Category:The Hornby Book of Trains

The Hornby Book of Trains, 1925 [image info]

The Hornby Book of Trains was a much-loved part of the Meccano/Hornby stable of publications, and first appeared in 1925.

"HBoT" was initially part book and part colour catalogue, and was printed in landscape format with a soft cover featuring artwork of a steam locomotive. The first instance of a "HBoT" was undated and un-numbered and gave no obvious indication that it was planned as the first part of a series. The book's format was (1) the colour cover, (2) editorial up to the centre pages, (3) a double-page colour advert, and (4) all sucessive pages showing large illustrations (mostly in colour), descriptions and prices of the Hornby Trains range.

1926 saw a second issue published (still without the year on its outside cover), and subsequent versions had a year printed explicitly on the front cover, starting with 1927/28, with a new version being released each year (1928/29, 1929/30, and so on).

Derivatives

The respect, affection and status associated with the Hornby Book of Trains led to two later "spin-off" books after World War Two: the Hornby Dublo Book of Trains (1959), and, after Lines Brothers had taken over Meccano Limited and replaced Dublo with a "Rovex Plastics"-based range, the Tri-ang Hornby Book of Trains (1968~).