Category:Airfix Trackside Series

Toy Brands and Manufacturers
Airfix Trackside Series
1956 -

1959: "Airfix 00 gauge Construction Kits", advert with lineart of some of the buildings [image info]

1960: The Airfix Trackside range (centre). The Trackside brand still had its own identity at this point, and hadn't yet been folded into the Airfix Railway Construction Kit range (which at this point only had two items, the pair of wagons listed) [image info]

~1956: Very early packaging header card for Airfix Trackside Kit No.2, "Detached House", suggesting that at the time there were only six models in the range [image info]

Later packaging for the same kit. The header cards now have individual graphics for each kit, and have been renumbered into the "4000" range (the kit is now "4002") [image info]

Still later version of the packaging for 4002 "Detached House", using a wider range of colours [image info]

The Airfix Trackside construction kits first appeared in 1956 as a small set of "poly-bagged" kits designed to produce accessories of 00-gauge and H0-gauge model railways, and expanded into a popular range of trackside buildings, bridges, and eventually even 00-scale people.

Plastic railway accessory kits

The kits allowed affordable highly intricate layout detailing. Although card models had been quite nice (and affordable), printed detail on flat surfaces created limitations on the amount of customisation that could be applied, as painting (with anything other than washes) tended to obscure the printed detail. Once everyone had the same card models, this tended to result in lots of "lookalike" layouts with the same recognisably distinctive buildings.

The appearance of plastic kits, with their textured detailing allowed constructors to produce their own unique colour schemes and variations, and made it easier to produce weathering effects and dirt that made it easier for sets of buildings to look natural together and fit in with their surroundings. When one painted grubby dirt or moss-green detailing onto a plastic kit, rather than obscuring detail, the paint tended to run into the cracks or and make the detailing appear more pronounced, and allowed a wider range of detailing techniques (e.g. "paint on, wipe off"). The fact that the models were supplied in kit form also encouraged customisation - one could cut up the extra plastic "sprues" that the parts were attached to and glue on extra bits and pieces here and there.

As a result, the Trackside series quickly became very popular.

Manufacturer's description:

The Airfix Trackside Series has been designed in H0 & 00 scale (4mm. to the foot). It consists of an increasing range of exact and accurate models of Houses, Railway Buildings, and other accessories to allow the modeller to build complete towns and villages.

1962 Catalogue description

In the pages which follow all the kits listed are scaled specially for 00 and H0 gauge model railway layouts. Many of these kits can be built in different ways and, apart from their use with model railways, interesting housing and industrial scenes can be made with the buildings. The armoured vehicle kits and military scale figure series can be used to create real battle scenes either over open country or house-to-house fighting using the bungalows and houses to good effect. All the items of rolling stock are supplied with non-operating scale hook and link couplings where the models are to be built purely for show purposes, as well as a set of R6 Airfix automatic couplings. Airfix automatic couplings are also available as a separate item, Catalogue No. R6 Series 1. Each box of couplings contains 24 couplings and 24 retaining pins. The coupling is based on the X2F type as standardized by the National Model Railroad Association. Airfix couplings are automatic on impact and uncoupling is achieved by means of a simple ramp.
— , -, , Catalogue of Airfix Constant Scale Construction Kits, First Edition, , 1962