads to this advertisement for the Hornby HV set. It's clearly designed to be plugged into a light fitting.

 

My grandmother's house in the 60s and early 70s had electric lighting, but no sockets (and an outside privy).

 

Quote

The Latest Hornby Thrill

 

A coded message, perhaps?

 

[Ben B]

I knew someone many years ago who did safety testing of toys (flammability tests and sewn-thread strength on teddy bears and the like)- I can't imagine what they'd think of a train set that could electrocute you as an 'acceptable' risk of playing.  Maybe the upper-middle classes buying such sets for their offspring back in the day considered it would be character building, give little Johnny the required backbone and moral fibre to go climb mountains or pacify foreign armies in his later life, should he survive recreating the 8.10 to London   

[Edwardian]

1 minute ago, Ben B said:

I knew someone many years ago who did safety testing of toys (flammability tests and sewn-thread strength on teddy bears and the like)- I can't imagine what they'd think of a train set that could electrocute you as an 'acceptable' risk of playing.  Maybe the upper-middle classes buying such sets for their offspring back in the day considered it would be character building, give little Johnny the required backbone and moral fibre to go climb mountains or pacify foreign armies in his later life, should he survive recreating the 8.10 to London   

 

As I would frequently remark to my children as they were growing up, pain and dismemberment is how we learn.  

[Hroth]

14 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

As I would frequently remark to my children as they were growing up, pain and dismemberment is how we learn.  

 

A  true and authentic Edwardian paterfamilias speaks!

 

"A dozen thrashings a day at school never did me any harm!!!"

 

 

 

[Compound2632]

28 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

pain and dismemberment is how we learn.  

 

As a species. As individuals, physical dismemberment can inhibit learning, at least on a timescale long enough to be useful. But maybe you mean mental processes, as in being obliged to take apart a received idea in the light of new evidence and put it together in a new and better way. In which case I'm all for it. Applies to kits to, so long as the parts can be de-bonded.

Edited April 28, 2021 by Compound2632

[Edwardian]

10 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

As a species. As individuals, physical dismemberment can inhibit learning, at least on a timescale long enough to be useful. But maybe you mean mental processes, as in being obliged to take apart a received idea in the light of new evidence and put it together in a new and better way. In which case I'm all for it. Applies to kits to, so long as the parts can be de-bonded.

 

Afraid I'm of the 'don't come running to me when you've crushed both your knees' school of parenthood. 

 

Essential preparation of for the School of Hard Knocks. 

 

EDIT: Sorry, I realise I thought I was posting on the Deliberately Old-fashioned Opinions topic. 

Edited April 28, 2021 by Edwardian