French tinplate

SCMF,

   The JEP BB8100 Locomotve with the CIWL rolling stock is just fantastic and most times I am not big on French Tin, that set is seriously great Tin however, would love to add it to my Tin.

PCRR/Dave

VERY NICE tinplate engines and cars - THANKS for sharing! 

Verrry interesting! When were these made? What type of coupers do they use?

Here's a little French Hornby Goods Train set I have. Nice runner.

Steve

You never know what you will see here on the forum. Sweet post. Thanks. 

About three year ago I started collecting French tinplate after seeing one of the electrics on a Youtube video. They are built well, run well but most importantly have a special character that you just don't see today. I also collect the stations, both the pressboard and plastic ones. Just great stuff.

All the best,

Miketg

My "collection" of French Hornby is comprised only of a couple of the Wagon Lits cars, which I enjoy very much. I am very impressed by your locomotives. Thanks for posting the pictures!

Great thread!  Thanks to everyone for posting pictures of all this neat tinplate.

All definitely seldom seen...haven't seen that at York.  I passed up a Jep signal tower

in a German Flohmarkt (flea market) outside Muenich back when they were using marks (before Euros), and wanted a hundred for it.  Not a pond I am really going to

splash in, though.  I was thinking, "Hmmm...I bet this was "liberated" during WWII".

Thanks for the interest and replies.

Ace, near as I can tell, these were made in the 50's and early 60's.  The French Hornby and JEP couplers are different.

French Hornby coupler:

JEP coupler:

I have purchased all of these either on French eBay or from the UK.  Sometimes there are descriptions of the history/origin of the models, but most often not.    

"And now for something completely different."  Those are charming.  Thanks for posting.

Yes, very interesting to see the European tinplate. Steve's Hornby set appears to include wide radius track. Wondering if the European tinplate used AC or DC power and what methods for reversing?

As for reading about French Hornby, may I reccomend the Hornby Companion Series Volume 5. From pages 261 to 273 there is a good description of French Hornby. Also in French there is the book, "Hornby, Les Trains Francais en O et HO" by Clive Manning. This book has pictures of everything and is a must, even if you do not read French.

All the best,

Miketg 

Ace, my understanding, which is likely limited, is that the French and English 3-rail O gauge equipment typically ran on DC power (20 volts).  Some of the manual reverse locos can also run on AC, but the autoreverse locos require DC.  I have read that powering an autoreverse loco with AC would ruin the motor.  I have both AC (Lionel KW) and DC (Aristo) power on my layout, switching between them with a knife switch.

I have run the manual reverse loco (e.g. BB8051) on AC, but it runs a lot better with DC.  I think that the European DC transformers control direction from the transformer itself, but I do not own one, so am not sure.  

Thanks for sharing these.  I have lately become a fan of trains like these though I don't own any yet.  I enjoy watching you tube videos of this type of train.

Those are very neat indeed.  Thanks for posting.  Might have t try and catch one of those sometime.

Some of my French Set although I no longer have the LR set

Clockwork JEP Set

LR Set

All very interesting, Thanks for sharing!

This website has a wealth of info on many different brands of old trains:

http://www.binnsroad.co.uk/railways/oindex.html

Good golly Ms. Molly, the French got something right for a change.

Very attractive trains.

Al