This card shows several things - that model trains were detailed and exact enough to serve as testing models for actual trains - that they were definitely not just children`s toys - and that their original, albeit "by product", purpose, to train engineers and railway staff, actually worked.
However, in the course of this week`s investigations, we learned that in the National Railway Museum, York, there is a model of a railway layout which was designed to train signalmen before they started actually working on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. it was constructed in 1912, and the trains, (so presumably the track, signals and other equipment) were supplied by Bassett-Lowke.
Bassett-Lowke was founded in Northampton, in the 1890s, by Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke, selling trains, ship models, and construction sets by mail order. Unlike Hornby, it bought in most of its models, though it did design and produce a few. It offered trains in every size, from the most usual `O` Gauge, up to large live steam models, the first of which was used on the Blackpool Miniature Railway, that is now in private hands, but a much smaller size railway layout that they designed and built can still be seen at the Bekonscot Model Village.
The main thing about Bassett-Lowke was the excellence of their catalogues, yet sadly this was what led to their decline, for people would send off for a catalogue and go out hunting bargains in local shops and markets for less. In 1964 the company stopped selling by mail order and also sold their shops, to Beatties. That was the end, and Bassett-Lowke stopped trading in 1965. It was bought by a succession of private and company train enthusiasts, but in 1996 the name was bought by Corgi, who used it for a series of `O` Gauge trains, but did not really market it with gusto. Then in 2008, the unthinkable happened, and Corgi were taken over, by Hornby....
This set is first listed in our original Ogden`s reference book, RB.15, as
- 121. 50. MODERN RAILWAYS. fronts printed by letterpress in colour. Backs in grey, with descriptive text. Home issue, 1936. Similar series issued by Hignett.
The Ogden`s version next appears in our original World Tobacco Issues Index as :
- MODERN RAILWAYS. Sm. Nd. (50) See Ha.571-11 ... O2/159
And the listing in the same book, concerning the Hignett version, is identical save the card code.
The handbook reference, at that time, led to the one published by the London Cigarette Card Company , to accompany their catalogue for 1955, and the entries in that catalogue are quite telling, as they read :
- HIGNETT :
Modern Railways (October 1936) - odds 1/-, sets 50/-
- OGDEN :
Modern Railways (1936) - odds 6d,. sets 30/-
Sadly, months of issue were not recorded for the Ogden`s sets, but we presume, as the parent, that they preceded the Hignett ones. As for the difference in price, it is that more sets of Ogden`s cigarettes were sold, and over a wider area of the country, than the Hignett packets, so the Ogden`s sets were not just completed quicker by the consumer, but more duplicates were available for dealers to buy, or swap.
As for the handbook, that simply lists the eighteen series which were issued by both Hignett and Ogdens, which I am pretty certain are recorded elsewhere, but can`t seem to find.
By the time of our updated World Tobacco Issues Index, gone is any reference to that handbook, the entry simply reads :
- MODERN RAILWAYS. Sm. Nd. (50) ... O100-540