Paul (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} fremantlebiz) wrote,@ 2006-04-13 06:49:00 |
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In praise of Hornby and Frog
Do the names Hornby and Frog make your heart leap? For me, and no doubt many thousands of others my age, they were synonymous with wonderful model trains and aircraft. They were both British companies in the days when British was best.
Hornby is still running, and still British, with a factory in Margate, although I have yet to have a close inspection of their modern packaging to see if there is a fine print line, "Made in China."
My reinterest was triggered yesterday morning by an article in the investments section of The Australian. The value of old Hornby trains in mint condition has gone through the roof. Well I can understand that. They have always been boys' treasures. Amazingly some people treasured them more than others inasmuch as it is still possible, for a price, to buy some of the oldest items from the 1920s in their original packaging, and in showroom condition.
I wonder if they are evidence of some kid's lost childhood. Someone who received a train set for Christmas and was then told to put it away until he was old enough to look after it, then got killed in a war? Maybe instead he was killed by the 240 volts AC in the rails? The company eventually went low voltage DC.
Hornby have a website, www.hornby.com Can't get a much simpler URL than that. They have lots of brand new treasures which they are willing to sell to "boys and girls." But you have to be over 14 for the "live steam" stuff.
The company survived a run of corporate bad-decisions over the years but apparently has now settled in for the duration, having successfully taken over the Italian model train companies Lima in Italy and Jouef in France.
Hornby are readily available in Western Australia. The old Perth company Stanbridges still has a dedicated train room and a legion of customers who will have passed through their doors over many years. They have been selling Hornby since 1948. But there are others in competition. One of the new ones is called The Hornby Shop. Sounds good - straight to the point. I haven't visited them yet, but it won't be long - window shopping of course. They claim to be the second biggest in Australia. They are out of town, in the Waikiki Village shopping centre. That's the fake Waikiki south of Fremantle, not the real one. We have a Miami and a Florida down that way too. Argh!!!!
Both shops have websites which are full of potential, and full of glitches. Note that the Waikiki shop doesn't open until 11:15pm. They actually mean "am" - I hope. Nor have they figured out how to use a spell checker.
We actually have a large assortment of electric trains here - in storage. Some are left over from my childhood, but sometimes I used to buy boxes of Hornby stuff few a few dollars at the local flea market. I totally lost interest in flea markets when the terrorism spectre loomed.
But yesterday, after I had spent an hour or so wallowing online amongst new Hornby trains and dreaming of what I would do when I win Lotto, I decided to do a Google on Frog.
Actually I like model plans just as much as I like trains. Maybe better, because there is a wonderful sense of achievement in building a model plane - one that actually flies - and then crashes.
Frog was king when I was a kid. Not only for balsa wood kits, but for model aircraft engines. The company has long gone, but I discovered a wonderful website called The House of Frog. The owner Mike Stuart has been acquiring old Frog plans and apparently whatever else the Frog factory spawned during its heyday. Every kit came with a highly detailed plan to scale. Mike has generously made some available as PDF copies for downloading.
This of course allows the rest of us baby-boomer tragics to easily reconstruct the dreams of our own youth. I spent an hour or so yesterday downloading the lot. I know where I can buy sheets of 1/32" balsa cheaply, and I'm pretty sure I have some thicker stuff stashed away. I'm going to introduce my kids the joys of building. Maybe the "Pup." I built an original one of these when I was a kid. I hope I can get a prop from somewhere.
As testimony to my interest, I still have a stack of Aeromodeller magazines from the 1950s. They used to have single page facsimiles of their own plans for sale. I scaled up a facsimile when I was about 12 and built a huge tow-launched freeflight glider.
As with the rare old trains in their pristine packaging, there are also old Frog balsa aircraft kits still about. Mike has shown photos of them too. Astonishing that the fragile kits have survived. Now, with the number of keen tadpoles increasing in the Frog pond, they are becoming highly desirable collector items. I suppose they are far too rare to actually construct. For real viewing pleasure take a look at Mike's Wilmot Mansour Exhibition page.
However all is not lost. Aside from building off Mike's plans, there is also a link to a small company called A & DB Models which is rebirthing dozens of Frog balsa models using laser cutting technology.
I never realised that FROG stood for "Flies right off the ground." Am I the last kid to discover this? The Frog trade mark is one of the most beautiful designs ever. Naturally the company played a significant role in the war effort during WW2.
While I was on my journey of youthful rediscovery yesterday I came on the very interesting Jetex site. It has an excellent history on the origins of Jetex and Frog. I built a couple of Jetex powered planes as a kid. They might have been with Keil Kraft kits. One was a Mig 15. Jetex was always disappointing for me. Not enough oomph in the power to weight department, and all over in a few seconds.
© MMVI Paul R. Weaver.
About the writer
Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write a million words.
Do the names Hornby and Frog make your heart leap? For me, and no doubt many thousands of others my age, they were synonymous with wonderful model trains and aircraft. They were both British companies in the days when British was best.
Hornby is still running, and still British, with a factory in Margate, although I have yet to have a close inspection of their modern packaging to see if there is a fine print line, "Made in China."
My reinterest was triggered yesterday morning by an article in the investments section of The Australian. The value of old Hornby trains in mint condition has gone through the roof. Well I can understand that. They have always been boys' treasures. Amazingly some people treasured them more than others inasmuch as it is still possible, for a price, to buy some of the oldest items from the 1920s in their original packaging, and in showroom condition.
I wonder if they are evidence of some kid's lost childhood. Someone who received a train set for Christmas and was then told to put it away until he was old enough to look after it, then got killed in a war? Maybe instead he was killed by the 240 volts AC in the rails? The company eventually went low voltage DC.
Hornby have a website, www.hornby.com Can't get a much simpler URL than that. They have lots of brand new treasures which they are willing to sell to "boys and girls." But you have to be over 14 for the "live steam" stuff.
The company survived a run of corporate bad-decisions over the years but apparently has now settled in for the duration, having successfully taken over the Italian model train companies Lima in Italy and Jouef in France.
Hornby are readily available in Western Australia. The old Perth company Stanbridges still has a dedicated train room and a legion of customers who will have passed through their doors over many years. They have been selling Hornby since 1948. But there are others in competition. One of the new ones is called The Hornby Shop. Sounds good - straight to the point. I haven't visited them yet, but it won't be long - window shopping of course. They claim to be the second biggest in Australia. They are out of town, in the Waikiki Village shopping centre. That's the fake Waikiki south of Fremantle, not the real one. We have a Miami and a Florida down that way too. Argh!!!!
Both shops have websites which are full of potential, and full of glitches. Note that the Waikiki shop doesn't open until 11:15pm. They actually mean "am" - I hope. Nor have they figured out how to use a spell checker.
We actually have a large assortment of electric trains here - in storage. Some are left over from my childhood, but sometimes I used to buy boxes of Hornby stuff few a few dollars at the local flea market. I totally lost interest in flea markets when the terrorism spectre loomed.
But yesterday, after I had spent an hour or so wallowing online amongst new Hornby trains and dreaming of what I would do when I win Lotto, I decided to do a Google on Frog.
Actually I like model plans just as much as I like trains. Maybe better, because there is a wonderful sense of achievement in building a model plane - one that actually flies - and then crashes.
Frog was king when I was a kid. Not only for balsa wood kits, but for model aircraft engines. The company has long gone, but I discovered a wonderful website called The House of Frog. The owner Mike Stuart has been acquiring old Frog plans and apparently whatever else the Frog factory spawned during its heyday. Every kit came with a highly detailed plan to scale. Mike has generously made some available as PDF copies for downloading.
This of course allows the rest of us baby-boomer tragics to easily reconstruct the dreams of our own youth. I spent an hour or so yesterday downloading the lot. I know where I can buy sheets of 1/32" balsa cheaply, and I'm pretty sure I have some thicker stuff stashed away. I'm going to introduce my kids the joys of building. Maybe the "Pup." I built an original one of these when I was a kid. I hope I can get a prop from somewhere.
As testimony to my interest, I still have a stack of Aeromodeller magazines from the 1950s. They used to have single page facsimiles of their own plans for sale. I scaled up a facsimile when I was about 12 and built a huge tow-launched freeflight glider.
As with the rare old trains in their pristine packaging, there are also old Frog balsa aircraft kits still about. Mike has shown photos of them too. Astonishing that the fragile kits have survived. Now, with the number of keen tadpoles increasing in the Frog pond, they are becoming highly desirable collector items. I suppose they are far too rare to actually construct. For real viewing pleasure take a look at Mike's Wilmot Mansour Exhibition page.
However all is not lost. Aside from building off Mike's plans, there is also a link to a small company called A & DB Models which is rebirthing dozens of Frog balsa models using laser cutting technology.
I never realised that FROG stood for "Flies right off the ground." Am I the last kid to discover this? The Frog trade mark is one of the most beautiful designs ever. Naturally the company played a significant role in the war effort during WW2.
While I was on my journey of youthful rediscovery yesterday I came on the very interesting Jetex site. It has an excellent history on the origins of Jetex and Frog. I built a couple of Jetex powered planes as a kid. They might have been with Keil Kraft kits. One was a Mig 15. Jetex was always disappointing for me. Not enough oomph in the power to weight department, and all over in a few seconds.
© MMVI Paul R. Weaver.
About the writer
Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write a million words.
