About Mckenzies
What or who is Mckenzie in H.O.Lland?
Mckenzie in H.O.Lland are a small cottage industry, made up of a group of enthusiasts who's interest is in Signals and/or signalling.
Our principal activity is the building and promoting of the mechanical signalling appliances of the good old days. These machines cannot be purchased in shops as they are specially built to suit a specific track layout plan or location.
Beginings:
McKenzie in H.O.Lland was started some 20+ years ago by Tony. It was sparked by his interest in signals and signalling as a boy.
His first frames were hand made by cutting the differnt parts from brass and soldering them together.(if you are interested Tony has examples of the early type frames on display at the different shows he attends.)
Today Mckenzie uses more modern techniques of production by having the parts cut by laser, we still assemble the frames by hand, no big machines in this job!
Our frames have grown in popularity and many people have purchased them for inclusion into their railway empires.
In Australia our frames have been installed onto many home & exhibition layouts, the most famous of these was Tony's layout "Manuka" that employed a 61 lever mechanical frame, pictures and an article appeared in the October 1994 AMRM#188
They have also found their way into the Rail Training Centres of Victoria, some have been exported to the USA and quite a few have returned home to Great Britain, for installation onto the varied rail empires there.
Types of Frames:
Our frames are based on the 2 main types of Interlocking that were employed by the different Australian rail systems.
1. The Mckenzie & Holland style of interlocking frame that was employed in nearly all of the railways in Australia. 1874 Interlocking Frame
2. The NSW style that was an adaptation from the GWR and designed by NSW Signal Engineer Cyril Beuzeville Byles (CB Byles) 1911 -1928.
From these 2 types of frame we can cover the NSW, Victorian and UK style prototypes as well as ground frames.
All our frames are hand made to order and come fully interlocked. The machines employ Cam & Tappet locking. These cams indirectly transfer the movement of the levers to the tappets.
We also build smaller frames (in 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 levers), called ground frames. These smaller frames are also operational and can be put to use on your model railway to control smaller sidings, or 1 or 2 sets of points.
Our frames are not just for HO scale, but can be used on any of the many different scales and gauges of railway.
our talents dont end there with frames, We also build HO scale signals to suit NSW & Victorian designs. in both mechanical and colour light.
We often attend Train shows in Victoria and NSW, and should you wish to have us at your show then bookings can be made from our contacts page.