History

[brian1951]

Heres a start https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornby_Railways

[Postman Prat]

If you cannot be bothered to research this, you shouldn't expect anyone else to do it for you!

[footplate1947]

I don't think they can be, although some could in the same way that Hornby brought out models of locos made by Airfix and others couple of examples are the 61xx loco and the Hornby early Castle with the very early Airfix tender drive motor. But some Homby models early versions of Hornby which have not been produced by other manufactures. The complete answers are lengthy so will require some research.
Happy reading.............. ......John

[Walkingthedog]

So is the Hornby railroad range ex lima

No it isn’t. In fact the Railroad Crosti 9F is a brand new model.

[Mountain Goat]

Don't worry. The history is a little complex, but in general, apart from the recent Hornby designed Railroad items like the P2, the origions of most of the Railroad range come from the likes of Lima, Airfix (Also GMR), Mainline, Replica, Dapol and even Hornby Dublo, Triang and Wrenn. (I believe I have them all).
Some items passed hands from one manufacturer to another a few times before ending up with Hornby. For example, the GWR large prairie can be branded GMR, Airfix, Mainline, Possibly Dapol (As I believe Dapol sold them for a while?) and Hornby. GMR and Airfix are the same company who decided at one time to call their railways GMR standing for Great Model Trains (Which didn't last long under the GMR brand name).
The odd Hornby Dublo mould has passed through a few owners before coming back under the Hornby brand, though Hornby themselves have changed ownership several times over the years so are not the same company as Hornby was back in the Hornby Dublo days. If anything, the majority of the older models that have returned have Triang origions and good they are too.
Something I must point out here. Some have assumed that older models were not detailed and this is why they don't fetch high prices on the secondhand market, but if you closely examine somenof the older models, while a few were not that well detailed (And there were reasons for this), but some of the older models had incredible detail, which even today went straight into the Hornby range without even having "Railroad" status.
If you get a chance to look at old Triang, Hornby (1970's to mid 1980's), Lima, Mainline and Airfix catalogues you will get a gist of the origions of where things came from. Some items passed into Dapol hands. Some to Replica. Most old Triang items continued into the Triang/Hornby and then into the Hornby range. It is not quite as simple as one first may think, but an examination of old catalogues gives a basic idea as to some of the origions...

Part of the confusion is that Hornby themselves brand anything they sell slightly cheaper then the highest detailed range as "Railroad", some of which are new models and are a slightly simpler form of a superdetailed recently introduced model which are actually not really true to a budget "Railroad" branding as they are not exactly budget even if they are slightly cheaper then the super detailed version.

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

This might be of interest - the prehistory you might say.

http://www.doubleogauge.com/history/history.htm