50 ans de Trains Miniatures HO en France

After WW11, whilst the British, German and Italian manufacturers switched rapidly to HO, or OO scales, French ones, such as Hornby and Fournereau, stayed loyal to O gauge for longer, the first major French firm to switch being JEP who started a range closer to OO than HO in 1948.

In 1954 Jouef launched their under-scale toy-like range, which had some British models sold under the ‘Playcraft’ name. HOrnby-acHO appeared in 1960 and was the first close to scale French product;  Jouef then started producing generally very fine models of French prototypes at reasonable prices. All this time Marklin, Fleischmann, Rivarossi and Lima were producing some French models, and smaller French concerns – France Trains, VB, RMA and others were producing various close scale coaches and rolling stock, plus kits.

The whole subject is looked at in considerable detail in this French language book, which goes way beyond the locomotives and rolling stock to buildings and accessories. If you have ever modelled French railways this 318 page book will be of interest, as it will to anyone interested in the history of railway modelling.

Vast quantities of colour photographs. Hardback.