How Just One Mistake Destroyed Hornby – The Legend of British Electric Trains
Lost Industries
64,376 views
How Just One Mistake Destroyed Hornby – The Legend of British Electric Trains
In the Liverpool workshops of Meccano Ltd, a miniature empire once ran on rails of solid die-cast metal. Hornby Dublo trains were not toys in the flimsy sense of the word; they were precision-engineered machines, heavy in the hand, exact in their detailing, and utterly dominant in the world of British model railways during the 1950s. Every locomotive that rolled off the production line carried the weight of a company that believed it had already won, a company convinced that quality alone would always triumph over price, and that British boys and their fathers would forever choose "real metal" over cheap imitation. It was this unshakeable confidence that would prove to be Meccano's undoing.
At the center of the coming catastrophe sat a single stubborn decision: the three-rail system. Hornby Dublo clung to its chunky, unrealistic third rail running down the middle of the track, a relic of old electrical engineering that broke the illusion of a real railway every time a train passed over it. When rivals like Tri-ang introduced a sleeker, cheaper, and far more realistic two-rail plastic system, Meccano's executives did not panic. They laughed. They dismissed the upstart competition as a passing fad, certain that their reputation for craftsmanship made them untouchable. It was arrogance dressed up as tradition, and it would cost them everything.
By the time Meccano finally abandoned its pride and introduced its own two-rail system in 1959, the damage was already irreversible. Market share had bled away year after year to a rival that understood what modern families actually wanted, and no amount of catching up could undo the years lost to denial. The once-mighty Liverpool giant hemorrhaged cash, its factories that had built an empire on precision metal now producing losses instead of profits, until bankruptcy arrived in 1964 and forced the unthinkable: a sale to the very rival it had once mocked, Tri-ang. This is the story of how one refusal to change, born from pride in a superior product, became the single mistake that destroyed a legend.
20 Comments
I think my early days with Meccano and Horrnby, making all sorts of things, helped me with my DIY maintenance of cars and motorcycles for my 60 years as a motorist.
I also remember Hornby closing down their rail models. In the small town that I lived in there were two model stores, one had a small section that sold Triang, and the other store sold Hornby. I use the term “model store” loosely; both stores were more like general stores that sold lots of other things. Using your date of 1964, I remember the store that sold Hornby having a giant clearance sale. Even on clearance my middle-class family could not afford a locomotive, however I remember us buying a lot of goods wagons, and a couple of “adaptor” goods wagons with Hornby couplings on one end and Triang couplings on the other.
It is also interesting to note that even Triang/Hornby eventually stopped producing their own trains but kept the Hornby part of the name. Sadly, it is a comment on our entire society that only a small portion of the work is now done in either Britain or North America; the R and D done “in house” while the rest of the manufacturing and packaging process is shipped overseas to Asian countries who are not governed by our rules of fair labour practices.
As a child remember getting an old Meccano set, along with a “bunch” of Meccano magazines from my Grandfather, then adding to it with new “bits and pieces”. Meccano didn’t just sell a toy, they sold a dream of what a young boy, correction – child, could accomplice. For me it was cranes of one kind or another. I seem to remember a small range of working model stationary steam engines. This was back in the late sixties; I don’t know if Meccano made these, I just remember them being sold in the same store. I do remember wondering if I could construct a “Meccano truck” and power it with a small steam engine. Never did it. Thanks, Sam, for a trip down memory lane.
For example, I did not know that Dinky Toys were made by the same company, Meccano. As a kid I had a number of Dinky Toys. I treasured them. Their die-cast quality was vastly superior to anything like them made in the US. The play value was superb, and their sturdy construction made them bulletproof!
Hornby had its American parallel counterpart train manufacturer, Lionel Electric Trains. Lionel's steam locomotives were die-cast zinc alloy like Hornby's and were highly desired by us little boys who grew up during the post-war era. Like Hornby, Lionel used three-rail track, but unlike Hornby, operated on alternating current. Lionel's staple was O gauge trains. They dabbled briefly in OO as well, but that gauge never became popular in the States, and Lionel dropped it fairly quickly. Lionel OO items, because of their rarity, are highly collectible today.
For about 15 years after the war, Lionel was the largest toy manufacturer in the world. During that period, Its factory in Hillside, New Jersey, just outside of New York City, ran three shifts, 24 hours a day, around the clock, six days a week in order to meet nationwide consumer demand!
Challenging Lionel for market share, A.C. Gilbert manufactured high quality two-rail alternating current S gauge trains branded "American Flyer" in its factory in nearby New Haven, Connecticut, but never gained the enormous popularity of Lionel, which eventually led to its sale of brand name and tooling to Lionel in 1967. Lionel is still making new American Flyer items as well as nostalgic re-releases of post-war classics for the niche American S gauge market.
Like Hornby, Lionel trains failed to respond to competition from other categories of toys like slot car racing and model spacecraft, and the company was sold to, of all things, a breakfast cereal producer, General Mills, which greatly cheapened the production quality while moving manufacturing to Mexico. Eventually interest in collecting and operating vintage Lionel trains by retiring nostalgic baby boomers! Lionel is still in business and has enjoyed a huge boom in interest over the past 35 years. The company, and a host of competitors, are flourishing. Virtually all modern manufacturing of beautiful O scale "toy" trains is now being done in Asia, mostly China and South Korea. Ironically, and I think largely because of post-war Lionel fan nostalgia, the hobby is still devoted to that same old unprototypical three-rail track system! Go figure!
How Just One Mistake Destroyed Hornby – The Legend of British Electric Trains
Lost Industries
64,376 views
How Just One Mistake Destroyed Hornby – The Legend of British Electric Trains
In the Liverpool workshops of Meccano Ltd, a miniature empire once ran on rails of solid die-cast metal. Hornby Dublo trains were not toys in the flimsy sense of the word; they were precision-engineered machines, heavy in the hand, exact in their detailing, and utterly dominant in the world of British model railways during the 1950s. Every locomotive that rolled off the production line carried the weight of a company that believed it had already won, a company convinced that quality alone would always triumph over price, and that British boys and their fathers would forever choose "real metal" over cheap imitation. It was this unshakeable confidence that would prove to be Meccano's undoing.
At the center of the coming catastrophe sat a single stubborn decision: the three-rail system. Hornby Dublo clung to its chunky, unrealistic third rail running down the middle of the track, a relic of old electrical engineering that broke the illusion of a real railway every time a train passed over it. When rivals like Tri-ang introduced a sleeker, cheaper, and far more realistic two-rail plastic system, Meccano's executives did not panic. They laughed. They dismissed the upstart competition as a passing fad, certain that their reputation for craftsmanship made them untouchable. It was arrogance dressed up as tradition, and it would cost them everything.
By the time Meccano finally abandoned its pride and introduced its own two-rail system in 1959, the damage was already irreversible. Market share had bled away year after year to a rival that understood what modern families actually wanted, and no amount of catching up could undo the years lost to denial. The once-mighty Liverpool giant hemorrhaged cash, its factories that had built an empire on precision metal now producing losses instead of profits, until bankruptcy arrived in 1964 and forced the unthinkable: a sale to the very rival it had once mocked, Tri-ang. This is the story of how one refusal to change, born from pride in a superior product, became the single mistake that destroyed a legend.