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Manbench Industries; Purveyors of general mayhem since 1994, a blog to follow the crazed, possibly deranged projects and emotive musings, of an undergraduate engineer, and an apprentice organ builder who have always felt they were born in the wrong age. Follow us as we, re-write history, learn lost skills, discover strange new worlds, break things, rant at things, mend things, make new things and generally find ways of passing the day instead of doing "proper work" !

Thursday 17 October 2013

From the Collection - Hornby Rocket and Coach

I just wanted to show you my Hornby Rocket complete with the coach purchased at the Great Dorset Steam Fair a few weeks ago. The Rocket certainly makes an impressive model - would like another coach just to add to this!

The engine made for a very unusual toy - being quite an advanced for the market at the time, with a internally fired boiler, a gas burner and fixed cylinders. Extensive use of plastic was made in the model with the track, tender and even the gas tank being made from plastic. After a few years, the plastic gas tank would go brittle often leading to leaks and fire damaged tenders.

The track is in interesting design made up from small sections shaped like a straightened out 'Z'. One 'leg' of each 'Z' is longer than the other, meaning when joined in an opposing pattern, a straight section of track is produced but when placed together produce a curved shape to the track.

It was a shame the model never took off and the range continued, I read somewhere that there were plans afoot to produce the entire set of entrants for the Rainhill Trials - how on earth they'd have got a horse suitable for 3 1/2" gauge to power Brandreth's 'Cycloped' I do not know!



Must have been quite something in 1829.

More photos at our flickr account.

The Engineer.

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