Like many other collectors I'm fairly familiar with British toy trains, such as Hornby (Meccano) and Tri-ang, and American toy trains, such as Lionel, and perhaps the main reason for that familiarity is that they're made in English-speaking countries, and unfortunately I only speak English. There are other trains, such as Märklin, made in Germany, which were marketed widely in the UK, USA and Australia, and so there is a degree of familiarity with them, but there is a whole other realm of toy trains made particularly in Germany and France that, in the main, we English speakers just do not know very much about. I must add that I am a member of a UK-based society- the Train Collector's Society- whose motto is "Any Make, Any Gauge, Any Age" whose members have very wide and diverse interests which I really appreciate, and I have found membership in the TCS to be extremely beneficial and encouraging. There have been many articles in their excellent magazine, Train Collector, that have shown what an interesting and diverse hobby this can be. Anyway, to cut a long story short, with the time that I've had available I've been searching out toy trains on the Internet with which I'm not familiar, and have found it absolutely fascinating!!
As I was reviewing my Scale and Gauge display (see the previous post) I was thinking about one of the lesser-known scales- S gauge. S Gauge is well known in the US because it was the scale chosen by AC Gilbert's American Flyer trains after WWII, and was very popular indeed. It is still being made by Lionel and others. But outside the US S gauge is almost unknown. There were a couple of attempts in the 50's to develop S gauge in Europe, most notably in Eastern Germany, but it didn't really last too long. The most successful European S gauge system was by a company called VEB Stadtilm, appropriately in Stadtilm, Germany. VEB means that it was an East German nationalised company. They developed a delightful and fairly comprehensive system, and being German it was excellent quality. Unfortunately it ultimately fell by the wayside after about ten years, but is eagerly collected now, along with Stadtilm's O gauge trains. S Gauge trains are about mid way in size between HO and O gauge. This is a nice little video of a small Stadtilm S gauge layout.
Another small S gauge system was briefly made by the French company Jep (Jouet de Paris/ toys of Paris) which was a huge toymaker in France, about which most of us in the English-speaking world know very little. They made a very limited array of S gauge trains, mostly train-sets, but with a few add-on items as well. From what I've seen though, it wasn't a fully developed system, with points and accessories, just a circle or oval of track and a few trains. I could be wrong though, and I would love to know more!! Anyway, I managed to buy a very nice Jep S gauge coach, mint in box, from a seller in France, and for the moment it is about the only representative in my collection of European S gauge. It certainly is very nice though! Interestingly the 'normal' gauge used for S gauge is 7/8 ths of an inch, which is about 22.25 mm, however Jep state the gauge on the box as 25mm. As it is a toy, running on tinplate rails, the difference may be academic, but interesting nonetheless.
There have been many other interesting discoveries on the internet in the last few weeks, and I hope to share these in subsequent posts. In the meantime, there are new 'discoveries' every day!!
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