1958; [Civil] Station Accessories - HO/OO

First issued in 1958 this was the first of the 'Figure' sets, except that it...er...wasn't part of the figure range, which would be a year or two in the gestating still! This was actually part of the Railway Accessory range, and would remain so until late 'Blue' box era, when it was given a place in the figure range.

The two early bags from the Railway range, the earliest having a cursive scrip on the 'Banner' logo, while the later bag had a printed 'AIRFIX' and the graphics changed to match the other ranges. Both faded to dirty-white now.

Finally it gets a place in the mighty figure range (well - it was then!), and apart from a couple of Tamiya or Italeri/Heller kit boxes, possibly the only time someone is seen smoking on a toy figure box?

Also please note that the Fat controller seems to have been borrowed from the Reverend Scouse-Beetle, a bit misleading as the contents of this set are - to a man; or woman - suffering from the post-war austerity diet of the 50's and all need a good feed!

After some time 'off the ledger', the set returned in the 80's, with graphics to tie-in with the new Airfix railway range and catalogue, which would end up as 'Mainline' after Palitoy via Heller to Dapol...or something...ask the man with a notebook at the end of platform 5; Woking Station, he'll know.

When Dapol inherited the moulds for the railway range, they also got a lot of ex-factory stock of the figures and so to start with just re-bagged them in cream polyethylene, they appeared in these bags and were contemporary around 1994 when I got this in the New Tottenhamcourt Road Beatties (which must have been just before the whole group went belly-up?). Note - they've kept the artwork but removed the paint references at the ends of the pointer-lines!

Once they had used up the old stock they (Dapol) re-ran the mould in 'standard' grey polystyrene, which was easier to glue, convert, paint etc...and gave them a new style of bag to boot!

As to the discolouration..."Careful with that mould-release agent Eugine!"

It is one of life's little annoyances that red velvet is just not the background for photographing pink'ish-white'ish-creamy coloured figures, so this little lot will need to be re-done, but for now, here is a full set 'on the sprue' and laid-out, the best thing about this set was that the various machines, loads and trolleys; when used as street furniture and barricades, made a Stalingrad carpet-war so much more realistic!!

Comparison between Airfix and Merten rail staff and/or loco-crew, this illustrates how Airfix - by calling their range "HO/OO" were covering all the bases, this set is perfectly compatible with the European figures of Presiser, Merten and others, but small for OO gauge layouts.

Another size comparison, on the left a current production Noch figure of a waitress, on the right a vague copy of a Merit porter from - I think - Moonbo Toys. Moonbo seem to have been connected to Kader, but at the budget end...they made cheap rack-toy clockworks, or straight 'push' train sets with soft plastic accessories (like this figure, trees, signals etc...) and harder styrene station buildings and the like.

OBE's, mostly gloss, mostly stab-and-hope with a free 'craft' brush by the look of them, but the charm is there and the nostalgia is there!

Sorting, with more OBE's, the pale, used chewing-gum coloured ones are the really early issues, and have faded like the red Guards Band and Colour Party figures of the same era, but without the colour to start with, they just go a dirty greyish! You will find sets on-runner in this condition, particularly the early header-carded bagged sets, it's not a 'differnt' colour, just non-fast dyes.

Colour variations, for the pale whitish-grey ones see comments for above image, there where also several shades of the later cream with warmer pinkish shades and cooler whiter hues.

The two weighing machines had the same stand, one (second row) being the coin-operated "I Speak Your Weight" type platform amusement, the other (bottom row) being a 'lolly-pop' sack-scale for the porters or Royal Mail parcel guys to use. I think the third machine down is a platform-ticket machine?

The machine at the top could be for chocolate or cigarettes, I can remember when every tube station platform had two or three of these with their own size of Cadbury's bar, in different flavours.

Comparison shot between the Station Accessories and the nearest equivalent pose from the later Civilians, although they joined the figure 'set' range earlier, they betray the improvements in sculpting that a few extra years brought to the process. Note how one snapped as the photo-shoot proceeded...old figures now, all of 'em!

Comparison between the Post Office/platform baggage/luggage/post-bag trolleys by (from the left) Wardie Mastermodels (BJ Ward) in blue powder-coated die cast mazac/zamak, Merit (J&L Randall), latter handled (to the present 2021) by Prichard Patent Products (PPP)'s Modelscene line in various colours of polyethylene and the Airfix versions.

The Mastermodel comes with two equally die-cast barrels, while the Merit version originally came with two un-powered trailers (since reduced to one) and paint highlights, the driver re-modeled slightly. Loads were available separately and included coal sacks, parcels, trunks and suitcases, tallboys, churns, barrels, boxes and postal sacks.

AHM (Associated Hobby Manufactures [and importers]), carried the Airfix lines, proor to the establishment of the USAirfix office, and this illustration is from the 1972 AHM catalogue I think, being the Airfix 'line up', but rendered in Black & White rather than the usual colour of Airifx's own catalogues (see below).

 

The Station Accessories as seen in the marketing diorama which I think was first seen in the 1971 catalogue, but which was used for some time after, on and off, with different crops?

 

Also from that 1971 (eighth) catalogue, the colour line-up of art-department painted figures and accessories, as subsequently used by AHM (see above).

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1960; [Civil] Civilians, S6 / 01706 / 01706-4 - HO/OO

The Civilians were - obviously - a separate set from the old Station Accessories, who would not join the 'boxed sets' range until 17 or so years after the introduction of this set. Why Airfix felt the need for two sets, why they kept one out in the cold for so long, and why they didn't just drop the stick-thin set when these figures came out are all questions that remain to be answered.

With 25 poses/items, mostly paired, this set was as varied as it's predecessor with a similar make-up, excepting the number of non-human items in the other set, and like the other set; the figures were mostly doing not a lot!

A complete set laid-out in no particular order, these are a great improvement on the earlier set, and contain a few useful figures for military conversions, while they all look suitably sullen (apart from one or two wavers!) to be lining the street as an invading army drives past - grey Panzers chokeing them with French dust perhaps?

The upper shot here shows a few of my suggestions for straight paint-convertions, I've used the seated guy and the old man with a stick to fill out my old ACW armies. The little girl would make a reasonable Paddington Bear...its the hat you know!

The lower shots are comparisons with the soft vinyl figures used by Hornby for several decades now, and also carried by Life-Like and Model Power at one time or another. Made it Hong Kong, they are clearly lifted from the Airfix set (two figures to the left), or using the Airfix figures for inspiration (two figures on the right), other figures in the Hornby sets are/seem to be based on both Preiser and Merten prototypes.

The irony is that Hornby now owning Airfix they can retro-allow themselves to copy something they could have been sued for carrying years ago!

It's not just faceless companies in HK that like a bit of piracy...all but the child (and she may have been mislaid before they came into my possession) are copied here in a white-metal, by a probably local firm here in the UK, advertising as one of the hundreds who come and go in the backs of the main model railway magazines...can anybody put a name to them?

The usual photograph of other bugger's efforts (OBE's), it would seem that the average Railway modeller in the 1960/70's were less bothered with the figures than they were with the scenery! Also there seems to be an unwritten rule that the fat lady wears a red coat!

 

 When you compare the output of the modern companies making both figures and AFV kits, you realise that Airfix are less and less important in the great scheme of things and it's a bit of a miracle that they managed two motorcycles at all...they managed four bicycles though!

Kostas from Greece answered the call for contributions with scans of a 1975 catalogue (mine are in storage) and here we see one of my favourites, the painted line-up. Interesting to note that Airfix themselves follow the 'Fat Lady' rule...red coat!

Montaplex decided to bomb the Airfix figures with a mixture of post-war fast-jets and airliners, along with a carrier-borne British looking thing and a Sea Vixen!

They also included a half-sprue (frame/runner) in each 'Public Works - Roadworks' set..and you get a tractor, with driver, bargain! In point of fact, that 'Old Fashioned Car' would make an excellent Staff car for Airfix's own WWI French Infantry.

Side-by-side comparison, a part set still on the runner, and a whole set laid-out the right way up! 14 poses and the scooter appear on a whole runner, the part-runners gave you either the scooter or the driver!

The fat lady (sans read coat!) hangs around hoping to attract a husband from Mertens country folk! Being closer to OO-gauge she is actually a bit bigger than the HO gentlemen though!

Fat lady in a coat (not in red, so I fixed the boarder!) orders a stein of beer from a German lady (Noch HO) and takes direction from a Military Policeman (Merit OO), she sits nicely between them, but as we saw above she is smaller then the policeman in this set, so makes a reasonable OO figure, but dwarfs the Noch lady.

One of the truths behind the HO/OO thing Airfix adopted was that it gave them freedom to make their figures pretty-much any old size and claim it was whichever one was not the one a complainant was bemoaning that it wasn't!

Compared to the older set; This sets figures are fuller and more realistic, and a little taller, very 'OO' to their ancestors 'HO' gauge. Still very wooden posing though, compared to most of Preiser or Merten's output...it's the stoicism of the Brits knowing the trains late before anyone tells them!

A glossy set that came-in in a mixed junk-lot the other day. Well meaning parents or grandparents would buy you gloss paints thinking they were the right things, and the commonest sight in toy drawers when I was young was the broken spitfire with gloss green and brown wings!

 

An old photograph from the One Inch Warrior magazine days - although I don't think it was ever used - of what are probably Hong Kong copies. Hard polystyrene of that earlier 'glassy' type, in an off-white or creamy/ivory colour, they are poorer copies, whoever is responsible for them.