About Me

My photo
No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

C is for Cake Candle Carriages

This has been sat in Picasa since we last looked at mini-trains (about a year ago?), Brian sent me the last image (below) as a follow-up, and I nearly ran it a few days later but wasn't happy with the Festival photo's, so dug the 'here' lot out and combined them with the storage lot, and then sort of lost interest . . . as you do sometimes? Anyway, mojo back now and time for this lot to leave the laptop and go and live on the archive-dongles, via the Blog!

Cake Decoration; Cake Decoration Trains; Cake Decorations; Candle Holder; Circus Animals; Circus Toys; Circus Train; Culpitt; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Der Adler; Festival; Festival Cake Decorations; Flat Train; Gem; GeModels; GeModels Candle Holder; Gemodels Train; Lead Flats; Locomotive Candle Holder; Locomotives; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Train Candle Holders; Train Sets; Wilton Cake Decorations; Wilton's;
Ancient and modern; the newer one behind and an older 1970's one in front, probably from the same source although I've got evilBay images of several different packaging/brands . . . and yes; the pale-orange wagon in the middle should be pink - a perfect example of the opposite-origin to a 'smoke free house'!!

Cake Decoration; Cake Decoration Trains; Cake Decorations; Candle Holder; Circus Animals; Circus Toys; Circus Train; Culpitt; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Der Adler; Festival; Festival Cake Decorations; Flat Train; Gem; GeModels; GeModels Candle Holder; Gemodels Train; Lead Flats; Locomotive Candle Holder; Locomotives; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Train Candle Holders; Train Sets; Wilton Cake Decorations; Wilton's;
The older one is manufactured from polystyrene with nylon or polypropylene wheels, and you can see the engine has undergone some discoloration as well, but the others seem to have fared better. The coupling is a hook-under-slot design.

Cake Decoration; Cake Decoration Trains; Cake Decorations; Candle Holder; Circus Animals; Circus Toys; Circus Train; Culpitt; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Der Adler; Festival; Festival Cake Decorations; Flat Train; Gem; GeModels; GeModels Candle Holder; Gemodels Train; Lead Flats; Locomotive Candle Holder; Locomotives; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Train Candle Holders; Train Sets; Wilton Cake Decorations; Wilton's;
Close-up with a pretty bog-standard 'Made in Hong Kong' mark.

Cake Decoration; Cake Decoration Trains; Cake Decorations; Candle Holder; Circus Animals; Circus Toys; Circus Train; Culpitt; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Der Adler; Festival; Festival Cake Decorations; Flat Train; Gem; GeModels; GeModels Candle Holder; Gemodels Train; Lead Flats; Locomotive Candle Holder; Locomotives; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Train Candle Holders; Train Sets; Wilton Cake Decorations; Wilton's;
The newer train (still available if you search-about I think?) is all polypropylene and the roof sections can be lifted-off the four circus-wagon coaches, not a practical solution to anything cake or birthday-related, but a method of allowing for two colours and a fancier design!

Cake Decoration; Cake Decoration Trains; Cake Decorations; Candle Holder; Circus Animals; Circus Toys; Circus Train; Culpitt; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Der Adler; Festival; Festival Cake Decorations; Flat Train; Gem; GeModels; GeModels Candle Holder; Gemodels Train; Lead Flats; Locomotive Candle Holder; Locomotives; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Train Candle Holders; Train Sets; Wilton Cake Decorations; Wilton's;
Each roof is attached to a pair of circus animals which, from the left are; tiger, lion, polar bear and blob!

Cake Decoration; Cake Decoration Trains; Cake Decorations; Candle Holder; Circus Animals; Circus Toys; Circus Train; Culpitt; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Der Adler; Festival; Festival Cake Decorations; Flat Train; Gem; GeModels; GeModels Candle Holder; Gemodels Train; Lead Flats; Locomotive Candle Holder; Locomotives; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Train Candle Holders; Train Sets; Wilton Cake Decorations; Wilton's;


The blob started life (in my head) as a bearded-lady, or - after further study - a mermaid, but is in fact, I suspect, meant to be a monkey?

Cake Decoration; Cake Decoration Trains; Cake Decorations; Candle Holder; Circus Animals; Circus Toys; Circus Train; Culpitt; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Der Adler; Festival; Festival Cake Decorations; Flat Train; Gem; GeModels; GeModels Candle Holder; Gemodels Train; Lead Flats; Locomotive Candle Holder; Locomotives; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Train Candle Holders; Train Sets; Wilton Cake Decorations; Wilton's;
The locomotives with their cow-catchers already put the trains firmly over the pond as far as operation goes, but in addition the clerestory-papoose wagons bringing-up the rear are also very North-American, and follow the role of our 'guards/brake' wagon. Indeed the external steps down to low platforms are an American design feature too.

You can see how the wheels follow the earlier design but are not identical and the coupling as changed to a hook an eye, but I still think they are from the same source as they follow both number of items and colour of items rules.

Cake Decoration; Cake Decoration Trains; Cake Decorations; Candle Holder; Circus Animals; Circus Toys; Circus Train; Culpitt; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Der Adler; Festival; Festival Cake Decorations; Flat Train; Gem; GeModels; GeModels Candle Holder; Gemodels Train; Lead Flats; Locomotive Candle Holder; Locomotives; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Train Candle Holders; Train Sets; Wilton Cake Decorations; Wilton's;
Moving away from the larger train brings us to the old George Musgrave design, also a candle carrier, but a much smaller scale; paint it khaki and you could use it as a troop train with micro-armour . . . at a touch!

We have looked at this one before, but more (Hong Kong copies) have come in so a quick recap. The Festival packaging in the background and an extended train in the middle-ground - mostly from my brother and my childhood's cakes! The cellophane bag has a Hong Kong piracy as is the little pink tank-loco to the front-centre.

A point to note here is that the Festival train will only take the very thin 'austerity' candles of post-war Britain while the HK trains take the current 'fat-boys'! The two trains making-up the bulk of the post - however - take both sizes and the larger Christmas candles for those heat-powered mobile tinkley-brass things (look again at the papoose wagons).

Cake Decoration; Cake Decoration Trains; Cake Decorations; Candle Holder; Circus Animals; Circus Toys; Circus Train; Culpitt; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Der Adler; Festival; Festival Cake Decorations; Flat Train; Gem; GeModels; GeModels Candle Holder; Gemodels Train; Lead Flats; Locomotive Candle Holder; Locomotives; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Train Candle Holders; Train Sets; Wilton Cake Decorations; Wilton's;
The passenger wagons from the colony are a tad smaller (and more colourful) but otherwise the same, pointing to some pantography, but the 'Wild West' locomotive is a re-design with a slimmer but taller chimney-stack and forward-set lantern, the whole being elongated slightly with larger gaps between the wheels.

I don't know if the tank-engine is a copy of a Festival model or something more original thought-up by the chaps in Hong Kong (it could be a scale-down of the Lone Star Tripple-O train tank-loco?), but I don't remember - as a kid - seeing anything other than the large 'Wild West' one, of which we also had a blue one which has long-gone to the great turntable in the sky!

Cake Decoration; Cake Decoration Trains; Cake Decorations; Candle Holder; Circus Animals; Circus Toys; Circus Train; Culpitt; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Der Adler; Festival; Festival Cake Decorations; Flat Train; Gem; GeModels; GeModels Candle Holder; Gemodels Train; Lead Flats; Locomotive Candle Holder; Locomotives; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Train Candle Holders; Train Sets; Wilton Cake Decorations; Wilton's;
In a different league altogether, and carrying no candles! From the shininess of the tracks I assume a modern casting, but probably from old Nuremberg-flat moulds, and I'm not sure if it's 'Der Adler' (the Eagle - Germany's 'Rocket') or just a generic early dampflok (one of those brilliant German words like krankenhause or krankenwagen which tells you exactly what it means!), and sent to the Blog by Mr. Berke as a follow-up to the previous micro-train post.

It's just charming! Although I'm not sure I'd want the job of human bridge-gauge!

No comments: