Sometime during 1937 or 1938, my grandfather and my uncle paid a visit, bringing a model train that they had borrowed. It was a 2-car model of the wooden slam-door electric train that ran on the Metropolitan line at that time (we were in Rayners Lane).
If I remember correctly, it was larger than the Hornby trains, so it might have been 1-gauge. The control box had an ordinary household lamp mounted on it, and the lamp glowed when the train ran. I'd been warned not to touch the track, as it was "dangerous". Being 3 or 4 years old, I took this literally, but in later years I assumed that I'd been warned off to prevent my interfering with the borrowed train. Later still, it occurred to me that perhaps the control box used the lamp as a voltage-dropping resistor, to avoid using a transformer (remember, at that time many houses had a DC electricity supply).
When the power was switched on, the train ran forwards: when it was stopped and restarted, it ran the other way. To run forwards again, my uncle had to open the roof of the driving car and fiddle with comething inside.
That's as far as my memory takes me. Does anyone else remember this type of model?
Dewi Williams Ottawa, Canada