Category:Hornby Dublo buildings - metal

1958 full-page advert: "These accurately-detailed accessories are die-cast in metal for years of hard wear" [image info]

A new range of diecast metal station buildings appeared in the Hornby-Dublo lineup after World War Two.

Prewar wood

Although the pre-war wooden model railway buildings were functional, well-designed and quite respectable, the fact that they were obviously made out of wood, and that the apparently-unsanded wood-grain was occasionally quite easily visible at cutaway regions such as station steps was probably a matter of some distress to Mr Hornby – they were not products designed to showcase the technical prowess of an engineering based toy company, and can probably be considered as a "stopgap" measure intended to get Hornby-Dublo up and running as quickly as possible

Metal!

The original wooden buildings didn't reappear when Dublo arrived back on toyshop shelves after the war, and Meccano Ltd produced a new range of "proper" station buildings made of robustly-painted diecast metal.

The Through Station and Island Platform both had a central platform section with the station building or passenger shelter, flanked by a pair of ramp sections. The ramp sections were separate diecast pieces that clipped into place, so that it was possible to unclip them and insert additional platform extension pieces to produce longer and more impressive platforms. Having the end-ramps as separate pieces probably also made the platforms easier to cast and kept the the retail boxes down to a reasonable size.

The new metal range didn't include a replacement for the large wooden terminal building set.