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The Table Top Got
Bigger!
Toy Trains smaller than 'O' gauge were
made before the 1st World War as novelties.
At that time anything smaller than 25mm was described as
'00' gauge and from this
time W Bassett Lowke and his friend Henry Greenly worked out
ideas for the
design of a half 'O' gauge Table Railway. The 'Bing Table
Railway' was launched in
1921, as an interpretation of Greenly's designs, on 16mm
gauge tinplate track.
The Bing engineers in Nuremberg produced the first practical
clockwork and electric
toy railway (1924) to be mass produced to such tiny
dimensions.
The standard was described as 5/8 inch gauge at 4mm to the
foot scale but it was
clearly subject to extraordinary compromise. The wheels were
very coarse with
oversize tyres and flanges designed to enable the rolling
stock to ride the roughest of track.
The coaches were short 4 wheel affairs that belonged in the
mid nineteenth century
and the buildings - signal box, engine shed and station were
about half scale size.
This was a charming novelty, but unimpressive as a model
railway.
The marketing of this groundbreaking product was almost
nostalgic with a box label of an
affluent domestic scene that was more 19th Century than
the 1st quarter of the 20th.
Nevertheless this was the first half '0' gauge table
railway, which laid the foundations for Trix,
Marklin and Hornby Dublo and began the era of HO and OO
trains.
An early commercial success was not possible because the
Depression of 1929 and the
rise of Hitler created conditions under which the Bing
Company could not survive.
Following the collapse of Bing, development of an HO toy
railway would be continued by
Trix with models for the British market more than influenced
by Bassett Lowke and H Greenly.
The Nazi regime forced Stephan Bing to quit Germany and move
to England to run the
British branch of the Trix business which became an
independent company with
W. Bassett Lowke as a director. Lowke had first marketed
German Trix products
as the 'Twin Train Table Railway' in 1936 and was pleased to
help his old friend
Stephan Bing establish a manufacturing base in England. The
ability to independently
remote control two trains on one track was seen as a unique
selling point hence 'twin trains'.
It was not long before Trix Limited were making British
outline 'Trix Twin Railways' and
attempting scale models at 3.5mm to a foot albeit on coarse
wheels and track.
By 1937 E.W. Twinning had designed the very modern Many Ways
Station Sets and
by 1938 a complete model railway system was established as a
'must have' product.
Meccano Limited makers of Hornby
Trains had watched these developments,
at first with scorn, but were soon motivated to design there
own winning product
'Hornby Dublo' which appeared surprisingly complete as the
'Perfect Table Railway'
in 1938 to a scale of 4mm to a foot on 16.5 mm track.
A
CENTURY OF TOY TRAINS
a pre Christmas special exhibition for 2005
Newcastle Arts Centre
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