A Century of Toy Trains

model railway show -coarse and fine scale - buy and sell

A Century of Toy Trains

Exhibition at Newcastle Arts Centre, December 2006

Following the fun of last year's show a more ambitious event is planned

See vintage trains dating back to before the First World War,
0 gauge electric, clockwork and maybe live steam! . Lionel , Bassett-Lowke, Hornby
at special running days at Newcastle Arts Centre.
Bring the children to see the toys of granddad's and maybe great granddad's era!.

See them run, see the smoke! hear the bells and horns as they whizz round.

The exhibition includes the original 1920's cigarette card promotion which encouraged
families to smoke thousands of cigarettes to get a toy train for free! or risk electrocution
with early electric toys connected directly to the mains power supply!

Programme to be announced November 2006.

Collectables for sale at sensible prices. including Hornby 0 and Bachmann brass

A century ago world speed records were held by steam trains and many a child’s ambition was to be an engine driver. At the end of the 19th century, a new industry of toy making and toy shops was born. The new consumerism would see model trains develop as objects of desire from their practical beginning as engineering prototypes and educational toys.

“A Century of Toy Trains” traces product design and the social and economical changes reflected in this history through an exhibition of graphics and working models.

This painting depicting a 'Hornby' train set of the 1930's was first used for a promotional Jigsaw by the Great Western Railway,
later the same image was 'recycled' by Chad Valley as a box label to sell there simple clockwork train set.

By 1900 Steam power had shaped the Victorian age with the Railways being the new economic and social driving force. Rail had become the fastest form of travel and rail routes had a massive influence on the shape of towns and cities. Little wonder that a small boy might wish to drive an express train. The 19th century had become the first machine age when talented engineers were the driving forces and mechanical skills were at a premium. At the end of the Century the motor car and aircraft hardly existed and the electrical industry was just underway. Yet within just 20 years the new technologies and media that would drive the 20th Century were established. Surprisingly toy railways hardly existed before 1900, a mass market for leisure even for children was yet to emerge.

Steam engineering had begun more than 100 years earlier with mechanical models, engineering prototypes to try out ideas, experiment and demonstrate while Children’s toys were simple play things. It would be many years before toys would be regarded as objects of creative play and imagination. Engineers used models to develop skills and understanding of how things work and are constructed. The model engineer and the toymaker had different motivations but used similar craft skills and small workshops. Engineering models were used for product presentations but would become desirable objects in there own right. Model engineering grew from being miniature prototypes to being a constructive hobby supported by commercial makers of parts, specialist societies and magazines.

At the beginning of the 20th Century toy factories hardly existed and manufactured mechanical toys were surprisingly crude. In fact playthings were often homemade and sold by street vendors. A few small workshops were producing expensive but simple steam powered toy engines that bore almost no relationship to the real railway. Most toy trains were push along toys that demanded imagination as there was no track, stations, or signaling.

It was the German clock making industry that provided the know how and skills to produce some of the first clockwork toys and this was combined with the tinprinting methods used to make biscuit tins, tea caddies and the like.Thin tin plated steel became the basic material of the toy industry, it could be decorated by printing, cut out by dye stamping and rolled, folded or stamped into shape. In this way ‘Tin Toy’ production quickly became an industry with a premium on ingenious design and mass production technology.

Prior to the First World War German toys established a world wide market and trains by Bing, Marklin and Carrette were and still are the most prized products of the age. There was also construction kits of parts to assemble mechanical models one of the first of these was Frank Hornby’s ’Mechanics Made Easy’ which became Mecanno and would grow to become Britain’s leading toy manufacturer and exporter .

In Britain model railways began as model engineering built at home or in a workshop from basic parts that required considerable skill to build a working model. Early model trains were mostly the pastime of the rich, they were built as miniature railways to run, powered by steam, in a large garden or country estate. New companies were established to meet this affluent market to supply parts and finished models and build complete miniature railway. Garden Railways were on a much bigger scale than of today with a gauge of up to 15 inch and capable of hauling 90 persons. Such toys were only for the very wealthy as in 1922 Bassett-Lowke could ask the princely sum £750 for just one model locomotive. Bassett-Lowke as company was very class conscious and aware that it made playthings for the rich and it would be this status that marked its rise and fall.

The table top scale model railway was a miniaturisation of the garden railway and a move from expensive hand made engineered products to the more affordable output of a modern toy factory. As ever the toys of the rich became a mass aspiration, and objects of desire.

Cover of a Bassett-Lowke catalogue about 1938, note the adult male hand and the pinstripe suite. only about 200 of this model was sold.

Click for page 2 .. page 3 ..

Details Art Store to develop a Model Railway Department
Details has recently added Humbrol products to its stock list and is pleased to announce that it is
now a Bachmann dealer
with a small but growing stock of northern Branchlines 00 and Brassworks O gauge locomotives.

Brassworks 08 shunter 0 gauge. Details price £295.
Bachmann 'Great Central' 00 gauge. Details price £76.50
Bachmann LNER K3 . 00 gauge. Details price £59.50.

New Brass 0 gauge Flying Scotsman RRP £800 ...Details price £675 inc vat
in stock 25/02/06