This gallery may be useful to collectors and enthusiasts who have an interest in Hornby Dublo 3 rail products. The gallery contains pictures of nearly all of the available track and the references may help you in your quest to "track" down those elusive track sections that you need to extend or complete your Hornby Dublo 3 rail layout.

There are 5 rail types and most of them are shown in the gallery below:-

• Tinned brass rails including centre rail

• Tinned brass centre rail and steel outer rails

• Tinned brass outer rails and steel centre rail

• All steel rails

• Tinned brass outer rails, with steel centre rail but with prewar base (Meccano Ltd label is in the centre of the base close to the centre insulation and support piece)

The easy way of telling if a rail is tinned brass is to look at the end where it has been cut. You will see a  brass colour at the cut although the rail in principle looks steel. Generally the later track is tin coated brass. If you enlarge the image below you will see an example:-

In addition there are variations on the width of the conductor tongue on the end of each rail with later track from about 1957 having a wider tongue. And also variations on the conductor tongue material with copper and steel being used.

An assortment of boxes are shown including the following. The dates are for guidance and should help you to date Hornby-Dublo track items that you see in boxes. The pictures that follow are in the correct sequence:-

•  Pale plain blue prewar 1938-39 with blue printing and D and DA numbers and date codes (example Double Arm Signal ED2)

• Very early post war 1946-48 box with plain brown card and blue printing including date code (example Uncoupling rail)

• Mid plain blue 1949-52 with 32xxx numbers and date codes (example Switch D1 32302)

• Dark plain blue 1953-1956 with 32xxx numbers and some with date codes (example Isolating Quarter Rail and Switch)

• Blue and white stripes 1957-58 with gloss finish with 32xxx numbers and no dates (example Large Radius Curve pack of eight)

• Blue and white stripes with matt finish 1959-1963 with 35xxx on box and 3xxx number (Isolating Quarter Rail IBR¼ pack of three)

Much of this information is contained in Michael Fosters's excellent book "Hornby Dublo Trains" but isn't it nice to see all the information in glorious colour!