Hornby Railways Catalogue and Box Art - An Advent Calendar Lookback

[Legend]

13 hours ago, LNWR18901910 said:

Day 16

The way of the future...or the way of the past, more like. This was the early days of photo editing, but it looks pretty impressive for its time, I suppose. Let's travel back to the eighties when you're slapping high-fives with Pee-Wee Herman, travelling in time and space with Doctor Who, jamming to Kylie Minogue, eating a bowlful of Mr T cereal, playing on your NES games console, and - wait, all that's before my time, so let's look at this.

 

This APT was supposed to be the way of the future and screams "Modern Train, people!" The APT is at an angle because of the curve and it looks very impressive at certain angles. At first impression, it looks like it's going over itself or maybe a railway bridge the other class member is going under. And what's this? 150 MPH Scale Speed? Surely it can't be that insanely faster or you'll need a time machine attachment to it to make it go faster at 88mph! On a model, it's kinda nice (thanks for bringing it back again, Hornby, kudos to you and all), but in real-life, well...from what I heard, it was a failed experiment that tried hard but failed miserably. We all know why...

 

The BR Class 43 HST was the real way of the future even if it didn't grow in bunches on trees in the jungle nor did they sometimes secretly contain killer spiders when shipped overseas. I'm not what you call a modern diesel expert, but I'll leave you with some 80s colours. Stare at them long enough and you'll grow a mullet.

 

N/B: Special thanks to those who liked and agreed with my last post and special thanks to Nearholmer and Steamport Southport for sharing some facts and research, I agree with you guys. Sorry I didn't have much to say on this one but I will on the next advent post - not long until Christmas! How about that? Anyway, see you tomorrow with another post!

 Yes what an image . 

 

APT first announced in the 1980 Catalogue RyanN91 posted yesterday  and it was actually in the shops in September of that year . I remember first seeing it in the window of a fantastic toy shop that had a hobby dept in Berwick Upon Tweed . It was the initial yellow nosed version in a trainset . The one with Black windscreens appeared as a train pack from 81 as LNWR18901910 has pictured

 

I was travelling to Glasgow Tech at the time from Paisley and used to pass the real thing at Shields Road depot in Glasgow .  I remember the Dec 81 launch of the real thing . I think it was the coldest winter since 62/63 I don't think the temp got above 0 from December until Feb , snow on the ground ,and this was when BR chose to launch service . As we all now know the launch was a disaster and regrettably the WCML didn't get tilting trains until the Pendolino. Even then these weren't as fast as the APT which I think did achieve 155mph. 

 

I didn't buy one at the time but always regretted it . When DJM announced he was making one I was interested but wasn't impressed by it being announced in N then OO then varying lengths . All seemed a bit "back of fag packet " planning . It did whet my appetite and so I picked one up on eBay  and its great running watching it snake round railway . Question is should I go for the new one but I think the reality is I'm re capturing the 80s and not the train itself , so perhaps not . 

[BernardTPM]

APT set the British Rail speed record at 162mph in 1979. It was reintroduced into limited serive in 1984 when I was fortunate enough to ride on it; something I'll always remember.

[No Decorum]

18 minutes ago, BernardTPM said:

APT set the British Rail speed record at 162mph in 1979. It was reintroduced into limited serive in 1984 when I was fortunate enough to ride on it; something I'll always remember.

Lucky! Something engraved on my memory was being on a Pendo on a left-hand curve when another Pendo passed and I was looking at its roof. Gone so quickly that even the button on a camera held ready couldn’t be pressed in time. I was very lucky to be looking out of the window at the right moment.

 

I wonder how the APT would have worked in service. We are told that the Pendo isn’t allowed to go faster than 125 because, above that speed, signals can’t be observed. The plan was to have cab displays and balises on the track but the money ran out once the WCML had been upgraded.

[Nearholmer]

9 minutes ago, No Decorum said:

The plan was to have cab displays and balises on the track but the money ran out once the WCML had been upgraded.

 

There's more to that tale than is generally understood too. 

[No Decorum]

4 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

There's more to that tale than is generally understood too. 

I’m sure there is. Ignoring the question of whether the APT could have been got to work, if it could have been got to work, we would have had a world beater all those years ago with all the benefits that would have had for the country. Thanks to announcing de-nationalisation privatisation in advance, orders for rolling stock dried up, British train manufacturing dried up and firms collapsed and our stuff is now designed and in some cases built abroad too. If we don’t feel a little humiliated, we should! 

[LNWR18901910]

Day 17

This is the Night Mail crossing the border, bringing the cheque with the postal order...you all know how that goes.

 

This was back in the days when mail trains were a thing, but by the new Millennium, they were already gone and buried in the depths of fiction and history. Nowadays, it's all road haulage and air mail. Is anyone captivated by the romantic image of airline pilots and burly truckers? That's nothing comparedto the engine drivers of yesteryear.

 

The fast pace of the mail train shows the distance of the aptly-named train rushing by. Is this the early hours of the morning or are we on some alien planet with the lavender sky? It looks like somebody made the artwork but added photgraphs all around it. The Night Mail Express - signed, sealed and delivered by Hornby Railways. You know what else is signed, sealed and delivered? The catalogue cover - maybe that is a teaser for the set in question.

 

N.B: Special thanks to those who liked and commented on the last one, ta very much! Thanks to Nearholmer, Legend and Steamport Southport for sharing information, facts and memories. I will be back tomorrow with another in-depth review, bye for now!

[Nearholmer]

That is a nice set. They've produced it in multiple versions, but I think this one is the best, because the loco captures the power and dignity of the real thing, whereas some have had frankly risible locos.

 

Now I will court controversy: even this version isn't a patch on a Hornby Dublo one. I don't know whether they ever put the TPO in a train-set, I don't think they did, but it was a very popular "add on" and by golly is a heavy "Duchess of Atholl" plus a few tin coaches and a TPO a thing to be reckoned with.

 

Here is my daughter testing the play value a few years back - it kept her entertained for a good half an hour!

 

Edited December 17, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Steamport Southport]

Still had TPOs when I was working for RM. I think it stopped about 2004.

 

One of the final nails in the coffin was when there was three trains full of mail stuck south of Crewe and RM switched to road as it was happening all the time. You could wait. But not when you had thousands of people doing nothing waiting for bags of mail. Not long after it was all coming by road.

 

That was this era.

 

 

https://www.hattons.co.uk/247921/hornby_r1049_u02_night_mail_express_train_set_with_class_47_loco_2_coaches_in_virgin_livery_plu/stockdetail.aspx

 

I don't think there was any ex LMS Royal Mail TPOs around then though....

 

 

Jason

[BernardTPM]

My early 1960s R23 with a 4 wheel version I cut down sometime around 1970, though more recently fitted with the axleguard units from the LMS Milk/Sausage van.

 

Dating back to 1955, R23 shared the roof moulding with R21/R22 (7" coach in crimson/cream or green) and started out in crimson but later, probably after the transition to styrene, was moulded in maroon. Mk.2 couplings were replaced by the Mk.3 type and then the axleboxes were changed to closed. From 1969 it was produced in blue/grey until replaced by a blue/grey version of the Transcontinental mail coach in 1974.

The version in the set featured first appeared in 1978 and had a completely new method of collecting and depositing the mailbags that, like the prototype, worked on the same side. The coach is based on a 60 foot LMS design. There was one 57 foot LMS TPO built, though that didn't have the staff toilet.

Playcraft also produced a working TPO based on a Mk.1 design.

Edited December 18, 2020 by BernardTPM

[Legend]

14 hours ago, LNWR18901910 said:

Day 17

This is the Night Mail crossing the border, bringing the cheque with the postal order...you all know how that goes.

 

This was back in the days when mail trains were a thing, but by the new Millennium, they were already gone and buried in the depths of fiction and history. Nowadays, it's all road haulage and air mail. Is anyone captivated by the romantic image of airline pilots and burly truckers? That's nothing comparedto the engine drivers of yesteryear.

 

The fast pace of the mail train shows the distance of the aptly-named train rushing by. Is this the early hours of the morning or are we on some alien planet with the lavender sky? It looks like somebody made the artwork but added photgraphs all around it. The Night Mail Express - signed, sealed and delivered by Hornby Railways. You know what else is signed, sealed and delivered? The catalogue cover - maybe that is a teaser for the set in question.

 

N.B: Special thanks to those who liked and commented on the last one, ta very much! Thanks to Nearholmer, Legend and Steamport Southport for sharing information, facts and memories. I will be back tomorrow with another in-depth review, bye for now!

 

It is disheartening  when you think "och that ones pretty recent"  and then you find out it was near enough 29 years ago!   1992. Aaargh half a lifetime for me . 

 

I remember the annual January catalogue hunt taking me to Beatties that then had a shop in Glasgow S Enoch Square . I don't think it lasted long . But that's about it for this catalogue. No great memories about it at all  . I think it came from a pretty bland period in Hornby's existence . A lot of the catalogues in that period seem to have centered around A3s/A4s/Kings/ Duchess / Princess/Battle of Britain  in different colour schemes each year , but that was about it. Nothing new . The catalogues 35th-43rd editions all looked pretty much the same (the exception being edition 40 with the Flying Scotsman in Landscape format , but even  then contents were still pretty consistent). Not the great layouts seen in 1980 or 74 editions we have covered . Pretty lazy marketing . No sense of excitement for me at all . 

 

The set looks pretty neat and I'd be delighted to get that as a Christmas present now . The Duchess finally got the correct lining and the coaches in BR Maroon look very tidy too . I like the darkening sky and the blurry ballast in front giving the impression of the train speeding into the night. Very dramatic

 

 

Edited December 18, 2020 by Legend

[Nearholmer]

27 minutes ago, Legend said:

I like the darkening sky and the blurry ballast in front giving the impression of the train speeding into the night. Very dramatic

The box graphic is really good, and unusual in that the loco isn’t given centre-stage.

 

Mind you, I couldn’t work out whether it was blurry ballast or a planked wooden floor that the train-set had been laid on. Maybe that ambiguity is intentional.

 

Dark thought: good job they never did this set with a Class 40 plus a load of little plastic villains, an old army truck and a land rover.

[Hroth]

The worst Hornby Railways Mail Express train sets have been the fairly recent ones that came with 0-4-0 or 0-6-0 locos, There has been at least a "GWR"set with a 101 tank, and an LMS coloured one with a "Jinty".  The Thomas set with Percy doing the honours was equally daft, though probably canonical within the television series.

 

3 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Dark thought: good job they never did this set with a Class 40 plus a load of little plastic villains, an old army truck and a land rover.

 

A good thing they didn't.  Remember the furore over the exhibition diorama/BRM front cover+article modelling that event?

[Steamport Southport]

Apart from the family and friends of the driver I don't see how anyone could really be offended sixty odd years later. It's ancient history.

 

We all know the robbers were despicable, one in particular who coshed the driver, but the rest were just a bunch of crooks that were bit part players. They're all long dead. Just don't reinvent them as some kind of Robin Hood characters. None of the films have as far as I know. The one about Biggs depicted him as a wife beating coward who had hardly any part in it and was totally inept at doing what he was meant to do and provide a driver who could drive a diesel.

 

Just my opinion I'm not wanting to start a debate. YMMV.

 

 

Airfix did a Wild West Train Robbery set. The train robbers in the 19th century were far more obnoxious than the 1960s lot. They often killed people. Usually the guards. But we enjoy watching westerns such as Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid without any complaints....

 

 

 

Now that's a train set!

 

http://www.airfixrailways.co.uk/ARSwildWestAdvSet.htm

 

http://www.airfixrailways.co.uk/ARSwildWestAdvSetC.htm

 

 

Jason

Edited December 18, 2020 by Steamport Southport

[Nearholmer]

8 hours ago, Hroth said:

The Thomas set with Percy doing the honours was equally daft, though probably canonical within the television series.

 

It canonical with the TV, but I don't think with the books, although 50+ years is plenty enough time in which to forget such details. 

 

By an odd quirk, I had the Japanese N-gauge version of the Percy and the mail train set for years. Bought to run round a birthday cake, with the idea of re-using the working parts, which are of superb quality, for H0e. Sold it earlier this year during a clear-out of H0e stuff that had lain untouched for at least a decade.

 

PS: Anyone got one of those Wild west sets to give away?

 

 

Edited December 18, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Butler Henderson]

That Airfix set was  made by Kader so the whole later muddle of brands and who made what for who with whatever tooling started out at the very beginning.

[BernardTPM]

The wild west coaches even have Bachmann moulded in underneath them, not Airfix.

Edited December 18, 2020 by BernardTPM

[Steamport Southport]

I always wanted one.

 

There were two locomotives Jupiter and Union Pacific 119.

 

http://www.airfixrailways.co.uk/No119.htm

 

The two present at The Golden Spike.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_spike

 

I have a feeling the models were originally made for the 1976 US Bicentennial and repackaged for the UK market. Something to go with your Airfix Cowboys and Indians, Wagon Train and Seventh Cavalry figures.

 

 

Jason

[Legend]

Meanwhile back at Triang Hornby here’s a page I stared at incessantly  back from the 71 catalogue . I so wanted Princess Elizabeth which would be my first large steam locos , after my Brush type 2, Jinty, AL1 and diesel Shunter . It duly turned up as a Christmas present that year .  The LMS seem to be well represented at Dundee which would have been a bit of a surprise 

Edited December 18, 2020 by Legend

[Hroth]

A curious selection.  At least the "LMS" locos might have been seen together, though Tri-ang Hornby could have painted the 3F in its usual black, but the last GWR Achilles* class was withdrawn for scrapping in 1915, whilst the first Hall class didn't appear until 1928....  Still, we were fairly easily satisfied back then!

 

Its interesting that the catalogue description includes the current draw, something that might be provided with the current crop of DCC Ready locos. 

 

* And the same basic model (sans magnadhesion and the XT60 motor) was still in the 2020 catalogue and first appeared as R354 in the 1961 catalogue...

[LNWR18901910]

Day 18

I hope I'm not too late with this one, but here we go!

 

For those of you who remember Hornby's T9, this was when it was introduced. I was 18 at the time. In my West Midlands Railway thread, you will see and recall how I used one to make into my Freelance 2P. This is the catalogue I once read. This example is seen puffing through the countryside (no huge coupling seen here). The effects of smoke and steam used is to give the illusion of what is real and what is not.

 

It's like the whole locomotive is coming toward you without you getting run over. Yeah, it shows how times have changed and how more and more RTR Pre-Grouping models are coming into the market. The only setback - the price. Wait a few years and get it for less (I know I did).

 

N.B: Special thaks to those who liked and commented on my last post and thanks to Steamport Southport, Legend and the rest of you for sharing more memories and facts. Hopefully, I will be on time with another Advent post and I will NOT leave it late like this one. See you tomorrow!

[RyanN91]

1980 Catalogue Cover.  introducing the 1980's decade. The family engaging with Hornby.  How it all begins...

[RyanN91]

1983: and the foldaway table very nice layout. and the last year of the APT-P train set.

[RyanN91]

Taken from the 1985 catalogue These gems the Operating tipper set and operating conveyor set.  1986 Catalogue featuring the BR Class 43 HST and BR MK3 coach fold out on the back cover! , with a mention that  each model introduced in each years will be varied in future years but in years to come they will reintroduce previous models in varies liveries etc, although this 1986 catalogue 1987 was the last time a BR Class 43 HST in IC Executive livery would be issued until 2014 but arrived in 2015!  1983 Layout and the introduction of the Hornby set of 3 Pylons with a fascinating insight into the national grid! 1988 Catalogue featuring a BR Class 90, BR Class 142 Pacer Railbus, and the introduced Overhead Power supply system. 

Edited December 19, 2020 by RyanN91
Pacer RailBus BR Class 142

[RyanN91]

1991 Catalogue cover featuring the new Intercity 225 Train Set. 1991 Catalogue Layout, Overhead Power Supply system featuring the box and packaging!,  Thomas and Friends "PlayTrains" Clockwork Train Sets ( where it all started for me the very moment was photographed! When I became a Ferroequinologist  which was on Christmas Day 1993 myself aged 2 featuring what is previous mentioned Also my Mr. Blobby soft toy! very 1993! and Christmas Day 1996 aged 5 very again 1990s My first Hornby Electric Train set R841 The Industrial Freight Electric Train Set! That was taken about 5:30 Am as I couldn't sleep! ) 

[Legend]

9 hours ago, RyanN91 said:

1991 Catalogue cover featuring the new Intercity 225 Train Set. 1991 Catalogue Layout, Overhead Power Supply system featuring the box and packaging!,  Thomas and Friends "PlayTrains" Clockwork Train Sets ( where it all started for me the very moment was photographed! When I became a Ferroequinologist  which was on Christmas Day 1993 myself aged 2 featuring what is previous mentioned Also my Mr. Blobby soft toy! very 1993! and Christmas Day 1996 aged 5 very again 1990s My first Hornby Electric Train set R841 The Industrial Freight Electric Train Set! That was taken about 5:30 Am as I couldn't sleep! ) 

Great  series of pics  Ryan .  Yes I reckon I’ve got a 28 year start on you . In my case it was running down stairs to find a Triang Freightmaster set already laid out on dining room table . But no matter the generations , it’s still pure joy . It’s as simple as that . Merry Christmas !