Well I am posting two engines that are a bit off of my "regular" line. You may know that Hornby trains by Mecanno are normally considered a U.K. company and in fact that was their original location. However in 1912 they created a separate company to handle the firm's business in France, which at the time was becoming their largest export market. This French company continued through the banner years of the 1920's and 1930's and while independent in many ways they remained a part of the Mecanno group . Most of the products were similar but with changes made to align them to French railroad practice and look. The alignment with U.K. was suspended during the period 1940-1946 due to the war. In 1946, the French company was re-energized and production was started again. This continued until the Firm stopped making new trains in about 1963 although existing stock was sold via their network of dealers.
During the later 1950's, the firm sought a way to expand its customer base and went looking for products that could be made and sold less expensively than their regular line. The output of this effort was the so called "Train Express". This was, in fact, an entire line of loco's, cars, track, and line side accessories like stations all available below the prices of the regular 0 gauge line (it was much smaller and had fewer features but was 0 gauge). This green loco above with the smoke deflectors is the MO Train Express locomotive from about 1956. It is clockwork and was usually sold in sets with 1 or 2 cars and a circle of track. Later the sets often included either a station or some line side accessory as well as loco, cars, and track.
The brown OE locomotive above is very different from the green Train Express loco in the first picture. It is electric and fully remote reversing. It has an electric headlight and is very capable for pulling several cars. Interestingly this locomotive was offered in the line from about the 1930's onward, with the primary change over the years was the color. This brown version dates from the late 1940's hence it would be early post war production. It is quite a good puller and I use it to lead my 3-4 car tinplate passenger trains all of postwar Hornby vintage.
Well Happy Steamday Sunday to everyone
Don
