Hornby

Hornby Railways, based in United Kingdom, deal in model trains since 1901. The company was established only after the founder, Frank Hornby, received a patent for his Meccano construction toy. The company was known as Meccano Ltd in the past and was based in Liverpool. The clockwork O gauge (1:48) was the first model launched by the company in 1920. Soon it was followed by an electric train model, which was mostly sold in France. In 1925, Hornby launched another set of electric train models, which were comparatively more successful. These models operated on a high voltage of 220-240 V AC power and safety became the main concern. Therefore, the company introduced 4 V and 6 V motors and thereafter a more reliable 20 V AC power motor.

Until 1937, clockwork remained the mainstay of the Hornby O gauge trains. Another factory that was established in France introduced its own range of outline rails. The company soon went global with its exports to various countries including Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and Scandinavia. The train models manufactured by the company looked more British, though there were a few train models which were released with a foreign look. These trains with foreign look were mostly manufactured for exports. Hornby Dublo, the first OO gauge train, was introduced by the company in 1938. The locomotives of these trains were die-cast; whereas the carriages and the wagons were generally made of tinplate.

In 1964, Tri-ang Railways purchased Meccano Ltd. The merger resulted into the renaming of the company to Tri-ang Hornby. The original line of Hornby trains was discontinued and a new line of less expensive plastic trains were introduced. After passing through the hands of a few more firms, Hornby railways was finally acquired by Dubee-Combex-Marx in 1972. The models were upgraded to please the adult hobbyists.