Our October Running Day, In Pictures

Last week Brighton Toy and Model Museum proudly hosted another of our famous Running Days. These days are a rare treat, and one that you won’t see in most museums, for it is on running days that we take down the Perspex screens that come between our visitors and our exhibits and actually set the toys and models in motion, just as they were made to be.

A lot of museums, quite naturally, don’t do this kind of thing. After all, every moment’s use adds a little more to the wear of the trains that we have on display, and eventually that wear mounts up. So we only run our model trains for a few hours per year, and to let our visitors view them in their glory, the screens have to come down.

You wouldn’t think that the Perspex would make so much difference! While it never impedes the view of the model trains, buildings and bridges we have on display, it does reflect light and get in the way of leaning right up close to the trains. So, as long as you don’t touch, we don’t mind if you lean in to get a better look, or even take photos (without flash of course).

However, as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, so please enjoy our photoblog of Markiln, Hornby, Minic, Bing, Bassett-Lowke trains, buildings and bridges, some of which, such as the Marklin railway bridge, we believe to be the only surviving examples.

The First Train Running Day Of The Year!

Our first Running Day of 2017 will be on 22 of April!

Running Days are a much anticipated opportunity to see some of the rarest and most delicate model trains in our 0 gauge collection running as Marklin, Hornby and Bassett Lowke intended.

Our Running days are always popular with collectors and aficionados as well as the general public as they afford visitors the opportunity to see trains that are normally kept motionless behind screens going full tilt around our superb diorama without the impedance of Perspex.

The museum opens at ten thirty and remains open until 5pm, with trains running from 11 until 1pm, when the museum curators and collectors break for lunch. After their break, and they return at 2.30 and continue running the trains until 4.30. Admission on the Running Day is £10 for adults, £5.50 for disabled and £5 for children under 16.

While the experts break, the museum remains open to visitors, who can enjoy all the other exhibits we normally offer, including our recent dolls’ house addition, our huge collection of toy cars, stuffed toys, and construction kits and so much more.

If you want to stay informed about this, or any other special events that are put on by Brighton Toy and Model Museum, why not follow us on Facebook for all the latest information on our activities and other news and events in the Brighton and Hove area?

Frank Hornby 150th Anniversary

The Frank Hornby 150th Anniversary logo, in dark red.

2013 is the 150th anniversary of the birth of British toymaking pioneer Frank Hornby.

Hornby didn't just invent Hornby Trains: he also invented Dinky Toys, and he got his start when he invented Meccano, originally as a way of making it easier to make toys for his own children out of strips of cut-up biscuit tins.

Hornby patented the idea behind his modular metal construction kit in 1901, and the system evolved to become "Mechanics Made Easy", an educational system for teaching engineering principles to children, before being given the more catchy name of "Meccano".

Meccano Ltd. grew to become an international company with headquarters at Binns Road, Liverpool, and Hornby became a millionaire and a Member of Parliament.

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The Museum has just been awarded a grant by the Heritage Lottery Fund to help it to celebrate 2013 as Frank Hornby Year. The grant will pay for a full-time Project Officer for a year to rewrite and dramatically expand our online resources for Meccano, Dinky Toys and Hornby Trains, and to set up a project website at FrankHornby150.org to hold a directory of participating groups and organisations, and a calendar of their 2013 events. We'll also be holding events focussing on Frank Hornby Week (13th-19th May 2013), launching the programme at the 2013 ModelWorld exhibition in February, and doing some other Very Cool Stuff including some very exciting things on the Museum floor with new technology to allow visitors to access information from the Museum floor. 

As well as its Meccano exhibits, the Museum has what we believe to be the best collection of early Hornby Trains on public display anywhere in the World (in Arch Four), and this grant will let us finally install information systems that can do these collections justice. We're also hoping to bring in some new guest exhibits for 2013 to mark the anniversary.

More information to follow as these exciting developments unfold ...

Hornby rotating sign

Pentagonal Hornby illuminated shop sign

One of the rarer pieces in the Hornby Wall is a slightly Art Deco-ish 1950's five-sided Hornby Dublo rotating sign. The combination of faded grey-blue curves and chrome trim is slightly reminiscent of the styling on a 1950's refrigerator.

As part of our plans to try to increase the number of interactive items, we've now wired the display up to some modern energy-saving electronics that are triggered by a pushbutton on the right of the cabinet, and now it lights up in 1950's rainbow pastels and rotates a couple of times when the button's pushed. This is surprisingly fun.

"Hornby Wall" display

Regular visitors will have noticed that for the past few months we've been steadily working on the "Hornby Wall" cabinets at the very end of the Museum's Arch Four, working and reworking the contents (and squeezing in more and more pieces each time) to create the best possible display of classic Hornby items from the 1920s and 1930s up to the introduction of Hornby Dublo.

The pieces are grouped from left to right in date order, so the wall efffectively gives an overview of the early evolution of Hornby.

We haven't yet done a final count of even the approximate number of items in the Hornby Wall, but we think that the overall effect is now slightly staggering, even for visitors who aren't dedicated Hornby enthusiasts.

Hornby now in Stock!

The Hornby "Night Mail" train set

The museum shop has been selling a fair amount of pre-owned Hornby items on commission, so we thought that it was time to supplement this with new Hornby stock. We now have a range of Hornby items, including starter sets that come with their own printed mat (so that your model layout can be slid safely under a bed when not in use!).