Wire trees from Hornby

Sometimes my job allows me free access to products I'd not normally get my paws on. And sometimes these are surprisingly good.

I can't make trees. Those on the Hellingly Hospital Railway are either "Forest in a box" or wire armatures shaped by the talented Denise Insley. That's hwy they look like tress and not bent bits of wire.

It's not like I don't understand the process, it's just that I can't get my head around turning wire in to a 3D tree skeleton. You can bang on about fractals or looking at book, none of it works for me.

Presumably I'm no alone as there are a couple of companies doing the rounds of model railway shows selling trees. The products look great too.

Well, I found another. Hornby. Yes, that Hornby.

Seriously, in the Skale Scenics range there are loads of very nice twisted-wire based trees and they are pretty good, at least to my eye.

Obviously you can't chunk these off an injection moulding machine so they aren't cheap but then neither are anyone else's. Three 75mm high sycamores are a shade over £15. The same number of Birch are just under £13.

What I don't understand is why more people aren't dabbling with these things. The range includes several varieties of tree, not just generic. Someone at Hornby HQ is trying something clever here, let's hope it works.


Hornby R8915 Sycamore
Hornby R8915 Birch