M is for Minor 'Euro-Makes'!

Actually I'm going to tack a major on at the end, whom we've already revisited once in this occasional series, entering it's third month with at least 12 posts still to come, plus a combined comparison/round-up post at the end. And today, some of the European makers we haven't yet looked at.

From a 1970's Vollmer catalogue, are these wagons, which I think missed the wagon posts a few years ago, they look to be Preiser, but the horses are the smoother, simpler ones more commonly associated with the Roscopf wagons or some Hong Kong copies. Indeed, I think I've mentioned before, that I'm not sure what the relationship is between the three or four (Noch seem to have carried other people's product before they embarked on their own, now Preiser-equalling, range), so I can't add much beyond that the similarities are obvious?

 

While this is the 2000 Walther's (Terminal Hobby Shop) catalogue, and we see what are clearly Preiser, in a 'simple paint', we actually saw this earlier in the post series, but I scanned it again!

 

Not sure if these are from Merten or Preiser, (they have the arm'y/leg'y look of Merten?) but again a rolling-stock and trackway manufacturer, getting 'simple-paint' samples from another maker, to enhance their catalogue with a basic set, it's all part of the 'brand-loyalty' work, isn't it? Add a couple of Pola buildings, a level-crossing, some track plans, Heki trees . . . and 'Fleischmann' people!

 

This - the Jouef figures - is a personal embarrassment, as I think it's their third mention on the Blog, over the sixteen years, with the Mettoy Playcraft scans appearing at one point, and yet, despite seeing them go to storage, I still haven't photographed them, but they did appear in One Inch Warrior magazine, I think, in black & white, which doesn't do justice to the loud and leery paint job, of the Playcraft - ironically a Tri-Ang rival from the same Line's empire!

 

I have since found slightly better painted ones (in shade, not the two-colour stab-and-hope scheme), which may be Jouef origianls, from whose catalogue these scans are added to the previous shots! And playcraft sold them from the Jouef bags, so they were only ever nominally Playcraft! Also, didn't Hornby experiment with passengers pre-glued to platform sections at one point? Instant Stations!

From the same Walther's catalogue, this was, I think, the beginning of what has in recent years become a line to rival Preiser, and we have seen one or two here, a Bierfest stand springs to mind, and I will one day do the rude sets, of which I have several and they should have been in the 'Adult' naughty-post before Christmas, but they are in storage.

 

Noch were originally another prefabricated building/scenic's firm, like Pola, Vollmer or Wiad, and like them had a couple of simple figures kicking around the pages of their catalogues, in boats or something, from time to time, but in the last quarter-century have developed a range to rival Preiser, even as Priser swallowed-up Elastolin and Merten to stay ahead!

I don't know much about these, except that they are probably lead or whitemetal, possibly composition, and as listed in this old catalogue? Klinebahn (literally 'small way'), and in sets of six matching the lead of early Märklin, or the sets of Preiser, Merten and those above.

 

And, having just mentioned them, our third visit to Märklin in this railway-figure 'season', and no, we are not going to start investigating O, G, S, 1, BIG or any other gauge, that can be for another day, or for the A-Z pages! But I wanted to post this set of composition figures and - specifically - the interactive or 'working' guard, as it's just so cool! All in O-gauge.

 

The catalogue mentions the 1937 Grand Prix of Paris, on the cover, but seems to be actually the 1949 issue, as they started to recover from the national madness of national socialism.

F is for Follow-up - Khaki Runnings!

I managed to grab the Battle Space, at the weekend after all, so managed a quick shoot of the closest Model Power  'twins' and took one of the military locomotive pool while I was at it!

Mobile missiles; both utilising their maker's flat-car, both spring-loaded and both having the large elevation tap-wheels, but otherwise quite different, the Model Power is err . . . underpowered, but as it's a polystyrene model, it would break quickly under the power of the Tri-Ang launcher which packs a serious, pre-H&S punch!

To which end, the Triang-Hornby missile is a rubber-tipped affair in softer polyethylene to take the strain, it also looks more like a Tallboy or Grand Slam (aerial bombs) than the Model Power's Honest John lines. "It'll 'av someone's eye out"!

Tank transporters; the earlier British one being a bogie well-wagon (that is a lower cargo 'well' between the raised twin-bogie (truck)-mountings) which reduces the height of the center of gravity, while Model Power utilise a clip-on set of chocks with a standard flat-car.

In fact, in the West, tanks are chained down with between four and eight chains which are screw-tightened, you only have to watch a few 'funny' tank-fail videos to understand the current Russian failings in Ukraine; while we winch-on and tie down, they rev-up and mount like dogs on heat and drive off, losing the thing at the next roundabout if it didn't fall-off on loading, or crush its own lorry!

Exploding cars; mechanisms were actually quite different (I didn't have time or space for more detailed shots this time, and while both have the look of North American 'reefer' wagons, Model Power go with a 50ft one, we Brits matched our road wagon limit with a  40-footer! Rememeber also HO is also scaled smaller (1:86/90) than OO (1:76/72), so the British model looks a bit 'chunkier'!

I have an old 1970's Walther's or two, and among the pages and pages of transfers for home-builders, mostly for reefers or passenger stock, are quite a few military ones, so you could with the two Q-Cars, this pair and a few kits, build a long, but visually rather boring (if more realistic) logistics train, but you'd need to glue these two shut first!

The loco's; we've seen the two main brands before, but of interest is the one down the front left, which is a clockwork 'cheapie' from Playcraft via Jouef of France. not specifically military, it happens to be the right colour, and adds variety to my fleet!

We loved our 'starter set' clockwork's when we were kids, and used to run them on a figure-eight inside our electrified double-oval, if we were quick we could get four trains moving at once without a crash . . . we weren't always lucky - figure-8's have a crossroad!

It's one of those quirks of toy history that at one point you had OO-guage train sets/lines from/branded-to Tri-Ang, Rovex and Mettoy Playcraft . . . all ultimately Lines Brothers! I should also mention the track, which happens to still be around despite having long lost its usefulness.

It's a sort of resinated or 'Bakelite' treated card (like the ties in old plugs which hold the cable tight), obviously for power-insulation, with the shiny (non-ferrous) rail fasteners (chairs or tie-plates) riveted through the card every forth sleeper (tie), I did have a brand name for it, well . . . it's somewhere in the archive, Hammant & Morgan maybe (our transformer was theirs), Hamblings, or early Hannants? One of the mail-order catalogues in the archive has/lists something which fits the description anyway!

It was the home-fitted rail on our train-set which was bought 2nd hand by Mum at Persons Auctions here in Fleet (long-gone, along with County Tractors and First Inertia), and somehow she managed to hide it (about 6ft x 8ft) from us until Christmas morning, I'm hoping, when I lift the boards in the loft, in the next few weeks, that I may find it's still there with its household gloss 'landscaping', but it may have gone years ago? It was old, crumbly, early (1960's) chipboard.

P is for Playcraft

I looked at one of the two sets of figures from Playcraft/Jouef right back ta the start of the blog, intending to show the other a few weeks later...and never did! They are now in storage, but I got a couple of catalogues from Jan Komarome who used to be a sales rep. for Tri-ang-Pedigree in South Afrika the other day, so to help anyone ID them until I get the figures up here (year or two?) these are the scans...

I can say that the painting on my samples is as poor as the ones in the link, but the colours aren't quite as lairy. Supplied by Jouef for Mettoy, the Rail Staff aren't in these catalogues and I notice a code change (simplification) as the range grows. Thanks Jan.

T is for Trees

Clive over at the Hinton Hunter (link to right) covered the Merit trees the other day, so I thought I'd cover the originators and clones. Which is which is as often with early plastics, a moot point!

We start with the most likely candidate for original tree of this stacking clip-together design, the Faller fir tree. Faller started making papier-mache trees - I think - before the war, or very soon after, I don't know exactly when they first produced this plastic version (self seal bag on right) and it differs from the Marx/Merit design in having a separate base and trunk. I have a complete bag somewhere but like too many things it's lost in the heap and will have to be shown next time I do Trees or Faller!

The Marx set came in hard or soft plastic and was probably a copy of the Merit rather than vise-versa, manufactured in one of the Blue Box plants that seem to have produced most of the Miniature Masterpiece range. You would get a bag making six models in most of the larger play-sets.

Playcraft had most of their stuff made for them by Jouef, these trees however follow the Faller pattern and came in various colours, the Minitank trees again have the Faller Trunk arrangement but are soft plastic.

Some other firs, all but those in the second bag from the right on the bottom row follow the same design as the above. Best to click on the image to see the few notes attached to those I have a vague clue on.

T is for Trains

Bit of a cheat this one 'cause most of them are more Triang, but there are some non-Triang among them. The one I really wanted to post I can't bloody find, despite going through most of my stuff twice in the last few days, hence no posts!! Have to save it for neverwhen!!

This is a Jouef/Playcraft low sided plank wagon, being prepared for the HaT Colonial Artillery (which - co-incidentally - was posted on the HaT forum yesterday, and it looks good), I started with Humbrol body-filler but it was a bit hard, so I painted it with liquid-poly cement and it went too soft! Finished up with terracotta Miliput and toothpicks for the cross-bracing. The bogie's have been removed so I can give the whole thing a military paint-job and Hornby couplings.

Behind is a Triang bogie-bolster wagon, which is another one you can build up with sand-bags, I may use this for the same colonial train, or use it to try and replicate the oft-reproduced picture of a 1939/40 era German train loaded with troops (I think it was originally from Signal, and is in all the Purnell/Pan/Ballentine part-works of the '70's), using the ridiculous Revell 'firing on my mates shoulder' posed MG42, and similar posed on wall MG34 from Italeri?

Another Jouef for Playcraft, this is the entry-level clockwork locomotive, which comes in a reasonable shade of military green, and if you buy an old one for 50p at a car-boot sale...it comes ready weathered!!!! I think the track may be Playcraft as well, but it might be Triang, as it's a piece of child-hood surviving stuff, and we had Triang clockworks not Playcraft.

Comparison between the two best loco's for a military marshaling yard, without the need for lots of repainting, although you can also use black 'GS' types with most armies.

J is for Jouef

The French equivalent of Tri-ang, a limited range from the Jouef stable were carried in the UK by Playcraft. Two sets of figures were included in the deal, this set of Rail Staff and Track-gang Workers and a set of passengers (691)

This is a complete set straight off the sprue, the colour is correct and very lairy!! Later the colours were toned down slightly but the quality of painting remained slap-dash

Interestingly both Tri-ang and Playcraft ended up as part of the Dunby/Combex/Marx group, but the two ranges were never rationalised, Tri-ang survive to this day in some form as Hornby Railways, the Playcraft range was dropped years (decades) ago and the parent supplier Jouef finally went feet-up a few years ago.

S.N.C.F. stands for 'Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français' the French National Railway (when we were kids we were taught it meant 'Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer'?), and that is how they were sold to British boys building a British Rail layout!!!