Deliberately Old-Fashioned 0-Gauge, Chapter 2

[goldfish]

12 hours ago, Donw said:

If you want to run all sorts of standards together your best bet is to use fairly deep rails and universal points.  Unfortunately I dont know anyone who makes them. SM32 track may be an option putting extra sleepers between the supplied ones can improve the look. The turnouts will take quit coarse wheels but finescale wheels can be a problem.

 

Unfortunately Peco SM32 track is not fully compatible with Hornby clockwork, and no manufacturer is currently producing universal points.

[Metropolitan H]

2 hours ago, goldfish said:

 

Unfortunately Peco SM32 track is not fully compatible with Hornby clockwork, and no manufacturer is currently producing universal points.

In my experience the Atlas track and turnouts are near universal - derailments are not unknown, but normally traceable to human error!

 

My "Hornby" clockwork locos, a No.1 Special 0-4-0 with tender and an early 1950s LNER 0-4-0T are both happy running on the Atlas track and turnouts - as is the Lionel "Kinlet Hall" 4-6-0. I believe the Atlas (American) track standards are intended to be compatible withmuch older - and coarser - Lionel stock, as well as accepting the modern 28mm BtoB UK coarse wheelsets on the C12 etc.

 

Regards

Chris H

 

P.S. - We should also remember the modern Lionel "O" gauge 3-rail "Fasttrack" is also very tolerant of different Coarse scale wheelsets, and comes comes complete with ready formed rugged ballast! But do remember:

- In American parlance "O-54" refers to 27 inch radius (54 inch diameter circle) and so on.

- Lionel also do similar "S" gauge two rail track and HO two rail track - with all the track listed together on their website! 

 

Regards

Chris H

Edited November 10, 2023 by Metropolitan H

[BlueLightning]

Since we're all posting our old fashioned 0 gauge, we've got a single piece in the shop, which is display only (unless someone makes a good offer I guess 😛)

 

 

A Hornby number 2 special tank, in rather good condition, that I can date quite accurately

 

Gary

[Porkscratching]

I've had this old chap knocking about in the spares dept for a few years, it's just the body, never had the mech. I was going to manufacture a chassis of some kind for it, and likely have some wheels "that'd do" in the junk pile. One of those projects that needs a "round tuit" to complete 😁

[John R Smith]

26 minutes ago, Porkscratching said:

I've had this old chap knocking about in the spares dept for a few years, it's just the body, never had the mech.

 

This body is one of the later LMS versions, from 1937-39. It was an electric model, not clockwork - notice no key winder hole, the semi-circular cutouts in the running plate valence, and the hole in the smokebox door for the bulb-holder. It looks to be in nice condition!

 

 

Edited November 10, 2023 by John R Smith

[Porkscratching]

24 minutes ago, John R Smith said:

 

This body is one of the later LMS versions, from 1937-39. It was an electric model, not clockwork - notice no key winder hole, the semi-circular cutouts in the running plate valence, and the hole in the smokebox door for the bulb-holder. It looks to be in nice condition!

 

 

Pre war then, interesting... I always assumed it was a 3 rail electric, as you say, no keyhole! 

I've got a plain, no light bulb, smokebox door from a clockwork version I was originally going to swap for the empty light bulb hole one if I did something with it. 

I'd just kind of thought it was probably from the 50s, good to now know a more specific date from someone who knows 👍.. as you say it's in pretty good nick considering. 

[Nearholmer]

The Hornby 0 locomotive range post-war was very limited in comparison with pre-war: 0-4-0T and 0-4-0 tender engines. They got into the starting blocks ready to reintroduce some of the bigger locos in 1948/49, but never did.

[Ben B]

 

Whilst we're showing tank engines... I gather this nice little machine is Bing, and I'm not sure on when it was made. Nice quality mechanism on it, really it's just missing coupling rods. It's a characterfull engine, when I saw it on eBay I had to get it :)

 

 

It joins this one, which has a rather lighter livery, and I'd guess is a more modern (relatively speaking) take by Bing on the 0-4-0 tank. Again, no coupling rods, but I slightly prefer it over the chunky Hornby tank loco.

[Ben B]

7 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

The Hornby 0 locomotive range post-war was very limited in comparison with pre-war: 0-4-0T and 0-4-0 tender engines. They got into the starting blocks ready to reintroduce some of the bigger locos in 1948/49, but never did.

 

I'd assume that's because of the rise of 00 in the decade after the War? It's a shame- the 0 gauge 0-4-0's are nice (I have a lovely BR black-liveried tender loco), but the quartet of 4-4-0 tender locomotives -the SR machine in particular- were just wonderful looking things, properly blurring the line between toy and model.

[Donw]

48/49 there was rationing and supplies of materials were difficult so maybe they held back. I think it must have been 53when I received a new Hornby set with a blue 0-4-0T

 

Don

[Nearholmer]

Yes, material shortages. I also wonder whether the export drive that was underway somehow favoured Dublo, maybe higher earnings could be had that way from what material was available. Anyway, by the time materials were available, it was very clear that the future wasn’t in 0.

 

No adverts for 0 gauge at the time, and the pipe-smoking Dublo Dad still looked quite young:

 

 

I found this in the same edition, a control panel/cockpit of the finest old-fashioned kind:

 

The author says that he managed to use sixty yards of wire to control his “fairly small” Dublo layout!

 

One thing I always wonder about postwar Hornby 0 is why they created the No.50 range of wagons. I’m glad they did, because they provide a great resource for layouts like mine c60 years later. They’re a bit under-sized, but look the part, come in a wide variety, and oodles have survived in barely-played-with, and even NOS, condition. A strange ‘last hurrah’ of printed tin 0, when the world was very rapidly turning 00 and plastic. Their ‘target audience’ for 0 by this time was very clearly boys of c5-13 years old, no attempt being made to provide product that would carry interest forward beyond that, so maybe wagons were just the right price as birthday and Christmas presents from aunties and uncles.

 

I always like finding inscriptions on boxes. Who was Hana? Which Kevin (not this one) received it?

 

 

Who was the very orderly recipient of this wagon from Agnes (he numbered all his stock into some sort of register too, both under the vehicles and on the exterior of the boxes)?

 

 

 

Edited November 11, 2023 by Nearholmer

[St Enodoc]

44 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

a control panel/cockpit of the finest old-fashioned kind:

Wonderful!

 

44 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Who was the very orderly recipient of this wagon from Agnes

Dunno but he seems to have used Stephen's Blue-Black ink.

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

a control panel/cockpit of the finest old-fashioned kind:

 

One almost imagines the comment "Bomb Doors Open!"

[Porkscratching]

The chap with the big control panel set up looks to have been a likely regular at those funny little shops in Tottenham Court Road that used to flog lots of weird and interesting ex-WD gear.. 

[Nearholmer]

Bill and George are in reflective mood this morning, getting ready to stand to attention in front of the carriage where the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day, of the eleventh month decision was signed into being.

 

The local history group for the town where I grew up has been posting photos of the 1914 volunteers from the village on the next hill along today. On 7th September 1914, 27 young men from a village with a total population of  c2800 departed to Kitchener’s Army, getting their first rides in motor cars, because the local “big knobs” sent their  chauffeurs to ferry the lads from the village square to the station a couple of miles away, the whole scene captured by a photographer from the upper story of the village shop. A third of them never came back, and that sort of toll was repeated through the entire conflict. Very poignant, because the names are exactly the same family names that were familiar at school.

 

It all poses so very many questions.

[Hroth]

Grand-Uncles* from both sides of my family never returned from the Western Front.  One died in 1915, the other in 1918.  My maternal Grandmother never forgave the Germans.

 

This morning, I remembered both of them. Tomorrow I'll remember them again.

 

* I think thats the correct word for my grandmothers brothers.

 

[Porkscratching]

I remember as a kid there was a "legend" going round at school that WW1 could have easily been stopped before it actually kicked off, but as the highly complex German Railway mobilisation plans had been set in motion it was too much agro to cancel, so they went ahead and "did it" anyway... 

[Hroth]

14 minutes ago, Porkscratching said:

I remember as a kid there was a "legend" going round at school that WW1 could have easily been stopped before it actually kicked off, but as the highly complex German Railway mobilisation plans had been set in motion it was too much agro to cancel, so they went ahead and "did it" anyway... 

 

War planning for all the European powers revolved around railway timetables for moving recruits to mobilisation centres and army formations to the fronts.  Once kicked off, even a pause would cause an almighty snarl-up and if a single country did that, they would be "victims" to those who didn't pause.

 

So once started it was unstoppable.

 

We see the same problem today with trains out of place after strikes...

 

[Porkscratching]

Another one I have that I was curious about, it seems unusual in having no connecting rods,( or outside cylinders) and never has had. Can't 100% guarantee the mech is original to the body but I'd be fairly certain that it is. Wondering if the knowledgeable folk have any ideas? 

[Annie]

44 minutes ago, Porkscratching said:

Another one I have that I was curious about, it seems unusual in having no connecting rods,( or outside cylinders) and never has had. Can't 100% guarantee the mech is original to the body but I'd be fairly certain that it is. Wondering if the knowledgeable folk have any ideas? 

It is a real Hornby 'clocker' and they were made like that.  I used to have one, - only I can't remember now what it was that Hornby called it in their catalogues.

[Nearholmer]

I’ll look it up once I get home, but I think it’s kosher, because there was a lower-spec variant that didn’t have the rods and cylinders, No.0 IIRC, but I thought that didn’t have reverse - maybe it got reverse in the late 1930s.

 

Correction: M3 type, and it did have reverse. The bodywork was adopted for the postwar ones with cylinders that are more familiar. http://www.binnsroad.co.uk/railways/hornbyuk/locos/m3tank/index.html Looks as if yours is 1932-36 period.

 

I’m no expert on Hornby stuff, which is a huge and complicated subject; I’ve picked up some knowledge of the things I like along the way, but refer to the big fat book when in doubt.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 11, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Porkscratching]

That's great, many thanks for the Intel 👍

.. it's another one that when I got it I just assumed it was circa 1950s, I've got a few of the similar but definitely post war 4 wheel locos but it's nice to have a couple of proper "old uns". 

Funnily enough the LNER one above runs better than any of the later ones I've got. 

[Artless Bodger]

7 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Who was Hana?

If my family is anything to go by it is Nana, my grandmother on my mother's side was Nana, on Dad's it was always Granny (Gran when I was older).

 

Great stuff all of this, I never had 0, nor Hornby Dublo, Grandad (mother's side) bought me my first trainset when I was not quite 4, a Tri-ang clockwork 0-6-0 saddle tank and 2 coaches. A friend had Hornby 0, I remember the three rail and a lamp in the front (didn't know it was the smokebox door at that age). A later school friend had Hornby 00 three rail, I used to feel a bit second class as his trains were metal and mine were plastic. Such was life aged about 6!

[Nearholmer]

1 minute ago, Artless Bodger said:

If my family is anything to go by it is Nana

Ah, so it is; all makes sense now, in that I wondered why it was a lower case ‘h’.

 

My favourite grandmother was always called ‘Granny Watcheer’, because apparently she used to call out ‘Watcheer!’ to people she knew as she cycled by.

[Metropolitan H]

Now you've got on to the Hornby "Post-War" 0-4-0(T)s. here are a few pictures of my pair.

 

First we have the LNER 460, clearly marked "Type 101" on the bunker rear. This was bought NEW, for a very young me, by my grandparents, from a shop in Peterborough circa 1953 (?) as part of a set - with two 4-wheel LNER coaches and matching passenger brake, along with an oval of track. It remained - little used or abused - at 680 Lincoln Road, New England (a GNR built house) till I visited my uncle and aunt there in spring / summer 1967, on my then new BSA D10 Bantam, when the train set moved to our home in Bracknell - wrapped in a waterproof groundsheet on the rear carrier!

 

This loco doesn't get a lot of use, but has always been a strong runner - with the ability to pull its train for a long duration, reasonably fast but not overly so.

 

 

 

The other one is a later "BR lined Black" version - not sure of the date as it was bought second-hand circa 2013. The lettering on the bunker rear tells us that this is a "Type 40" - altough I can't see any real difference from the "Type 101" apart from the livery? While the body is in very good condition and the rods are still rust free, it was a great disappointment in operation with a much weaker spring - noticeably shorter runs with lighter trains.

 

This loco has since been fitted with an ETS 3-rail electric mechanism - and a form of brass petticoat to hide the daylight which was otherwise apparent where the loco frames should be! It is now a very sure footed and powerful steady runner.

 

 

 

My other Hornby 0-4-0 is a pre-WW2 "No.1 Special", received in a very poorly condition circa 2018, as a gift from a friend following the death of her husband - he had it second-hand as a teenager (circa 1960), but never got round to restoring it. I have had it restored professionally and it runs well, but needs more "running-in".

 

 

Regards

Chris H

 

P.S.

 

Despite the "No.1 Special being fitted with the correct (Chunky coarse) driving wheels, it runs smoothly through the Atlas turnouts - as do both the 0-4-0Ts.

 

CH

Edited November 11, 2023 by Metropolitan H
Added P.S.