Lionel Collectors Club U.K. Show

[Nick12DMC]

Hi all,
Next weekend (6th-7th May)is the Lionel Collectors club U.K.Annual show at the Winter Gardens Hall, Ilkley, West Yorkshire. England

Open 10:30hrs to 16:30hrs on Sat.
Open 10:00hrs to 12:00hrs on Sun.

Sounds like a good weekend

Regards

Nick

[pbjwilson]

Nick, Great to hear news from across the big pond. Is there a large following of Lionel trains in the U.K.? I sold a pre-war Lionel engine on e-bay, that was purchased by a guy in France. Interesting the worldwide interest in Lionel.

[Nick12DMC]

Hi Paul,
Yes there is quiet a Lionel & 3 rail O following in the UK.
Its definitely growing though, you can't just pop to your local model shop and expect to find 3 rail stuff. Most common gauge is OO with HO and N close behind.
We do have a UK Lionel and MTH dealer. France and Switzerland also have Lionel dealers.
My son got intrested after seeing Garfield (movie) and the Polar Express and now I am hooked[:)]

Regards

Nick

[msacco]

Nick,
I am too quite surprised that Lionel and 3 rail O gauge is growing where you are. Although isn't true many years ago Hornby and Marklin made 3 rail 0?
Also, curious if there's any postwar Lionel to be found where you are. If you've not seen it, and have an interest in anitques and working on your own models, postwar Lionel is really wonderful stuff.

Mike Sacco

[Nick12DMC]

Hi Mike,
Looking forward to seeing some postwar at the show.
Lionel was available in the UK in the 50's. It turns up on UK ebay.
Ace Trains make 3 rail O gauge in British outline. I would really like
one of their LNER A4 pacifics. £675 guess I had better keep saving!

Regards
Nick

[Nick12DMC]

Hi All,
Here are some pics of last weekends show.



This is my small layout, the only one at the show in Fastrack.





A great time was had by all.
I will post some more pics later

Regards

Nick

[More to restore]

Hello Nick,

It was great meeting you in person last Saturday, feeling the atmosphere and seeing a few engines and cars that I always wanted to have. You did not mention it, but this was already the 25th anniversary meeting of the UK Lionel lines collector club! Well, since York (USA) is not in my backyard, Ilkley (UK) was great to go to and was well worth the 200 miles and ferry crossing.

I have made quiet a lot of photo's and only a few are really good. I also made a photo of you, but your PRR GEEP runned through the pic, so there is a brown stripe in the foreground....
Here are some better pictures.








BTW, seeing all these layouts I am planning to work a bit more on creating a layout this year. Maybe, I can show you a layout next year.

[Dave Farquhar]

QUOTE: Originally posted by msacco
Although isn't true many years ago Hornby and Marklin made 3 rail 0?

Indeed they did, as did other European makers. I visited a layout this weekend, owned by a collector who has a number of Hornby, JEP (French) and Sakai (Japanese) locomotives. He runs all of them on Lionel O31-profile track, although most of his curves are O42 because the European trains can't handle O31 curves. He runs them off Lionel transformers.

[dwiemer]

I too would love to get one of the Ace trains. As you mention, they are top dollar. I noticed recently that they had a real Pretty engine on ebay selling for over 700. I will have to save my money for it. I have received a few of the Ace catalogs, and they are nice quality and the folks are very pleasant to talk with. My mother is from across the pond and still has plenty of family over there, so perhaps we have some older 3 rail that I can buy off.

Anyway, thanks for the photos, they are great.
Dennis

[Nick12DMC]

Great to meet up with you, More to restore.

Best Regards

Nick

[Anonymous]

It is good to hear our first time visitors to the Lionel Collectors Club UK show at Ilkley show enjoyed themselves.

I guess the club has been hiding its light for the last 25 years ! We have some 80 members mainly in the UK.

Lionel trains were sold by Gamages, a major London toy store, in the 1950s and 1960s, so there is a certain amount of that vintage about in the UK, and occasionly it turns up at toy fairs.

Hornby made 3 rail 'O' tin plate trains in the Pre War period, but have not made any since. Yes Hornby will run on Lionel tin plate track with conventional Lionel controllers. Hornby track has a camber and so is not flat like Lionel. Also Lionel engines short circuit on Hornby points(switches). Some Hornby collectors use Lionel track because Hornby track is no longer made. ACE is a new company making tin plate trains similar to the old Hornby in style, and growing fast in what they have to offer.

Chris Pratt
(editor of the Lionel Collectors Club UK newsletter)

[Roger Bielen]

Welcome [#welcome][#welcome][#welcome] to the forum Chris. Its good to see that O gauge is alive and active in the UK. Maybe with enough requests to the manufacturers someday they'll come out with a 50HZ model.

[Nick12DMC]

[#welcome] Chris, Thanks for the great show.

Roger, it appears that we have managed to get around the 50Hz problems.


This is a pic of Chris and Ken's layout at the show. The 2 light cream box's
are 220 VAC 50Hz to 12 VDC 25 Amp power supplies the 2 grey units are
12 VDC to 110 VAC 60Hz 300 watt Pure Sine Wave Inverters.
This gives as good or better quality power than a US wall outlet.

I was running the same on my small layout. Everything we have tried so far appears to work just as it does in the States.

However I would still like to see a 50Hz compatiable TMCC II (Hint
Hint!)

Best Regards
Nick

[Roger Bielen]

And I thought I had a lot of wires.[(-D]