Mettoy and Chad Valley

[railroadbill]

 

OK, this is a collectable/vintage Christmas jumper as it were.  Playcraft obviously couldn't use Thomas the Tank Engine.... 

Sorry.

 

 

[TheSignalEngineer]

11 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

I've seen some photos of this recently; possibly on RM Web. I wonder if it was the only rail-fed toy manufacturer?

I don't think the factory itself was rail served, the siding adjacent to it went into the Corporation yard further down Rose Road. They certainly had deliveries of timber to the goods yard and old station.

[Fat Controller]

1 hour ago, railroadbill said:

 

OK, this is a collectable/vintage Christmas jumper as it were.  Playcraft obviously couldn't use Thomas the Tank Engine.... 

Sorry.

 

 

The photo showed piles of wooden cases, but also mineral wagons loaded with scrap.

[Nearholmer]

6 hours ago, railroadbill said:

Wonder how long the siding was in use.

Into the 1960s, possibly right up to the break-up of the Lines group in 1971. From what I can work out the traffic was enough to merit two goods trips each day. I think the branch was officially closed in 1975 after a period of being effectively disused.

[Nearholmer]

That clown-faced loco has reminded me that we had that train and ‘miles’ of that plastic track around the place when I was a boy. It must have officially belonged to my youngest brother I think, he being the owner of a succession of plastic trains at that time, including the Meccano 0 gauge Percy set, whereas I was official custodian of most of the Hornby Dublo, the secondhand Hornby tinplate 0 and, for a very short and glorious period, the Bassett Lowke Stanier 2-6-4T which was too good for boys to play with on the carpet and went to a ‘proper collector’.

 

From what I recall, the red and yellow track, and especially the bridges, were mostly used for racing cars down the stairs - we must have found some diecasts that fitted the track.

 

Major nostalgia-jog!

[railroadbill]

14 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

That clown-faced loco has reminded me that we had that train and ‘miles’ of that plastic track around the place when I was a boy. It must have officially belonged to my youngest brother I think, he being the owner of a succession of plastic trains at that time, including the Meccano 0 gauge Percy set, whereas I was official custodian of most of the Hornby Dublo, the secondhand Hornby tinplate 0 and, for a very short and glorious period, the Bassett Lowke Stanier 2-6-4T which was too good for boys to play with on the carpet and went to a ‘proper collector’.

 

From what I recall, the red and yellow track, and especially the bridges, were mostly used for racing cars down the stairs - we must have found some diecasts that fitted the track.

 

Major nostalgia-jog!

 

I can tick the Hornby tinplate o gauge clockwork, we had a black 0-4-0 tank (No 40?) and a green tender loco (No. 51?) , some trucks and 4 wheel maroon coaches. One thing I vaguely remember is that the goods brake van had opening doors with working door handles that turned to lock them. 

I can also tick  Hornby Dublo 3 rail which replaced the O gauge tinplate. You could control this remotely so a great step forwards...

Certainly didn't have a Bassett Lowke Stanier 2-6-4T, a rather nice model, but some years ago I had a friend with a large coarse scale 3 rail o gauge layout and he had one of those, along with various other goodies.  Have to see if I have any pictures of it.

Going back to young childhood times, my grandmother had some Lone Star push along stuff for my cousins and I to play with when we went to visit.

 

My best idea for keeping the grandchildren amused train wise is LGB in the garden, which turned out to be very engaging for them! Making stations out of Lego kept them out of mischief as well...plus favourite soft toys could go for a train ride.

 

ps the repurposing of yellow track for down the stairs model car racing sounds pretty well inevitable..

 

[Nearholmer]

30 minutes ago, railroadbill said:

One thing I vaguely remember is that the goods brake van had opening doors with working door handles that turned to lock them. 

 

Yes, until the No.50 brake van in the late 1950s, they were like that, I'd show a picture of one if mine they werent packed away at the moment.

 

The other "operating feature" that we devised was to slide the roofs of the vans along, allowing access to the interior so that assorted knights in armour, cowboys etc could be put inside. Until I regressed to collecting old tinplate trains, I had it fixed in my mind that Hornby intended the roofs to slide, but in fact they didn't, and doing it exposes all sorts of sharp edges, so its a wonder we never cut ourselves. Certainly got a few wounds from the tinplate track though!

 

We had stacks of Lone Star pushalong too, and used to build big layouts all over the dining table, 

 

I make it sound as if we were lavished with toys, and in a way we were, but they were nearly all secondhand from jumble sales or elsewhere. The 0 gauge was all from the younger of our uncles, given to us when he "grew out of it" and bought his first Velocette, which incidentally he still owns (along with several others) and very occasionally rides, which slightly frightens me given his age now.

 

Better get back to Mettoy and CV though ......

Edited December 15, 2022 by Nearholmer

[Steamport Southport]

On 14/12/2022 at 15:46, GoingUnderground said:

Rather OT I'll admit,  the late Kenneth Horne, famous to my generation for being the "straight" man on the BBC Radio comedy series "Beyond our Ken" and "Round the Horne" was the chairman of Chad Valley.

 

Possibly irrelevant, but ISTR reading a book about Kenneth Williams (may have been an autobiography).

 

In it he said that Kenneth Horne could pick and choose what comedy to do as he had his own personal fortune. He was virtually doing the comedy as a hobby.

 

Bit of film footage here related to Chad Valley and Mr Horne.

 

https://www.macearchive.org/films/midlands-news-24041957-kenneth-horne-solihull