The Hornby Book of Trains by Pat Hammond (Centenary Edition)

Frank Hornby, the founder of Meccano Ltd, situated in Binns Road, Liverpool, launched Hornby Trains as a brand in 1920. Since then the product and the company hasgone through many changes.

The original scale of 7mm to the foot commonly known at ‘0’ gauge was joined and eventually superseded by the smaller and almost half sized ‘00’ scale system branded creatively as Hornby Dublo in 1938.

After the Second World War manufacturing of the Hornby Dublo system recommenced and soon became the dominant scale but new materials and cheaper prices quickly brought major competition to Hornby in the form of Rovex Industries, which eventually became Tri-ang Railways. Over time Tri-ang obtained the Meccano company and rebranded their railway system Tri-ang Hornby. Eventually, after one more takeover the name Tri-ang was removed and the system simply became Hornby Railways.

By the turn of the last century Hornby Railways had become just Hornby and with it a new evolution with manufacturing moving from the Margate factory where it had been since 1954 to the Far East where modern manufacturing techniques lifted the Hornby products from being pseudo toys to exquisite models demanded by today’s selective modeller.

This Hornby Book of Trains – The First Hundred Years, has been researched and written by renowned author, editor and model railway historian, Pat Hammond who using his amazing archive traces the one hundred year history of Hornby with facts, features and an abundance of images, supported by historical information explaining the twists and turns of this much loved and respected model railway brand. With over 448 fact packed pages, plus in excess of 800 images this book
is an amazing historical adventure taking the reader on a 100 year model railway journey that is Hornby. (Book dimensions: 245 x 170mm)