Category:Märklin for Bassett-Lowke

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Bassett-Lowke locomotives made by Märklin.

History

Most of the German-built model railway equipment sold by Bassett-Lowke under their own name was built by Bing and by Georges Carette – Bing had been W.J Bassett-Lowke's first Continental contact at the 1901 Paris Exhibition, and after a brief experiment with B-L selling a steam-powered Märklin Precursor Tank engine in ~1910, the company seems to have reverted to using Bing as a manufacturer, who tended to be better at producing small, slickly-designed gauge 0 locomotives with decent proportions in the smaller scale. Some other Märklin pieces (such as their Charles Dickens loco) appeared in the B-L catalogues, but these were "general" Märklin production, and not exclusively sold by B-L.

Post-Bing

However, in the mid-1930s Bassett-Lowke faced something of a supply crisis with Bing having gone bust (and Craette having closed down during WW1), and turned to Märklin to help fill out the missing pages in its catalogue.

As well as supplying Bassett-Lowke with Continental-outline locos, Märklin produced four locomotive designs specifically for Bassett-Lowke in the 1930s:

  • SR Merchant Taylors Schools-Class 4-4-0 locomotive
  • LMS 5573 Newfoundland 5XP Jubilee-Class 4-6-0 locomotive
  • GWR 6000 King George V 4-6-0 locomotive
  • LMS 2-6-4 Stanier Tank locomotive

, three of which are on display in the museum.

... four gauge 0 German-made, British-outline locomotives. These four locomotives, which were exclusive to Bassett-Lowke, were a 4-6-0 "King" class, a 4-6-0 5XP, a 2-6-4 tank and a "Schools" class 4-4-0. This series proved to be the last gauge 0 locomotives to be produced by the Germans for the British.

— , Pierce Carlson, , Toy Trains: A History, ISBN 057503890X, , 1986