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Reply to "Tinplate photos πŸ“Έ and videos πŸ“½"

That's a great one @Fatman ..... I think it is a Van Riemsdjik loco no ?  I wish I could have an opportunity to find one but maybe I won this one no ?

100% Correct Daniel!

Its one of only 600 manufactured by John Van Riemsdijk between 1946 and 1948. Riemsdijk after the war saw that other manufacturers were churning out the cheaper models into the recovering marketplace and was convinced that there would be a market for clockwork loco's of much higher quality like those that were prevalent before the war , so utilising a Basset-lowke type drive he set his engineering mind to work and mated the high quality mechanism with a user variable certrifugal governer , which gave an ability to run the locomotive at slower speeds without losing the torque of the motor or sacrificing the run down of the mechanism in effect the modern birth of the controlled clockwork motor ! ( in regard to model railways ) A Similar concept was invented and implimented before the war in 1928 by Walker-Fenn utilising a gramophone governor bolted onto a Marklin chassis but it was a costly piece!  ... sadly in the post war boom electricity was becoming more and more available and it was now truly the time of the electric locomotive which somewhat took the winds out of the sails of these brilliant clockwork beauties ...

He made a lot of tinplate trams and over 1000 0-6-0 locomotives and they show up from time to time , but the 4-4-4 is much less common to appear , so snagging this one was amazing for me ..

His products were sold mainly thru upmarket stores such as Walkers-Holtzapffel and Gamages in London ( thus they are often called Walkers-Riemdijk's )

Van Riemsdijk was an incredibly interesting fellow from what I read of him , born in 1924 ,He spent a lot of his childhood traveling all across Europe on trains with his father , he joined the Royal Navy, and in WWII in recognition of his inventor side and encyclopedic knowledge of Europe he was signed up by the UK's SOE (Special Operations Executive) and among many things designed and made Clockwork "Moo-Horns" which were included in airdrops to the French Resistance to enable them to find the packages in total darkness... Mooing every few minutes .. Ze Germans never caught on ! and what a great excuse for being out at night ...looking for a lost cow! "Moooooo! " Oh its over there !  LOL!

He also invented a Steam Powered radio so the resistance didn't need electricity to contact the Brits !

He sold his clockwork business in 1956 and took up a position at the National Science Museum ( UK ) ... and he went on to pretty much source collate and set up the UK National Railway Museum

Oh and he made Gorgeous Locos like this one ...

Last edited by Fatman

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