The Meccano Percy Set

The Meccano Percy Set

In 1965 the twentieth book of the Railway Series was released entitled Very Old Engines. In this same year the very first train set was too come for The Railway Series. Yes, in 1965 Meccano released a loop of track with an engine; the engine was of course Percy. It is interesting that they decided to choose Percy. The set was an O gauge loop of blue "click together" track all was made out of plastic except for the clockwork motor of Percy. It is surprising that Meccano, a company famed for it’s metal toys decided to release a set entirely of plastic! Also included in the set was a yellow truck and a red Box van. Percy looks very much the way he does in Dalby's illustrations and is quite highly detailed, this adds to the appeal of the set, having something so close to what you see in the books is definite positive!

ThomasTankCollectables Archives 2012

It has long been thought that this set was produced for one year only in 1967, but this is not true. After some
extensive research I have concluded that this set was actually released two years earlier in the year of 1965. You will now of course want some hard evidence, for that I have a few pictures that should put your mind at rest. First of all is an advert from the Meccano magazine advertising the set, the advert is from 1965, also there is the adverts that were put onto the dust jackets of many of the books released around that time. There were actually two different styles of dust jacket adverts released, one in 1965 and the other 1967. Now for my favourite. In 1965 "Very Old Engines" was released and the first edition copy of this book came with a two page fold up advertisement, showing the set in all it‘s glory! So the set was actually in the market for three years between 1965 and 1967 and it didn't do very well. Despite the wonderful box art by Peter Edwards the set just didn't sell. Perhaps it was the fact that all you can do is play with a circle of track, there was no option of extending the set. Or maybe it was the fact that there wasn't any other characters available for it, all you had was exactly what was in the box. Whatever the reason the set was a flop and the remaining stocks had their faces removed and replaced with red smoke boxes, domes and whistles and where sold in France. It was a sad end to the very first train set for The Railway Series. Little did they know at this time how successful The Railway Series and related train sets would go on to be! Although the set was short lived, it found fame in it’s first and last TV debut in the 1967 episode of the ITV TV series "The Avengers" entitled "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Station", I am sure Percy enjoyed his six seconds of fame!

Even though the set didn't sell well I think it is a very good set, it is very big and a lot more fun to watch than many other train sets. The brightly coloured track, rolling stock and engine could keep any child entertained for a good while, the reason for this set’s failure shall remain lost in the depths of time, but the set however shall remain a great part of my collection for many years to come! I like the big size of the train set but you could argue that it is a little too big, imagine if you had a whole load of the track (should they have decided to expand the range) you would need a huge house to set it up! I also like the fact that it was the first ever train set, so it is a landmark in Thomas history. Another good part of this set is the detail, Percy is very well detailed, arguably higher detail than many product ranges of today. Overall a great set!

If you would like to see the pictures mentioned above, watch the Youtube video to find out more. A little history lesson!

Anyway I hope you have enjoyed the review, check out the pictures on my Youtube and Facebook page.

TTC 2012

This video includes an in depth look at Percy and his rolling stock and also looks at when this set was produced, proving that it was released before 1967.