The picture shows the cover of the 1937-38 Hornby Book of Trains. (Copyright Hornby Hobbies Ltd).
Priced at 3d, (a little over one new penny!), it showed the LMS locomotive Princess Elizabeth as captured by the artist Bryan de Grineau. This locomotive was headline news in 1936 and in that same year, it was modelled by Hornby in the electric version only and was undoubtedly the finest model they ever produced. Sadly, it was also the year that Frank Hornby, the founder of Hornby Trains and also Meccano, died.
The Hornby Princess Elizabeth cost 5 Guineas, (£5.25 pence in today's money), but in 1937 that was way beyond the reach of most boys or their families.
The history of Hornby Trains starts in the late 1920s although Meccano had been around for very nearly twenty years by then. From that date though. Frank Hornby gave pleasure to tens of thousands of young boys, (and not so young), who loved 'trains'. That so many of these trains are still running today is testimony to the quality of their manufacture and to those of us who still have them, the smell of the painted metal and oiled mechanism together with the sheer weight, brings pleasant memories flooding back from the days when imagination played no little part in our leisure-time activities.
Today, when a Hornby 'O' gauge Princess Elizabeth locomotive can fetch thousands of pounds, the actual thrill of owning a simple Hornby train is just as great as it was all those years ago. The noise it makes as the tinplate coaches act as soundboards is like no other and the fact that the engines are not strictly accurate can be easily overlooked. At exhibition halls all over the country, the working Hornby tinplate layouts are always a crowd puller and the young and not so young alike watch in rapt admiration as an electric express hauling a train of Pullman coaches allows the memory of Frank Hornby to live on. Some of the items on display are over seventy years old now, but they look as good as when they were new and work just as well too.
The 'not so young' remember well the platform crane with its brass Meccano worm gear and the level crossing gates which today's youngster has never seen in real life. As we watch, we can be in 'boy's Heaven' once again and, just like then, we can be envious of those who actually own these engines with more than four wheels. Today, Hornby no longer make the big 'O' gauge locomotives of course, but they are still up there among the leaders in '00' gauge. Some people are surprised to learn that Hornby produced the Dublo train sets before the second world war, but only just and the war put a temporary end to serious toymaking. After the war, the Hornby Dublo sets gained favour rapidly and the old tinplate finally and sadly went out of production. But the enthusiasts kept their old trains and today, collecting Hornby tinplate has an enormous following. Without doubt, some people collect them as an investment, but by far the biggest majority collect them because they love them - I love mine just as I did all those years ago. I'd still like a Princess Elizabeth though!
