Salvé Dear All, Foe years I have thought that it was A.R.Walökley who was the "father" of our hobby, at the very least he was the inventor of it in small scale! however I was just reading an article from 81 where C.J.Freezer says that Henry Greenly was the "father" of our hobby, my question is "Does anyone know why or at least can hazard a guess as to why he thoughtr so?" Beowulf
Henry Greenly
Apr 21, 2004
9 Replies
I thought that Greenly had invented the scale of HO, whilst Walkley pioneed the small use of it, and the tension lock coupling.
Henry Greenly was instrumental in getting the German toy manufacturers to produce British models and in marketting them in Britain.
This seems quite a good summary of the early history of electric model trains in the UK
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With respect to Freezer, I think the view would have been it was Greenly whilst working at Bassett-Loake who developed the commercial side of table top model railways in the UK.
Walkley also pioneer 2mm scale, showing a working locomotive in 1927.
- Nigel
Walkley proselytized scale modelling...Greenly was more the engineer, he would happily fit oversize boilers to get longer runs and landed us with OO gauge to fit bigger motors. Although venerated by the "posh" model engineer brigade in the days when it was a rich man's hobby, he was taken down a few pegs by L.B.S.C. who shewed how to make scale models which could pull more than the rice pudding skin. Greenly was consultant to, and designer for, Bassett Lowke who gave him a lot of publicity, and he wrote copiously for Marshall's Model Railway News. I suspect Freezer was Bassett Lowke boy. Yes, sour grapes, I had to make do with Hornby.
Salvé "John Ruddy" skrev i meddelandet news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...
Up to now I have understood that it was AR Walkley who invented and built the first HO (half O) models and layout, I hadnt realised that Greenly was a B-L man though, nice though their gear is, it wasnt scale which ARW's stuff was. Beowulf
Can't get it, is the url correct?
Ken.
Amongst the many fathers of our hobby . . .
salvé skrev i meddelandet news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...
Dear Mike, NC gave an Url which turned out to be very good indeed, it explained some of the decisions made and the reasoning behind them, which I found absolutely fascinating, amasing that the British gauges found such homes in so many parts of the world :) Britain rules :)) Beowulf
Greenly was around long before HO, designing stuff for Bassett Lowke in the then "small" scales/gauges of O and 1. Even though he is best known for his 15" gauge live steam, that came when he was already well established.
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