First of all, apologies for posting this in the vintage forum (hence the 'OT label) but I thought this story deserved it, the period is right (late 70s/early 80s), and if this WAS a Star Wars toy it would be the thing of dreams for most collectors!
When my grandad died in 2010, I inherited his Hornby Stephenson's Rocket. It had been on display in his house for as long as I can remember, so I was really pleased that my mum let me have it. He worked at Hornby so we were very fortunate to have loads of trains, Scalextric etc to play with as kids, but I never really knew what he did for Hornby until now.
I always assumed his Stepheson's Rocket was just a regular production one, and it's been sitting on a shelf in my front room ever since gathering dust. But last week while cleaning it, I noticed that the centre part of it (which I now know is called the tender) was made mostly from wood, whereas the locomotive and carriage were made from plastic and metal. I looked a bit closer, and it became apparent it was hand made, and I also noticed it had some handwriting on it which looked like my grandads.
So as I know nothing about model trains I started looking at other examples on eBay, and could immediately see it was quite different from the production version. With zero knowledge in the model train hobby I didn't want to get too excited, so joined a Hornby group on Facebook and posted a few photos. It received a lot of interest and everyone seemed to agree it was a prototype of some kind, and one member gave me the contact details for the Marketing & Product Design Director at Hornby, who has worked there since the 1970s so would be the best person to ask about it.
I emailed him last week, and received some fantastic information on both this piece and my grandad. For a start, he knew my grandad personally which was nice to hear. He told me that he was a carpenter there from the mid 70s to the early 90s, and his main job was creating hand-made models for use on packaging, marketing, leaflets etc before the mass produced models were ready. He said this particular model was probably made in the mid to late 70s, as the Stephenson's Rocket was launched in 1981. He said that they may in future be interested in displaying it at the Hornby Museum. He's also going to try and obtain some 'provenance' for me to accompany the model.
Here's some photos of it. I must admit I'm not a model train collector so am not generally interested in Hornby trains, however it obviously has huge sentimental value to me so I'd never part with it, and it's amazing to find something that had just been sitting at home was something so rare and cool. Whenever I hear similar stories about Star Wars toys I always wish it happened to me - and it just has! With the extra pleasure of knowing my grandad made it
When my grandad died in 2010, I inherited his Hornby Stephenson's Rocket. It had been on display in his house for as long as I can remember, so I was really pleased that my mum let me have it. He worked at Hornby so we were very fortunate to have loads of trains, Scalextric etc to play with as kids, but I never really knew what he did for Hornby until now.
I always assumed his Stepheson's Rocket was just a regular production one, and it's been sitting on a shelf in my front room ever since gathering dust. But last week while cleaning it, I noticed that the centre part of it (which I now know is called the tender) was made mostly from wood, whereas the locomotive and carriage were made from plastic and metal. I looked a bit closer, and it became apparent it was hand made, and I also noticed it had some handwriting on it which looked like my grandads.
So as I know nothing about model trains I started looking at other examples on eBay, and could immediately see it was quite different from the production version. With zero knowledge in the model train hobby I didn't want to get too excited, so joined a Hornby group on Facebook and posted a few photos. It received a lot of interest and everyone seemed to agree it was a prototype of some kind, and one member gave me the contact details for the Marketing & Product Design Director at Hornby, who has worked there since the 1970s so would be the best person to ask about it.
I emailed him last week, and received some fantastic information on both this piece and my grandad. For a start, he knew my grandad personally which was nice to hear. He told me that he was a carpenter there from the mid 70s to the early 90s, and his main job was creating hand-made models for use on packaging, marketing, leaflets etc before the mass produced models were ready. He said this particular model was probably made in the mid to late 70s, as the Stephenson's Rocket was launched in 1981. He said that they may in future be interested in displaying it at the Hornby Museum. He's also going to try and obtain some 'provenance' for me to accompany the model.
Here's some photos of it. I must admit I'm not a model train collector so am not generally interested in Hornby trains, however it obviously has huge sentimental value to me so I'd never part with it, and it's amazing to find something that had just been sitting at home was something so rare and cool. Whenever I hear similar stories about Star Wars toys I always wish it happened to me - and it just has! With the extra pleasure of knowing my grandad made it
