Last weekend the German Tinplate Forum held its 30th Annual Meeting in Schwabisch Gmund, Germany.

They had a full seminar programme  with topics including:  Marklin in the US, Mail vans, HAG - the heyday of  0 Gauge, the Adolf Schuhmann company, The Bing family, Märklin braking devices of the early period,  Marklin 00 - from the beginnings to 1945, among others.

They also found time to run and show some trains, which while mainly from Germany and Switzerland we are glad to see the LMS was also represented, as can be seen from the photos below (click or tap on an image to enlarge).

Many thanks to TCS member Karl Isele for the photos and information

The Tinplate Forum was founded in 1987 by Dr. Fritz Rinderknecht. The event was aimed mainly at collectors of old metal toys and particularly model railways (though over time this has extended to the smaller gauges and on general tin toys, such as ships, airplanes, steam engines, etc.  Even historical toy trains made of wood or cardboard have been included. His concern was and is to discuss interesting questions and aspects of our hobby at a high scientific and technical standard. The events have been held near Berne in Switzerland and Rendsburg in northern Germany. However since 2008 Schwabisch Gmund has been the venue. The TCS has in the past been invited to contribute and indeed a paper was presented on our behalf on TPO models a little while ago.

For more details see http://www.tinplateforum.de/  (German language website)