The Canadian Tinplate Gallery

Welcome to Canadian Division’s GALLERY of Tinplate Trains made for Canada.  Starting small with a few examples from one source, the plan is to expand to a broad range from a number of sources.  We invite you to contact the webmaster if you have something to share. 

An Outline History of Toy Trains for Canada

The first toy trains that actually represented Canadian Railways appear to date back only to the mid-teens of the 20^th Century.  At that time, American Flyer produced passenger cars for the “Imperial Limited Line”  (the Imperial Limited was a Canadian Pacific transcontinental train of the time), either with or without “C.P.R.” printed under the windows. 

Competition for the Canadian market really picked up when Hafner began producing its “Canadian Flyer” line of mechanical trains, which took centre stage in the Eaton’s Department Store catalogue of 1921-22.  American Flyer retaliated with its “Dominion Flyer” sets (with either Canadian Pacific or Canadian National subscripts) which entered the Eaton’s catalogue in 1923-24 with a small electric set, and by 1924-25 had replaced Hafner’s mechanical sets with its own. 

German toy train makers had been competing with American manufacturers since the late 19^th Century, and Bing brought this competition to bear in the Canadian market in 1925, beating out Dominion Flyer for the mechanical sets at Eaton’s with its own low end Canadian Pacific sets.  Unlike American Flyer and Hafner, however, Bing would produce larger sets similar to its American range, with 8” passenger cars and even a 1 Gauge set converted to 0 gauge, all in Canadian Pacific livery or markings.  Later the firm of Karl Bub made a small windup set for Canada with Canadian National markings.

American firms such as Flyer and Ives each made versions of a Canadian Pacific boxcar, and Bing made boxcars and cabooses in two sizes also marked Canadian Pacific.  And Marx came out with its own streamlined CP passenger sets in the late 30’s, and freight train variations before and after WWII. 

From Britain, the famous scale model maker Bassett-Lowke had offered nearly custom models of Canadian Pacific 4-6-2 steam engines and passenger coaches in the teens, twenties and thirties.  These were very high end items, and probably few were made.  Hornby painted up sets of its No3 4-4-2’s for Canadian Pacific in black, with matching maroon-painted coaches, around 1930.  Very few of these sets exist, so one might believe they were promotional models for a line that was too expensive for the depression years.   After WWII, Hornby returned to the Canadian market with one set of streamlined mechanical trains repainted for the CPR.  In reality Hornby sold mostly British trains in Canada, and the American makers for the most part sold their regular lines in Canada.  Canadian-named sets were always a special case.

 In the early 50’s, Canadian-named sets appeared from  Germany’s Distler and Japan’s Sakai.  Eventually, in 1957, Lionel came out with its famous 2373 diesel passenger set.  Canadian roads didn’t really become popular in the age of plastic until the MPC years.  

-- C. Reif --

Bing 6" & 8" CP Coaches 1920's - Made in Germany	Hafner 'Canadian Flyer' One-piece car, early 1920's	American Flyer CP Boxcar 1920's	Bing 1920's 1 gauge body, with a factory installed O gauge electric motor and trucks	Bing 1920's
Bing Early 1920's	Distler CP combine and coach 1950's - Germany	American Flyer circa 1924	Ives early 1920's