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The first mass market railway sets where made by Marklin in Germany in 1891 but it was a group of English hobbyists who in 1904 began model building. The first electric models where introduced just before the First World War. Rovex Plastics Ltd founded by Alexander Gregory Vanetzian developed an electric toy train for Christmas 1950. The company was bought out by Lines Bros and in 1951 sold under the Tri-ang Railways name. In 1954 the renamed Rovex Scale Models Ltd moved to Margate, Kent.

The model shown here is a 1960 Transcontinental which has a working head light in the front. The set came with a ovel layout carriages and a dummy (the rear engine) and 12v transformer. After Meccano and Lego the model train set was for decades the most desired toy but the hobby layouts meant a following by adults world wide. Many engineers started out by building model railway layouts.