GoingUnderground

A Bit off=topic I know, but there is one other point on F Stock worth noting in relation to their speed. They had mainly longitudinal seats, the transverse seating being restricted to the bays at the end of each car. This gave them a much greater carrying capacity, the same as today's S Stock has a greater capacity than the A60 Stock with its all transverse seating. Thus F Stock gained a reputation for clearing crowds quickly from platforms especially at stations serving football grounds. The greater carrying capacity of such a seating arrangement would have required sufficiently powerful motors from new, all of which points towards rolling stock that would have been far from being slow in everyday operation. I well remember just how spacious and roomy the F Stock felt compared to the O and P stock running on the Uxbridge branch in the early 1960s. It never really occurred to me at the time that the feeling of spaciousness was due to the mainly longitudinal seating arrangement. I just knew that they looked and felt very different to the more usual O/P Stock. I'd love to be able to go back to the early 1960s and ride on the F Stock again.

The Circle line was referred to as the Inner Circle, and was a "route" not a line in its own right during WW2. I have an "Inner Circle" destination plate with the normal white on black lettering, the reverse shows "Sth Ken". My parents came to London in 1946 after WW2 and always called it the Inner Circle, much to my annoyance as by 1960 when I stated using the Underground to go to school it was just called Circle. There was once a Middle Circle (Moorgate to Mansion House via Addison Road (Olympia) and also an Outer Circle (Broad St to Victoria following the same route as today's Overground "circle" anticlockwise between Hoxton and Clapham Jcn) but theses were "C" shaped routes. and I believe that both had finished before 1910. However, There is an undated picture (plate 126) on page 136 of J Graeme Bruce's "Steam to Silver" showing O or P stock at South Kensington with the destination plate showing "Inner Circle" and the line as "Metropolitan". The same picture, this time credited as being 1958, also appears on page 59 of Desmond Croome's "The Circle Line" and as the caption in this latter book says the name "...survives half a century after it became irrelevant". At the time that O and P stocks were introduced, the late 1930s, the chord between the Hammersmith branch of the Met and the West London Railway was still intact and used for an Edgware Road-Addison Road shuttle service. So a Middle Circle service could have been reintroduced if there had been the desire so to do. That might be why the Inner Circle name persisted. The chord was closed in 1940 following bomb damage and was never repaired. There is also a picture dated 1948 on page 57 of Desmond Croome's "The Circle Line" showing pre-O/P Metropolitan stock at Moorgate with the older style Metropolitan black on white destination board showing "Inner Circle" and the line as "Metropolitan". The same book on page 61 also shows an example of O/P Stock with the Destination "Circle Line" and the line as "Circle Line" during the post-WW2 rerouteing of the line between Aldersgsate (nowadays Barbican) and Moorgate, the picture is undated but could be as late as the early 1960s. Q38 stock was structurally the same as O and P stock. There were two main differences. The first was in the electrics as Q38 was built to be electrically compatible with the older cars with which it ran, which made it incompatible with the O and P stock. The other difference was the couplings which had to be compatible with the older stock which I think used Ward type couplings. O and P had Wedgelock couplings which included the power and pneumatic connections, same as the '38 Tube Stock. F Stock wasn't slow. J Graeme Bruce says in "Steam to Silver" that the nickname "tanks" had 2 possible origins. One was because they were mainly of all steel construction, whilst the other was because that were built shortly after the end of WW1 on factories that had been making parts for battle tanks. I'm old enough to remember travelling in them on the Uxbridge branch of the Met and they never struck me as being slow. Also they were incompatible with the stock that came before and after them, so always ran together. Bruce also says that they had better acceleration than pre-existing District stock, with a maximum speed of 45mph. He adds that once i nservice they were found to work at speeds in excess of 45mph, and consequently the powers-that-be considered them overpowered and 15 of the motor cars were reduced to "single equipments" to slow them down. As regards the transverse seat cushions on O and P stock I'm pretty certain that they could be removed as I have a vague memory of once seeing a guard come into a carriage and lift up a cushion and replace it. I cannot remember if he needed a "key" to release it from the base plinth. I don't know how much equipment was below them, I would have thought that they might have included the door operating mechanisms. I may well be wrong, but I think that locks to stop seat cushions above equipment being lifted up were only introduced as a result of the IRA bombing campaign in the 1970s.

What a strange idea, especially to anyone like me who is familiar with the Minic Motorways system. The RM921 car loading ramp used Minic motorways M.1635 Gradient Base and M.1636 Gradient Summit single track sections. These were curved to transition from level to the incline, and at 2 1/2" (6.2cm) wide would have had to be trimmed to be flush with the sides of the Trestrol wagon used for the Plane Launching Car. If you'd said that it could have used the M.1606 Straight single track that might have made more sense, but again it too would have had to be cut down or the tool modified heavily to produce a narrower, version of the track when required for the plane ramp. Rovex may have looked at it, but there would also need to have been a new tool to support the upper end of the track. Their costings in all probably showed that it was cheaper to produce a new dedicated tool for the launching ramp with integral latticework struts.

Rovex were always looking at the "play" value of the Triang railways range, not surprising as they were toy makers. They were always looking for models that extended the range at minimal cost, and introduced the bogie bolster rocket launcher, R216 back in 1959. The sniper car must have been a real no-brainer for them, or would have been if the expression had existed back then, it was probably just "blindingly obvious". You must have been unlucky. My brother had one, and still has it. The spring is still secure inside its pocket in the wagon. Another example of lowcost range extension as the wagon started life as the TC Series pulp wood car.

Not if you know the history of Digikeijs and who developed and holds the rights to its products, which are summarised on the YaMoRC website FAQs http://yamorc.de/faqs/ if you look up "Who is Karst Drenth". Normally manufacturers make sure that they hold the IP rights to their products and jealously guard those rights to protect their investment in the products and to prevent others from benefiting from them at no cost. There are at least 2 precedents that I know of, both concerning ESU. ESU developed the original Maerklin Central Station (CS1) in conjunction with Maerklin. Maerklin subsequently brought out their successor to the CS1, the CS2 and later again the CS3, without assistance from ESU. ESU sold an upgrade kit for the CS1 which they called the CS1 Reloaded to convert CS1s on firmware 2.0.4 to be the equivalent of their own ECoS 1 (the ECoS was a developed from the work that EU did on the CS1). ESU have continued to release firmware upgrades for the CS1 Reloaded alongside the firmware upgrades for their ECoS 1, 2 and 2.1. Something similar has happened with the original Piko SmartControl, also developed by ESU. Piko no longer support their original SmartControl, and about 12 months ago ESU started offering a chargeable upgrade service to convert the original PikoSmartControl handset and SmartBox base unit into an ESU CabControl system and thereby become eligible for all future updates to the CabControl firmware. Of course, the other well known example is the personal computer operating system that Microsoft designed for IBM, that let Microsoft sell it on to the PC clone makers as MS-DOS once the clone makers worked out how to get round IBM's hardware patents. The rest, as they say, is history. And there is a story behind how IBM ended up approaching Microsoft for an OS in the first place.

It should work, as I can't recall seen any comments on the ESU forum about the 4 and 8 amp boosters not working with SmartControl, or not working with CabControl come to that as when CabControl was first released it too had firmware 4.2.3. There were several about CabControl not working with the 50012 booster when it was the only one you could get from new, but firmware 4.2.8 for CabControl seems to have fixed that judging by the lack of comments on the ESU forum. Just out of interest, did you check out the ECoSBoost and the connecting cable at all to make sure that they were both OK?

You can already do that, and have been able to do so for many years. I used to do it with an ESU ECoS and a Netgear WMCE2001 Wifi Ethernet adapter to put the ECoS on WiFi, with a VNC Client running on my laptop, and later with ESU's Mobile Control II both of which connect to the router via WiFi. I stopped using the Netgear Adapter as it developed a fault and wouldn't always connect to the router. Instead I started using the Wireless Access Point that was an option with the Mobile Control II. You connect the ECoS to the WAP and configure it to be a DHCP server, and get the Mobile Control II to connect direct to it. It can be anywhere in the house or railway room outbuilding as no contact with your home router is necessary. You can connect your laptop or tablet or smartphone to the ECoS + WAP without going through your home router as well. You could do it with Piko's original SmartControl, made by EU for Piko, which had its own onboard WiFi whilst that was available. ESU are going to make their own branded version of SmartControl, their CabControl available outside of N. America and Australia hopefully sometime this year. Zimo's MX10 base station has what it calls Wi-Mi built in to communicate with its wireless handset controllers. I don't know enough about other systems to comment.

Rather late in the day to reply, Ron, and you may already know the answer, but your SmartControl can't (not won't) play ball with your ECoSBoost because the firmware in your SmartControl, 4.2.3 or earlier predates the release of ECoSBoost 50012. The firmware in the SmartControl, or an ECoS or a CabControl, is configured to recognise specific products. The firmware in your SmartControl cannot recognise the ECoSBoost 50012, which I assume is the one that you have, because it didn't exist when version 4.2.3 of the SmartControl firmware was released. 4.2.3 was, I think, the final version released by Piko for the SmartControl several years ago. ECoS firmware 4.2.7 was the first version to recognise ECoSBoost 50012, CabControl had to wait until 4.2.8 was released to do likewise. But unless Piko release their version of 4.2.8, which is the latest firmware version for CabControl, SmartControl will never play with ECoSBoost 50012 as Piko have turned their back on the original ESU designed and made SmartControl and no longer support it, opting instead for the SmartControl Light which is derived from a Uhlenbrock DCC system. The only option for anyone with the original SmartControl wanting to use the ECoSBoost 50012 is to get it upgraded by ESU to CabControl which will have the latest CabControl firmware, 4.2.8. Thereafter it will be eligible for all future CabControl firmware updates. However, the older and discontinued ECoSBoost models, the 4 amp 50010 and 8 amp 50011, should both work with the original SmartControl without the upgrade to CabControl.

I'm sorry, but, IMHO, you are missing the point because you are not looking at it in the context of its time. I'm talking about the 1950s and 1960s the Triang Railways era, which ended with the takeover of Rovex by DCM in1971. You're talking about the mid-late 1970s onwards, the Hornby Railways and Hornby Hobbies era onwards, when things started to become very different for manufacturing businesses generally and for Rovex in particular in the 1980s with competition from new entrants into the OO gauge model railway market seeking a piece of the action at their expense through more realistic models manufactured and assembled on a sub-contract basis outside of the UK. Rovex were slow to recognise that change in the market, something that nearly proved to be fatal, but that doesn't make their policy of making spare parts available to dealers in the 1950s and '60s wrong, which is what you seem to be saying based on the very changed circumstances of up to 30 years later. Consumer durable goods were relatively much more expensive in the 1950s and '60s than today and were expected to be repairable for less than the cost of replacing them. Today's "throw-away and replace" consumerism didn't exist. Replacing an unrepairable item meant going without for longer for some other appliance that they did not have. This was true even for those parents who could afford and had space at home for luxury toys like model railways for their kids like me. I still remember the horror of one of my bosses in the early 1980s when his local garage told him that they couldn't replace the broken speedo on his rather expensive and newish car as the speedo was not available as a separate part and they'd have to replace the entire one-piece instrument cluster. As a child of the 1950s, (I'm old, I'll admit it) I'm utterly horrified that so many manufactured products nowadays cannot be repaired when some minor component in a sub-assembly fails, and the whole sub-assembly, or in the worst case the whole thing, has to be thrown away and replaced. Triang included two booklets with every Triang Railways and Triang Hornby loco that I bought in the 1960s, one was the user manual, the other was details of the servicing scheme which included lists of dealers who were part of that scheme. It even listed service dealers outside the UK. They made servicing "desks/kits" avaialbe to dealers to make it easier for them to repair locos etc. and supplied them, not the public, with the service sheets so they knew which part numbers to quote when ordering parts to repair items. I don't think that I ever saw a service sheet in the 1950s and '60s, but that didn't stop me ordering from my favourite hobby shop replacement pantographs for my EM2 which suffered the, sadly, usual breaks at the top of the upper arms, and fitting them myself. It's only since I returned to the hobby about 15-20 years ago that I got to see my first service sheets. The models were damned reliable, but not when they fell off a table onto the floor especially if it was a hard floor, a fate that my own 3MT, R.59, my first Triang loco, suffered a couple of times at my young hands in 1959 to my great distress, or were dropped or trodden on if the layout was on the floor, or suffered a similar fate at the hands of younger siblings or pets, or user error such as over oiling and getting oil into the commutator slots (guilty as charged, m'lud), or taking it apart out of curiosity and breaking or losing a key part in the process (been there, done that, read the book, seen the film, got the DVD and the T shirt!). There will have been instances where they simply wore out due to very extensive use - such as axle holes in the chassis going oval resulting in wheels locking up. Being man-made, very occasionally they did fail. The commonality of components meant that there wasn't a "huge list of parts" irrespective of whether the public had access to the parts list or not. As I've tried to explain, a huge list of parts was something that Rovex did their very best to avoid. The models were simple back in the 1950s and '60s. So simple and with so few components that there was no sense back then in only making spares available as made-up sub-assemblies. Folks would have been livid if they wanted to replace worn out commutator brushes and found that they had to buy the entire motor bogie or a complete X.04 motor because those are the next step up from the component parts. I love getting the 1950s and '60s Rovex models running again, something that I wouldn't be able to do were it not for the availability of secondhand parts to replace broken, worn out or missing items. The fact that these parts were used across so many different models means that I am generally not restricted to finding parts or sub-assemblies made specifically for the loco that I'm working on, thank goodness. Sermon over. You can all come out of hiding now.

Sorry, but you're wrong about lighter fuel. Back in the day there was liquid lighter fuel, which was sold, as I recall, in a rectangular unpressurised tin with a flip spout very similar to the tins used for some varnishes and wood dyes at the time. You unscrewed a plug from the underside of the lighter and poured in the liquid fuel where it was held in an absorbent pad, a bit like the way that ink is held in many inkjet printer cartridges. The lighters in which it was used all had a wick which was in contact with the absorbent pad and the lighter fuel was drawn up into the wick by capillary action where it vapourised and the vapour was lit by a spark from a flint. The wick charred and had to be replaced from time to time whilst the flints wore away and also had to be replaced. Liquid lighter fuel was sometimes referred to as "petrol", but it was less flammable than the petrol that you put in a car, more like paraffin than petrol. Liquid lighter fuel could be, and was occasionally, used to spot clean things as it did act as an organic solvent, IIRC, but I seem to remember it feeling slightly oily if you got any on your fingers whilst filling the lighter and I think it would have left an oily residue. I don't know if you can still buy it as I'm not a smoker and don't own any sort of lighter.

I too remember Thawpit, which I think was carbon tetrachloride, now banned as harmful to human health. There was a similar cleaning product "Dabitoff" also sold in a glass bottle with a gauze-faced pat on top for topical removal of stains from clothing. It was a different chemical trichloroethane. It was said to be less harmful to humans than Thawpit, but is has been phased out as it destroys ozone. I'm not sure what chemical Triang put in their capsules of track cleaning fluid, probably one of the two. Cigarette filters under the Rizla brand were freely available in the 1950s and '60s in tobacconists along with cigarette papers for folks who used to "Roll-their-own". I think you can still buy them but I haven't seen anyone using them them in decades.

IMHO, you've missed the point totally. It was a very different age, and I'm not for a moment suggesting that we go back there. All parts were available as spares because, by and large, they were needed for ongoing production of other models as well and wouldn't have been sitting around gathering dust for long. They made most, if not all of the parts items themselves in Margate, so lead times and batch sizes were entirely under their own control and could be changed relatively easily and rapidly if necessary. Look at the service sheets and you'll see lots of the same part number appearing over and over again across different models, or one service sheet being applicable across several models with only a few minor differences, so the range of spares required was nowhere near as large as you seem to be assuming. The economics for Peters Spares, and before them Modelspares, seems to me to be much more fragile because they do have to wait for the orders for spares to come in as there is no other use for the spare parts. Peters does sell new models as well, they don't restrict themselves to selling only spares as a quick look at their website will soon show. Arguably they are following Triang's example in selling finished models to make their money. Your comments on the failure of Lines Bros and then Rovex's new owners DCM seem to be based on a misunderstanding of the causes of the failure of these groups. There is a very significant difference between an individual company in a Group going broke and its parent company going broke. A group can be brought down by a catastrophic performance in another part of the businesses that is so great that it totally outweighs the profit made in the rest of the group. When Lines Bros went under, it was because Lines were using profits from their UK operations to subsidise the activities of their overseas subsidiaries and took too long to get rid of the unprofitable overseas activities. Rovex was a profitable business, and was the dominant player in model railways in the UK at least in OO gauge, or DCM wouldn't have bought it from the Lines Bros receiver. When DCM went down it was due to poor business decisions in areas largely outside of Rovex that drained away the cash from DCM. Rovex was still a profitable business inside the DCM group even though its profitability had been dented by the reduction in the market for model railways, and IIRC, the arrival of new players into the UK market. If it hadn't been profitable it wouldn't have been rescued. I can't speak for events after DCM went down, and leave that to others to cover. Have a read through Pat Hammond's Story of Rovex to get a better picture on the Lines Bros and DCM collapses. The models were damned reliable, some still running today with all their original components still in full working order, and in all probability the quantities needed for spares in the 1950s and '60s were negligible compared to the quantities needed for production runs. So It's likely that there wasn't a significant additional cost in holding them. The use across several models also helped as the parts in greatest use would have been made more often and in larger batches to get the unit cost as low as possible. The products did improve but some parts must have remained unchanged and been manufactured and in regular production use for getting on for 20 years. One only has to think of the DMU R157, introduced along with the EMU R156 as they shared components (and even the moulding tool for the floor panel insert for the trailing bogie in the power cars), in 1956 or '57, sorry I don't have the exact year to hand. It went on until the mid/late 1970s using the same components. The only thing that changed was the addition of the roof mounted headcode box with its illumination and that only affected the bodyshell as provision for illumination of a destination blind was built in to the roof moulding back in the 1950s but not used.

I think we're talking at cross-purposes. I thought that your were saying earlier that the number of parts made it less repairable - my mistake. Sorry. If you wanted spares it was very easy. You went to your local dealer and told them what you were after, usually that was a hobby shop who offered a servicing or repair service as well and would have had the Service Sheets to find out the part numbers. The small toy shops weren't too interested in ordering in spares, not worth it to them for the profit they'd make on it. The dealer would order from Margate. I can't remember how long it took, but that probably depended on how often the dealer placed orders. Everything listed was available as these were models in current production in Margate and in many cases spanned several models. Also the lifespan of models was measured in years in those days, not months like today and the parts would have been needed when the next batch of a model that used them was made. Rovex fully understood the economies of scale in using as many parts as possible across the range of models even if accuracy suffered - these were toys after all. That was how they kept the selling prices down. And it wasn't just using the parts in similar models such as carbon brushes or wheelsets. For instance the ladders on the 100 ton tank wagon, R669, were first used on the original colour light signal, RT405, and I think were also used on the TPO trackside units at one point. Look back at Service Sheets 12a and 12b and you will see the wheels and axles individually listed with S prefixes indicating an individual part, not a sub-assembly with the X prefix. There are one or two other items on the earlier sheets shown as S items but which were only shown as sub-assemblies in the later service sheet. My guess is that only the sub-assemblies were available either because that is how they were stored in Margate as made up sub-assemblies not as the parts to make up the sub-assembly, or that they didn't receive enough orders for the individual items in the sub-assembly, or that the margin on selling the individual items was so low that it wasn't worthwhile listing the individual components.

I can't remember when the TC diesels disappeared in the UK, but I'm pretty certain that the AL1 disappeared when the catenary system was withdrawn, which I think was 1970 or '71, or at the very latest '72, I don't have my catalogues or a copy of Hammond with me at the moment to check, but I do remember how disappointed I was at the time that the catenary system and the locos for it were no longer in the catalogue. Call me mad, but the EM2 was, and still is, my favourite Triang loco, followed by the Steeplecab. That's probably why I like the Sydney "Red Rattler" OHLE EMUs so much, I always wanted Triang to release a UK EMU to run with the EM1, and AL1, but made do with the set of the green suburban coaches hauled by the Steeplecab.

IMHO, you've misunderstood repairable. It is the absence of large permanently assembled expensive sub-assemblies that makes it repairable. The whole thing is easy to take apart into its individual parts or sub-assemblies and then reassemble without any expensive dedicated or unique tools. All the parts were available as low price spare parts from Triang. If something broke or wore out you ordered the spare and replaced the worn or broken part yourself. Fir instance, take the carbon brushes, X67. They're standard components used across all the motor bogies and X.04 motor. If those wore out you replaced them yourself as they are only held in with a spring and easy to remove and put back with your fingers. Fiddly, but very doable on a kitchen table without any tools. Compare that to a modern can motor, where you can't take it apart because it's not designed to be taken apart. Even if you did get into it, and probably had to break the fixings to get in, none of the parts in it are available as spares. Hence your only option if the brushes wear out is to replace the entire motor, always assuming that the motor is available as a spare.

That may be true today, but it wasn't always so. Positive earth used to be very common on cars in the 1950s and '60s. So the NMRA statement from the 1960s isn't as odd as it sounds today. I'm old enough that I always check the earth polarity out of habit if I'm doing any electrics on cars even though negative earth is the standard nowadays. I think the changeover happened in the late 1960s, as the old bangers that I drove after passing my test had positive earth and I used to do my own repairs and simple servicing, new points, new plugs, change the oil etc.. Forgive the reminiscing, but back in the 1960s and early 1970s cars had generators not alternators. Drum brakes all round without servo assistance were the norm along with unpowered steering and manual chokes. Heaters were optional extras in the cheapest models and heated rear windscreens I don't think existed except as aftermarket stick-on accessories. Wing mirrors were common accessories, door mirrors were quite rare. Tyres were cross-ply not radials. Car radios weren't standard and if you wanted one you bought a fitting kit to hang them below the dashboard if your car was one of the many without the letterbox slot for the radio which came with a speaker and fitting kit for it. Also car radios were still valve powered - woe betide you if you left one turned on overnight as you'd have a flat battery in the morning, and I speak from personal experience of our family car. The upmarket radios had 5 or 6 electro-mechanical push buttons for station selection in addition to the manual tuning dial. Windscreen were made of toughened glass that crazed into thousands of blunt edged small pieces obscuring your the view of the road if a stone hit the screen, quite unlike today's laminated screens. SatNav didn't exist, motorways were something new and the network nowhere near as extensive as it is now. You used a printed road atlas to find your way and if you wanted a specific route you could ask the AA or RAC, if you were a member, to provide you with a custom made route printed out on paper, a bit like rally pacenotes. Two-tone paint was popular and there seemed to be a much wider range of colours, quite unlike today where so many cars are painted in one of the very boring and to me very uninspiring 50 shades of grey/silver. Like model railways, cars are another area where things have moved on and another example of the unfairness of trying to judge the past by today's standards. As the author L.P. Hartley put it in his novel "The Go-Between", "The past is another country. They do things differently there.".

I rather doubt that when Rovex launched their set in 1950 that they'd ever heard of the NMRA. All my Rovex/Triang models which have a live chassis have it live to the left rail, and the insulated wheels and pickups/wipers on the right side, which is the opposite of how how I read "Engines will be grounded to the right hand rail.", please correct me if I'm wrong. They may have heard of the BRMSB which was founded in 1951. But I will happily admit that this is all speculation on my part. Did NMRA or BRMSB standards apply to toys? After all that is what Rovex and then under their new owners Lines Bros/Triang were making throughout the 1950s and, arguably, continued to do so through the 1960s, inexpensive, reliable and rugged toys, not expensive and highly detailed and delicate models. And you have to remember that many train sets ended up as loose lay layouts on the lounge carpet where staying on the track over the bumps and tight first radius curves, and the loco and rolling stock remaining firmly coupled together despite any unevenness in the floor was a priority. Triang's wheels may have been generously sized, but they were fitted to toys, and a damned sight better than Trix ones from the same period. New models gradually became more realistic from 1960 onwards in Triang's case with the L1 and EM2, which some feel is still a better and more accurate model than the relatively recent Heljan/Olivia's Trains one, and the introduction of scale length coaches by Triang, Dublo and Trix in the early 1960s. Please don't apply todays standards and expectations to a period 50-70 years ago when the market for R-T-R model railways through train sets was child centred and kids were the intended market. And remember who the biggest makers were - Meccano for Hornby, Lines Bros for Triang, and originally Trix, all were toy companies, not model makers. Look at the advertising literature of the time and even the box lids on the sets - pictures of kids under 12, often with smartly dressed fathers in collar and tie (one with 5 fingers and one thumb in a now notorious Dublo image). There's even one in the 1963 Triang catalogue of a mother. Compare that to today's adverts that emphasise realism and detail, not toy-appeal Also think of the toy-like operating accessories, TPOs that picked up and dropped off mailbags, gravity unloading bridges for hopper trucks, giraffe cars, side tipping log carriers, fog signals that fired caps when a loco went past, not to mention rocket firing bogie bolsters and then the Battle Space range, Minic Motorways/Triang Railways integration with drive on drive off car transporters, level crossings, combined road/rail track. None of these were of interest to proper scale modellers, but they were very popular with kids in the '50s, and '60s like me and my brother. We've come a long way away from "Why do TC Series models run the other way round to UK models". I hope you found my contributions that inadvertently brought us here not too outrageous.

Thank you for that background information, I'm most obliged to you. The only comparable reference book that I have from that period is the 1952 edition of Henry Greenly's TTR (Trix Twin Railway) Permanent Way Manual which, although it makes passing references to DC, says nothing about how locos should respond to specific track polarity. Triang Railways as a brand didn't exist in 1950, but Rovex Plastics and their train set, made at the request of chain store Marks & Spencer (M&S), went on sale in time for Christmas 1950. If you look at Hornby publicity for 2020 you'll see that in addition to celebrating 100 years of the Hornby O gauge system, they also celebrated 70 years from the first Rovex train set going on sale and marketed a Rovex branded recreation of that original set. According to Hammond Vol 1, the set was 2 years in gestation, which puts its origins back to 1948-49. Was the M&S set intended as a one-off so it didn't matter what they did? Or did the owner of Rovex, Alexander Vanetzian, and his engineer Edward Katryniak check with whatever reference materials were around? The set had its own track designed by Katryniak with a central tongue at one end and matching slot at the other which did not allow for even such simple track designs as a reverse curve and didn't use fishplates. There were no points or diamond crossings, the coaches had hook and eye couplings so could only be coupled one way round. If there was a long-term plan to develop a model railway system it was not immediately obvious, nor that there was much knowledge of model railways either as models or toys when Hornby and Trix products could have provided examples of what to do and what to avoid. It all sounds to me like the Rovex set was designed to be a self-contained toy purely for sale through M&S, in which case compatibility with other makes didn't matter or wasn't considered. However, they did buy in motors from Zenith, their X3, and may have got the necessary information from the then owner of Zenith, John Gordon Hefford. Rovex bought Zenith in early 1951 and Hefford joined Rovex, bringing his expertise with him. Rovex Plastics became a wholly owned subsidiary of Lines Bros on 20 October 1951 but the sets continued to be sold under the Rovex brand in the meantime whilst product development went on in the background. A much improved set was relaunched in May 1952 under the Triang Railways brand. Last year, 2022, Hornby celebrated 70 years of Triang Railways. Hence there is no mention of Triang in your 1950 publication - that brand was still 2 years in the future, and probably no mention of Rovex either as when your book was published the Rovex train set was still under development.

You could argue that the orientation of the magnet and direction of travel did need to go on the service sheets because they were used by the dealers. The folks on the assembly lines would have worked according to the training they were given and probably knew the jobs backwards and never needed to refer to the service sheets. Your comment about the right hand positive rule is interesting, because when Rovex started making their system, the UK opposition, Dublo and Trix, were using 3 rail track, where the right hand positive rule was meaningless. On Dublo, both running rails were at the same polarity because they were not insulated from each other, so the rule would have referred in all probability to the polarity of the centre rail. In the case of Trix and their 3 rail Twin system track polarity was irrelevant for defining forwards as they were still on AC in the early 1950s! The other main manufacturer was Maerklin and like Trix they were, and still are to this day, a 3 rail AC system. So like Dublo they wouldn't have defined the right = positive rule anyway until long after Triang 2 rail system was well established. I think the German Trix company moved to DC in the early 1950s, a couple of years sooner than their British counterpart. I don't know if their choice of orientation might have affected Rovex, I doubt it knowing the origins of the Rovex train set - a novelty for Marks & Spencer. I was at the Conwy Railway Museum in Betws-Y-Coed recently and they have a Trix layout on display where you can clearly see the 3 terminals for the track wiring for Left, Centre and Right rails. So in Trix's case when they moved to DC they'd probably have defined forwards by reference to the centre rail polarity. I'm not a model railway historian, so I don't know who else made 2 rail R-T-R models back in the early 1950s, but as the biggest fish in the toy market Lines Bros/Triang 2 rail system it wouldn't surprise me if it was Margate that unwittingly set the standard for 2 rail because you couldn't mix Triang and Dublo locos in ex-works condition on the same track, and Trix were still wedded to AC back then when polarity wasn't applicable. But I'd be interested to hear if anyone has any historical background to the right rail positive = forwards rule. The backwards motor models issue is irrelevant as it doesn't require any changes to the assembly of the motor. Put any loco on the track and turn the knob to send the loco forwards and note which direction it goes in. Now stop it, turn the loco round so that the motor is now pointing in the opposite direction, and turn the knob in the same direction as before and watch the loco travel in the same direction as before. So orentation of the chassis on the track, magnet first or worm first, is irrelevant. Another argument against "TC went the other way" is the Triang R254 Steeplecab Loco. Triang never seemed able to decide whether it was a UK or a TC series loco. When it first appeared in the catalogue in 1959 it was on page 5 with the Jinty, 0-6-0 Saddle Tank and 3MT BR locos and as a BR Loco in the price list, even though the illustration showed it with the TC logo, and buffers as only UK outline models had buffers, TC series locos and rolling stock didn't. Its inclusion with the UK locos was probably a late change because without it there would not have been a UK loco to use the Phase 1 catenary system launched in 1959, only the TC series R.257. The UK loco came with the EM2/Class 77 which appeared in the catalogue in 1960 and I think went on sale in late '60 or sometime in early '61. The Steeplecab acquired the BR coach roundel to make it a "UK" loco, but in later catalogues and price lists it reappeared with the TC locos. Its final appearance was in 1963, without buffers, in the TC section. I have several, including one with the TC shield logo, which do see somewhat harder to find, but they all run in the same direction corresponding to the UK direction of travel including the only one I had from new in 1960 with the BR roundel, so I know for a fact that it always ran in the same direction as my other UK locos. Its twin the maroon Primary series R.252 was said to be made for sale in the Netherlands also, but the examples that I have of that loco all run in the usual direction, but again I never had one from new. Also remember that R.54 - the 4-6-2 CPR loco Hiawatha, and R.56 - the 4-6-4 TC series Baltic tank, both used the Princess chassis and the chassis service sheets show no difference between the Princess, Hiawatha and Baltic, apart from the headlight for Hiawatha. So R.52 and R.56 would have run in the same direction as the Princess locos, and it would have been bizarre in the extreme to have had the TC series steam locos running in the opposite direction to the TC series diesel and electric locos. Triang also sold UK outline locos in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and S. Africa so it would have been bizarre if folks out there mixed UK and TC series locos, as I'm sure many did, only to find they ran in opposite directions. Yes, Margate could easily have adapted those locos. But they all share the same catalogue numbers no matter in which market they were sold. There are, IMHO, just too many crossovers of fully assembled locos and their components between UK and TC series models and between UK and export markets for the TC series locos to have run "the other way round" to UK series locos. Trying to keep track in the stores in Margate for Left Hand positive and Right Hand positive completed locos without separate catalogue numbers would have been impossible. I don't doubt the accuracy of the statement that the TC series locos in the Fulham shop ran in the opposite direction, but whatever the reason, that looks to be very much the isolated exception. If there had been such a policy, then I'm sure that Pat Hammond would have discovered it and mentioned it somewhere in his "Story of Rovex" trilogy.

The R.52 Jinty, AFAIK, in Triang Railways and Triang Hornby days always used the standard X.04 motor, made in huge quantities over the years for use in the UK and TC steam locos. I doubt that you would have diassembled the X.04 motor to the extent of separating the traction magnet from its pole pieces. It's not something that I've ever needed to do myself at any time since I got my first Triang Railways train set R3.D in 1959. So the question of weakening the magnet probably didn't arise with your Jinty as swapping the position of the insulating sleeve doesn't need the magnet removing. The sleeve might have slipped off if you'd taken the X.04 out of the chassis and removed the commutator brushes to get better access to clean the commutator slots with a pin and upended the motor in the process. Then it would be a 50:50 chance of putting the sleeve back on the "wrong" arm. I've put the sleeve back on the wrong arm myself on occasions on Bo-Bo motor bogies acquired secondhand when giving them a really good clean and service to restore them to full working order, and cursed myself when I test ran the reassembled bogie and found that I'd goofed. Nowadays I have the odd motor bogie or two, correctly assembled, sitting around to which I refer.

I have copies of the Triang service sheets relating to the Bo-Bo motor bogies. Sheet 12a covers the X.3120 bogie for the R.156 EMU and X.3121 For the DMU R.157 Sheet 12b covers the X.3122 bogie for R.55, R155 and R.159 and the X.3166 bogie for R253 and by implication R.353. Both sheets refer to locos/bogies made from January 1959 onwards. Whilst on both sheets the insulating sleeve S.5261 isn't shown in situ on one of the the brush spring S.3128's arm, it is positioned next to the right hand arm, on both sheets, Right as seen when looking along the length of the chassis with the commutator brushes between you and the magnet and pole pieces, with the coupling beyond them. All the bogies have the collector strips on the right hand side of the chassis, i.e. the same side as the insulated sleeve on the brush spring. As the drawings are virtually identical, not too surprising given the commonality of the components used, that would seem, to me anyway, to be confirmation that there was no difference in the way that UK and TC models were wired/configured and that UK and TC models when ex-works should all run in the same direction. Sheet 61 covers the X.3122 and X.3166 bogies from April 1968 and it does show the insulated sleeve on the right hand brush arm, this time as sub-assembly X.664. So on that basis, RailroadBill's X3122 bogie from his R.159 as shown in his photo with the sleeve and metal tag on the left hand arm is not as per the service sheets, which explains why it runs the "wrong way round". Swapping the sleeve and metal tag with the lead to the pickup strip is fiddly, but very doable. Incidentally. none of the sheets make any reference to the direction of travel when the positive lead was connected to the pickup strip/right side insulated wheels and negative to the chassis/uninsulated wheels. I don't think that Triang were too fussed as long as all their locos had the same direction of travel ex-works.

Time for some simple electrical wiring theory. On a DC permanent magnet motor, the armature turns according to the direction of flow of the current through the armature windings. I hope we can all agree on that. on the TC motor bogies and the X.04 motors, the power gets to the commutator brushes on one side via the chassis from the wheels which are not insulated from the chassis then the body of the motor and one of the spring arms that holds the commutator brushes in place. That spring arm will not have the insulating sleeve. On the other side it comes from the insulated wheels via the pickup strips, through the brown wire to the little metal tag. The tag is held in contact with the commutator brush arm by the spring arm with the insulating sleeve. On the TC bogie there is a metal strip that touches the underside of the traction magnet at one end whilst the other end touches the centre of the spring arms that holds the commutator brushes in place. The motor bogies used on the SR EMU R156, the Diesel Railcar R157, and the R753 AL1/Class 81 Bo-~Bo loco have exactly the same construction as the TC motor bogies but twith their own unique metal bogie frames unlike the TC Bo-Bos which all use the same motor bogie. Indeed, if you look at the TC Bo-Bo bogies made after 1958 you'll see the I (Insulated) and R (Return) markings needed for the TC series OHLE R257 loco on them. To change the direction of flow of the current, all you do is move the insulating sleeve and the metal tag to the other spring arm instead. That is all that is needed. Leave the pickup strips alone, because as has already been said, if you do move the strip and don't create the necessary clearance on the underside of the bogie you risk creating a hidden and permanent short. Alternatively, you could leave the wiring as you find it and just rotate the traction magnet to reverse the magnetic polarity of the motor. However, my advice is DON'T. Leave the magnet alone! Taking it out from between the pole pieces to turn it round can make older magnets lose some of their magnetism which will make the motor less powerful. Just stick to moving the insulated sleeve AND metal tag to the other arm of the brush spring. I cannot see any reason why Triang would have made it their policy for TC locos to be sold ex-works with the wiring reversed. I have occasionally bought a UK outline Triang loco on Ebay and when I got it found that it ran in reverse compared to all my other Triang locos. But that doesn't prove anything. There may have been the very occasional assembly error, placing the magnet with the wrong orientation, but that should have been picked up when the loco was tested in Margate before packing. In my opinion, backed up by my experience, it is far more likely to have been caused by a previous owner who had disassembled the motor and then put it back together incorrectly - magnet wrong way round or insulating the wrong brush spring arm). Or had done it deliberately so that ran in the same direction as locos that they had from other manufacturers as I don't think there was any standardisation on which wheel went to which side of the motor or on the magnetic orientation of the traction magnet. But each manufacturer would have had its own standardised designs and assembly processes. Incidentally if you do both, i.e. turn the magnet round AND swap the insulated sleeve and metal tag over to the other arm, the motor will still turn in the same direction as before. Why? Because the two changes - direction of magnetic field and direction of current flow - cancel each other out.

Thsnk you for your kind words. It is appreciated.

Wrong. No new chassis casting was ever needed on the models using the X.04 motor or the Bo-Bo motor bogies, excluding the Hymek and Budd Railcar which used fully insulated axles, same as the Class 31, 37 and EM2/Class 77. That's why there so damned simple to convert to DCC. You swapped over the insulating sleeve and the tag from the pickup strip on the X.04 or the above, see my earlier post above.

No, No, No. Not now not ever. Never, at least in my experience. Triang were masters of compromise and never, ever, spent a penny on a model that was unnecessary. These were toys, remember and keeping costs as low as possible were paramount. Wiring them differently would have added costs and required a separate X number (X was used for sub-assemblies and S for discrete components whilst R was reserved for complete items and RT for items that applied equally to the OO and TT ranges ( TT used the T prefix) so RT = both. P was used for power supplies which by their nature did not attract Purchase Tax as they were not classed as "toys" as toys did attract purchase tax. The two dock shunter models, R253 - Dock Shunter and R353 - TC Yard Switcher (if I've got the R numbers correct as I don't have my catalogues in front of me at the moment) both used exactly the same bogie, including all the components as the R55, R155, R159, and R257 locos, the only difference being that R55, R155 R159 and R257 also had their own specific cowcatchers/pilots/valances. The body shell mouldings for R253 and R353 were identical apart fro the colours and markings and that R253 had buffers whilst and R353 didn't in common with all the TC series rolling stock. The other loco that crossed UK and TC ranges was the R254 SteepleCab loco. If it had the BR coach roundel it had buffers but if it had the TC shield it didn't. If you have come across a loco that seems to run in the wrong direction, IMHO, it is very unlikely to be an assembly error, and much more likely that someine i nthe past has swapped it over to match British Trix 2 rail locos, which I think might have been wired ~"the other way round" ex-works, or they took the motor apart and when reassembling it either managed to turn the motor magnet through 180 degrees reversing N and S poles in the process, or swapped over the insulated sleeve and the wire from the pickup strip.