Model locomotive

Resource Type: Image | Posted on 18th November 2011 by Liam Physick

This Guardian article from 18th November 2011 concerns what is possibly the world’s oldest toy locomotive. Built out of old bits of scrap wood, it is believed to have been made in the 1820s or 1830s by a father for his son, who both lived in a cottage in County Durham that backed onto the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The pieces seem to come from old bits of furniture, with the boiler having been a banister and the funnel a chair leg. In the 1960s, Tom Robson, a teacher, bought the model from the original family, and gave it to his son, also Tom. Robson Sr. took the model to the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow, to be broadcast on 20th November - it was valued at £5000. In the show, expert Paul Atterbury will describe the model as “extraordinary”

Tagged under: steam locomotives, rocket, george stephenson, robert stephenson, stockton and darlington railway, locomotion no. 1, model locomotive

Categorised under: The Station & Railway Pioneers