96 TIME OUT COLUMNIST

An idea that started life as a home-made Christmas gift has earned a place in engineering history.

by Justin Pollard

TOY TECHNOLOGY Competition Now a model railway needs more than trains and track. As THE INSPIRATION What’s this man any decent train modeller will up to? The wittiest caption tell you, you need the landscape FOR GENERATIONS emailed to engtechmag@ – the hills, the houses, cars and theiet.org by 17 January shops. So in 1933 that is exactly OF ENGINEERS 2014 wins a pair of what Hornby started making – a books from Haynes. range of die-cast trackside accessories, and another legendary brand was born. about cutting out a series of had the advantage for copper strips, half an inch wide those less agile with a spanner of with holes drilled every half an being ready assembled and inch. These could then be bolted painted. The down side was that together, have wheels and pulleys these early models suffered from attached and be turned into just the scourge of the die-cast about anything. collector, zinc pest – a By the end of the year he had progressive and untreatable put together a kit; all he needed crumbling of the casting due to was a great name. That name, as lead impurities in the zinc alloy. the 1901 patent reads, was Meccano, Hornby trains and ‘Improvements in or Dinky toys made Frank Hornby a Educational Devices for Children wealthy man. His great and Young People’. The real inventions live on, with the most name he came up with was famous iteration of his train set, Mechanics Made Easy and the the ‘Dublo’ system, first hitting seven shillings and sixpence set the shelves in 1938 and becoming even received endorsements a regular feature of every child’s from professor of engineering dream Christmas morning ever and the inventor of the variable since. * pitch propeller, Henry Hele-Shaw. Profits remained small, partly CAPTION PRIZES because Hornby had to get others BAG A BOOK to manufacture his parts and they found it difficult to keep up with demand. Rescue came in the unlikely form of the meat importer for whom he now worked, David Elliot. He gave Hornby some empty office space and the two went into business together. In 1907 Hornby took This month’s competition ONE HUNDRED and fifty years not lack ambition, having been a over production and took out a winner will receive copies ago, one of the most important devoted follower of the great 19th trademark in the name Meccano. of the ‘Dan Dare Space Fleet figures in modern engineering century self-improver Samuel There has probably never been Operations Manual’ and was born – a builder of cars, Smiles and his exhortation: a toy to so influence future the ‘McLaren M23 Owners’ bridges, aeroplanes, trains, “Every human being has a generations of engineers, if we Workshop Manual’, two new houses, factories, tanks, cranes great mission to perform, exclude the humble building titles from the ever-expanding and just about anything else noble faculties to cultivate, a brick, and the toy that could be range of Haynes Manuals that can be built. But you won’t vast destiny to accomplish.” made into anything gained (haynes.co.uk). Winner of find his creations across rivers, Hornby’s destiny wasn’t to lie rapidly in popularity. But our November 2013 issue at airports or in stations, but in bookkeeping, however, but in Hornby wasn’t finished yet. Keen competition is Jim Waterton under the Christmas tree. toys. In 1899 he began making to tell the world about his with: ‘After a winter of piste- It wasn’t an auspicious start small tin-plate toys for his invention, he and his eldest son bashing in the Sierras, a in engineering for Frank Hornby. children. These sheet-metal began to set up a series of offices bit of salt-raking at Salton Brought up in a relatively poor cranes and trains were not an abroad as well as licensing the makes a nice change.’ family in , he was unusual feature on Christmas idea to Märklin in Germany. never going to find the funds morning in many households, Since 1891, Märklin had been for university and probably but as the century turned making model trains so Hornby wouldn’t have got in in the Hornby had one, brilliant idea. began importing their clockwork first place as he hated school. What if, rather than making toys, motors for his construction sets. Aged 16 he left to take up the he made a set of parts that could This gave Frank another idea. role of cashier in his father’s be joined together in any form The first Hornby train rolled off

GETTY IMAGES provisioning business. Frank did the owner fancied? So he set the production line in 1920.

Engineering & Technology January 2014 www.EandTmagazine.com