OO Scale Hornby Model Trains
Hornby was founded by Frank Hornby in 1901 by selling construction toys. They eventually ventured in model trains, beginning with clockwork model trains in the 20s. The company was then purchased by Lines Bros Ltd. in 1964 and merged Hornby with their model train line Tri-Ang. Since 1964 to 1971, the company is known as Tri-Ang Hornby. The brand was again sold to Dunbee-Combex-Marx along with Tri-Ang but the company opted to drop the Tri-Ang name and focused on the Hornby model. Even though the company struggled during the 80s, they went public in 1986 and became one of the most powerful model scale manufacturers in the world.
The OO scale Hornby was first introduced as the Hornby Dublo in 1938. Although it was temporarily stopped during the Second World War, the Horby Dublo became one of the most popular model trains in UK in the late 40s. Eventually, the OO scale became the preferred scale model of the country. The company was able to expand their product line with different acquisitions of other model trains manufacturers and their OO scale considerably improved since the 80s. The OO scale Hornby even came out with Live Steam in 2003 and although it was the first for Hornby, it was certainly very competitive.