High street scene from 1983 catalogue

[Pazza1707818026]

Does anyone know anything about the High Street scene, it was featured in the 1983 catalogue (29th edition) this was listed as a new range of 00 scale buildings to be released that year, but not mentioned in any other catalogue since. Were they ever released?

[Anglia998]

The items which Pazza mentions are listed in the price list for Cat. 29.

e.g. R.182, the Coffee Bar, is priced at £3.75.

There is no mention of them in the 1984 price list.

In catalogue No.31 (1985), the "R" references, R181, R182, R183 and R184 are used for Thomas the Tank Engine train sets.

[Rana Temporia]

Were these the American ones that were going to be released in the UK in Hornby boxes? I read somewhere that they were withdrawn before actually being released, it might have been on this forum or in one of Pat Hammond’s books.

If so the one I was interested in was to be sold as a Cinema I think, it was a very close match to a shop near where I live.

[The son of Triangman]

1984 to 1987 were lean years, the company nearly went for good, it was saved by a management buy out. This lean time period may well have had a heavy bearing on the non-appearance of certain items in 1983. Then new models that were launched in the catalouge and made it to production from the time period 1984 to 1987 are most certainly very rare. Retailers were phoning other retailers for stock, the shortage of then newly announced models was so bad. A double slip was shown in price lists but never produced for instance.

[HornbyinNC]

These kits were designed for the American market and introduced by IHC around 1981. They were known in USA and Canada as the "Center Street" series. The models were passed on to Tyco shortly after and continued in production for a number of years. Obviously, being marketed in North America, they are HO scale.

They appear frequently on eBay in both built and unbuilt guise. They were nice buildings; I had most of them back in the day. I sold the lot on eBay about ten years ago to someone in Australia!

The picture in the 1983 Hornby catalogue garnered a lot of attention. Obviously, they did not get marketed in UK, but some, as the cinema, are quite appropriate for British layouts.