What's running under your Christmas tree this year?

[Hroth]

Albert was interested in engineering and the mechanical arts, so I suppose the loco was his doing.  A pity there's no track for it to run on!

 

I wonder who the biddy with the vinegar phiz on the left is supposed to be?

 

[Steamport Southport]

13 minutes ago, Hroth said:

Albert was interested in engineering and the mechanical arts, so I suppose the loco was his doing.  A pity there's no track for it to run on!

 

I wonder who the biddy with the vinegar phiz on the left is supposed to be?

 

 

Queen Victoria's mother I assume. 

 

Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld/Duchess of Kent and Strathearn

 

 

 

[MarkSG]

10 hours ago, Hroth said:

Albert was interested in engineering and the mechanical arts, so I suppose the loco was his doing.  A pity there's no track for it to run on!

 

What I find interesting is that it's obviously a model of a Stephenson "Patentee" 2-2-2. Hornby, even in 2023, are still selling stuff that's less prototypical than that!

 

We oviously can't tell from the drawing whether it was functional or not. If it was, it may have been a very early example of a live steam or clockwork "carpet railway" that was intended to run directly on the floor, without track. These became popular from the 1850s onwards, but it's not implausible that royalty were among the earliest to have access to them so an example from 1848 is within the bounds of possibility. The earliest known photograph of a working model railway (with track) was taken in 1859, which is only a decade later. So I do think it's reasonable to consider this model a very early part of what later developed into our hobby.

[tomparryharry]

On 13/12/2023 at 21:49, MarkSG said:

Although having a working model railway runing round the tree does seem to have been popularised first in the USA, a toy train under a Christmas tree is as old a tradition in the UK as a Christmas tree itself. Here's a contemporary drawing, from 1848, of Victoria and Albert's Christmas tree that year. Look closely at one of the toys in the foreground under the tree.
 

  

Queen Victoria is not amused... "Take this wretched thing away! 'Tis nothing for me here!"

 

" In years to come, grown men will fight & die over the scale, gauge & colour, especially the green bits..."  

 

Mama! Papa! What is a Froth Machine, please?  

Edited December 18, 2023 by tomparryharry
late at night...

[Hroth]

On 14/12/2023 at 09:24, MarkSG said:

 

What I find interesting is that it's obviously a model of a Stephenson "Patentee" 2-2-2. Hornby, even in 2023, are still selling stuff that's less prototypical than that!

 

We oviously can't tell from the drawing whether it was functional or not. If it was, it may have been a very early example of a live steam or clockwork "carpet railway" that was intended to run directly on the floor, without track. These became popular from the 1850s onwards, but it's not implausible that royalty were among the earliest to have access to them so an example from 1848 is within the bounds of possibility. The earliest known photograph of a working model railway (with track) was taken in 1859, which is only a decade later. So I do think it's reasonable to consider this model a very early part of what later developed into our hobby.

 

Modern Image too!