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I recently purchased this tin 0-4-0 loco w/ tender on eBay- it was sold as “Bub NOT Bing”.

My questions are:

Who produced the loco and tender?

Year of production for the loco?

alterations to the loco?

Picture of both the loco and tender:

1D242F89-3664-425A-833E-676E51079479

Comparing the gears, brush plate, and style of the loco certainly appears to look like it’s a Bub 3 rail electric- with a modification that added a 3rd rail pick-up roller. Pics below:

Side with gears, looks like Bub 3 rail electrics I’ve examined. Dome on top is silver

8F743FBA-6576-4EE1-B9E5-FD2AE53A7FC3

Side with brush plate cover. Looks identical to other Bub 3 rail electrics.that spent too long in the sun- as evident by the faded detailing.C55DCDAA-3DB1-4A77-9CC7-107BF69A822F

2 pictures of the underside- the gears are similar to Marx “fat wheels”. And there’s the pick-up roller that looks like it’s been added.743854AF-FEEF-4C64-8320-662B452A5E17

F69560F5-6F07-45A9-80D1-93E95313C0C1

headlight(not sure if it was added) and pattern on front of loco43BF70FC-28C1-4101-9D49-FBD676F2010D

aerial view2EF914E8-FFFE-42B8-88F9-046868089FFA

rearAFC85208-787C-4876-82AB-F4F27CE55B25

Tender:

Appears to have been “dipped”- all black, very round wheels and thick axles. Bub type couplers02586773-8BAB-4F95-83AD-DB91226F0ED4

The biggest enigma- this logo:

Top has the letters “ML” followed by a superscript “D”

Below is another L, with England underneath

FB650980-F75E-421C-909B-100F928C1386

Help is very MUCH appreciated!!

sincerely,



steve

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Last edited by StevefromPA
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I’d also like to add that it works quite well! Notice thatis has both front and back couplers, the back of which I’ve seen on Bub rolling stock. I feel it may possibly be a wind-up conversion, however, there is no slot in the back of the cab or lever, also, someone would’ve replaced not only the wind-up assembly but the housing with an electric motor.

I don’t think I mentioned this above- but there are NO marking on the Loco- Not a KBN, not a Bub, Not a “Germany”- nothing

Thanks for the info, guys! Much appreciated!

@Fatman the top of the tender certainly matches the Hornby style you posted- great pics by the way! Thanks for sharing! That last one looks like it’d go well with the Majorie & Auroa(?) Passenger cars

Regarding the tender- first, here are some more pictures as I did just notice that the top was screwed to the base in 2 equidistant pairings. @beardog49 might be on to something. I don’t have Hornby tender, to my knowledge, so I have none to compare it to:

image

image



I searched Hornby and MML and the most relevant things that came up were: Midland Mainline was a rail operator in the U.K.which operated from 1996-2007, Midland Main Line- a major rail line whitch started construction in the   1830s and goes from London to The Northern UK, than a 3 post discussion from 2011 asking about Hornby’s Midland Mainline coaches.

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@StevefromPA posted:

@rdigilio

Roland, thank you so much for your assistance!! I figured that the Tender was likely Hornby/Meccanno, But my search for the MML with Hornby, meccanno, And Hornby meccanno didn’t bear me any fruit. Will certainly be googling this Bub loco- thank you so much for your help! I really appreciate it!

sincerely,

Steve

Just a thought - not trying to be the spelling police, but if you spelled it "meccanno" (proper is meccano), it would miss a lot of search results. 

Nice find!

Ha all good @Mallard4468 . Thanks for the heads up because if that was the case you would’ve saved me Big time. Usually when I’m doing the actual searches I reference back to a logo that has Hornby Meccano although often times google ends up auto-filling parts of it.

i did just look at a Meccano pedestrian walkover bridge that I have. “Hornby Series Manufactured by Meccano Ltd. Liverpool”. Using my phone so I can’t bold letters, but possibly “Manufactured, Meccano, Ltd.” MMLD(superscript).

Looked into patents- it is indeed Hornby  @rdigilio And @Fatman - I owe you two dinner.

The MMLD with England underneath is actually M Ld L= Meccano Limited Liverpool England.

The nuts and bolts securing your tender sides to the base are an important factor which marks the tender as fairly early .. it is using what we have come to term "Nut and Bolt" manufacture ... this is important when you look at the history of Hornby in the early years ... Frank Hornby of course made his mark early on with Meccano , the English variant of your yank Erector sets ( and yes Hornby was first  lol! )

Meccano was of course a construction kit , and building off the success of that, Hornby went into model train manufacture , the very first set made by Hornby was indeed a construction model of a train, yep you could disassemble and reassemble it yourself , but rather than cobbling it out of crude Meccano , Frank Hornby custom made the locomotive and tender bodies and chassis's in tin, which the new owner could then use as a very presentable and fully functional model train .. naturally this involved using nuts and bolts to join various sub assemblies .. thus the Nut and Bolt construction locos and tenders ... it wasnt until a few years later that Hornby utilised tab and slot lithography to cut down on manufacturing cost and sell completed model trains ready to run which were not easily pulled apart 

Nut & Bolt Loco and Tender .

under cab view showing nuts and bolts which hold the chassis onto the cab body , even the motor was held in by Meccano nut and bolt ( very bottom of pic )

and the very first prototype built entirely from Meccano by Frank Hornby to give him the idea

Last edited by Fatman

Finally found pics of the car with the MML markings I was referring to earlier. The car is long gone but perhaps we can glean a few

details. If you enlarge the yellow decal on the side it says MML ENGLAND. The floor of the car is embossed the same. The body is

secured to the frame with screws and nutsIMG_20201025_110935 [1)IMG_20201025_110946 [1)IMG_20201025_110956 [1)IMG_20201025_111006 [1)IMG_20201025_111015 [1)IMG_20201025_111024 [1), and the buffers are held on with nuts. Also note that the M & R letters on the

sides of the cars are separate pieces and are held on with tab and slot.

Best, John

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