GoingUnderground

The ECoS firmware recognises ESU decoders by their firmware version. Unfortunately, ESU have still to issue an updated version of the ECoS and CabControl's own firmware to take account of the hardware changes which required firmware changes in the decoder. I have seen comments that ESU are intending to release in the next month or so a very long overdue update to the ECoS firmware to rectify the non/incorrect recognition issue. They have, however, kept the LokProgrammer software up to date for these decoder hardware/firmware changes, but not everyone has a LokProgrammer or the LokProgrammer software.

The Lines Bros Group was into so many different toy categories that the must have covered most of the market at one time or another. I had a Triang tricycle, and a Triang croquet set that came in a very nicely made wooden chest that aped the presentation of the much more expensive Jacques sets made for adult players, except that everything was reduced in size for children. There was the Frog range of plastic aircraft kits (they were the first kits that I ever built) and also of elastic powered planes that actually flew. They also made battery powered 1:24 scale models in acetate of road vehicles, under the Minic brand IIRC, which included a Vanwall racing car, a Austin Taxi and an MGA. Sadly, as they were using acetate at the time, mine have warped slightly. There were the 1:600 ships from Minic, not to mention the Minic Motorways slot cars, with their approximaltely 4mm scale commercial vehicles but somewhat overscale private cars. I have seen comments from folks more knowledgeable than I that in the 1950s and early 1960s Lines Bros was the largest toy company in the world. But in those days, Airfix, Humbrol and Corgi were not part of the Lines Bros group but competitors, Frog and Modelland Vs Airfix, Corgi Vs Spot On and Minic, Pedigree's Sindy Vs Mattel's Barbi. They also became major players in the slot car world with the acquisition of Scalextric, and took on and beat Hornby Dublo and British Trix in the OO gauge model railway world with the acquisition of Rovex Scale Models in Richmond, and then built a factory just for them in Margate, which they still occupy today..... In time, production of Scalextric and Minic Motorways and the Minic plastic models migrated to Margate. To kids like me in the 1950s and '60s Triang was a very, very, well known name in the toy world possibly even better known than Lines Bros. Nowadays the company that we know as Hornby to some extent emulates Lines Bros in its scope, but it is all down to the success of Triang Railways that there is a Hornby company today at all, as it is 59 years since Meccano, the company that Frank Hornby created went bust and was bought out by Lines Bros. Today's company might be Hornby in name, but, IMHO, it is Lines Bros in nature. Long may today's Hornby company survive. Simon Kohler's replacement will need a very deft and skilful hand to keep it in full lworking order. I do worry that its future bay be decided by global political forces outside of its control. Boring reminiscences and rant over - I'll go get my coat.

For the ECoS there is also RTDrive which is an Android app. TouchCab for Apple smartphones used to be quite well known at one time, but I don't know whether it is still available. To repeat what I said earlier, the ECoS does not have built-in WiFi. But it is easy to give it WiFi, either by connecting it to your home router via an ethernet cable, then users just connect to the home wifi and set up the app to use the ECoS's IP address, or attaching a Wireless Access Point to the ECoS's ethernet port and set up the app to connect to the ECoS's IP address. It remains to be seen how widely adopted Hornby's proprietorial implementation of communicating with decoders via Bluetooth becomes. I believe that Soundtraxx also have something similar, again proprietorial, and as far as I know the Hornby abd Soundtraxx systems are incompatible as far as Bluetooth is concerned. Anyone know if they are compatible? The Hornby bluetooth dongle will not work with the ECoS as the ECoS uses ECoSLink to connect peripherals, and to a limited extent loconet using their L.Net Converter (loconet to ECoSLink) module, not Xpressnet and as far as I know there is no interface available to convert Xpressnet to ECoSLink. ESU do not have a bluetooth interface module for the ECoS or come to that, for the CabControl. If they do introduce one there's the question of which proprietorial system do they use, Hornby or Soundtraxx. So on the basis of kit currently available forget about using bluetooth with ECoS.

I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but if the knurling is removed from the wheels, the loco doesn't haul as wel las it did before. I had one that was noticeably less able to pull a rake of coaches. When I checked it had smooth wheelssets, which I replaced with knurled sets, and it then hauled much better. Rovex introduced the knurled wheelsets after they introduced the dummy loco, R57, and the dummy B unit, R58, versions of the single ended loco R55, the dummy being R. Both of these use the same metal chassis, but are much heavier and have a noticeable rolling resistance greater than the TC coaches. It is possible to fit the powered chassis plus motor bogie in the dummy units to get round this problem.

Spot on TTG. Being able to link 2 ECoS so that you have 4 throttles and 2 boosters and share a common database is something that users have been asking ESU to introduce for as long as I've had an ECoS, which is now over 12 years. We're still waiting. Using the sniffer port is the only way to use 2 together, and it does have its disadvantages, you have to set up the locos on both ECoS, or do a configuration backup on ECoS A and then restore that backup to ECoS B. And whichever ECoS is connected to the track must have a sniffer address for each loco. If you do the backup and restore trick then just make sure that before you do the backup and restore that you have set every loco's sniffer address to be the same as its DCC address. Also the communication is one way only, So whilst the ECoS connected to the layout will accurately show the status of verything, the ECoS that is only connected to the other one's sniffer port will only show the correct status for locos routes, etc controlled using that ECoS. If you then decide to change the speed of a loco or set a route using the layout connected ECoS the sniffer connected ECoS will not show the new speed etc as there is no feedback to it via the sniffer port from the layout connected ECoS. Never connect 2 ECoS to the same layout or you may well end up blowing up the output transistors on both of them. Never connect the main track output of the layout connected ECoS to the sniffer port of the other ECoS - you will just create a data loop which may well lock up both machines.

It is unwise to judge the colour of anything unless toy have th original item in front of you. What you see on your computer, tablet or smartphone is entirely dependent on how accurately the screen can reproduce colours, never mind the accuracy of the image sensor that captured the picture in the first place. Also, I've noticed that pictures look brighter when seen on a screen that they do when printed out. This was a factor that I used to have to adjust for when I used to pull together images to accompany articles in a couple of society newsletters that I used to "typeset". If I didn't lighten them, the pictures would look unexpectedly dark in the printed version of the newsletters.

No. Just that Bachmann appear to have chosen gear ratios suitable for its nominal "in tunnel" running speed, and forgot that there are stretches of above ground running on the Piccadilly, Bakerloo and Northern lines. Whether the gear ratios were chosen because of the power, or lack of it, from the motors, or whether they wanted to make sure that it could handle ramps up from tunnels is another question.

As far as I know it is Train Red as the fleet numbers are in gold, not white. The set was one of the ones that were brought out of retirement in the mid/late 1980s and ran on the Northern line between September 1986 and May 1988. The route maps, in the D DM car at least, do not date from that period as they show the terminus of the GN&C branch as being Finsbury Park with a note that the Victoria line is under construction and the service will be cut back to Drayton Park, which happened in October 1964. The set comprises 10012-012256-12027-11012. The A DM 10012 was the first '38 stock DM to enter service with its companion D DM 11012, and the last to leave revenue service. the original 11012 was written off in an accident at London Road depot (on the Bakerloo) in 1983 and was replaced by 11178 renumbered 11012. Some years ago, the LT Museum commissioned EFE Gilbow to produce a 4 car set with the running numbers of the preserved set and the destination of Amersham and Metropolitan as the line. It is to the usual EFE Gilbow standard, except that the fleet numbers of the A and D DMs were transposed and 10012 is on the D DM and 11012 is on the A DM.

Indeed, it rode better than the regular '73 Stock that took us to and from Acton Town, and was very comfortable thanks to the very generously sprung seat cushions. And before anyone says that it only reached that speed as the train was lightly loaded, it is true that there was no-one standing other than the couple of LT Museum car attendants in each car, but all the seats were fully occupied with very happy passengers.

As an ECoS owner, I can confirm that it is a very capable piece of kit. Mine is the original colour screen model (50200) with a lower power output, but otherwise identical to the latest ECoS 2.1 (50210). If you're thinking of an ECoS 2.1 (50210) or CabControl (50310/50311), be aware that the CabControl is not an ECoS without a screen or throttle knobs. The ECoS has functionaility that the CabControl doesn't, namely, 1. User defined loco icons (there are over 23,000 that you can download from the ESU website (I must own up, 16 of them are ones that I've created), or you can create your own and load them on to the ECoS yourself. 2. Shuttle train running. 3. Configuration menu for devices connected to the ECoSLink bus. 4. Remote control of the ECoS via a VNC Client from a laptop, tablet or smartphone. This is instead of an app, or it can be as well as an app and/or the Mobile Control II. N.B. It is remote control, not an additional throttle as you get with an app or the MCII. 5. ECoS is multiprotocol, DCC, Maerklin Motorola (MM), Maerklin mfx/msd, and Selectrix whilst CabControl is DCC only. 6. Loading Firmware updates, loco icons and backing up and restoring the user data/configuration is via an ethernet connection to your computer on an ECoS, sounds difficult, but it's not. On CabControl you have to use a USB stick for firmware upgrades and configuration back-up and restore, sounds easier, but I don't think it is as flexible and I'm not sure that it's quite as easy to keep backups of older configurations. 7. You can use the ECoS Detector, Detector Standard (if you have 3 rail track, or Detector RC with CabControl. However, it doesn't have a way to display occupancy unlike the ECoS which has it's onscreen track plan diagram, and you have to connect CabControl to a PC and use layout control software if you want to see what's where on your layout. Also be aware that the Loconet socket on CabControl is still inactive. Whether it will ever be of any use is anyone's guess. If you're thinking of buying the CabControl and then upgrading later to an ECoS be aware that the only part of the CAbControl set that can be used with an ECoS is the MCII handset, but you can do that without any modification to the handset or the ECoS other than making sure that your ECoS is connected to your home WiFi router or to a Wireless Access Point, see the Mobile Control II user manual for more information on how to use it with an ECoS. However the CabControl ICU cannot be connected to the ECoS as a booster and would be redundant, at least under the current releases of the ECoS and CabControl ICU firmware, 4.2.10 and 4.2.8 respectively. And one final point, the CabControl sold in N. America and Australia has the part number 50310, whilst the part number for the Europe/rest of the world version is 50311. As far as we can tell from the information that ESU has released to date, the only difference seems to be that the 50311 comes with a German and English language user manuals whilst the manual for 50310 is in English only. I suggest that you download the ECoS user manual from their website, the manual is now 12 years old, but still covers the core functionality https://esu.eu/en/downloads/instruction-manuals/digital-systems/ Also look at the Tips & tricks pages which covers more recently added functionality https://www.esu.eu/en/support/tips-tricks/ECoS/

There has been some debate over the accuracy of the top speed of the EFE Rail '38 Stock models with doubt being cast on their top speed. The LT Muiseum was running their 4 car '38 Stock between Acton town and Uxbridge over last weekend. I was on one of those trips and luckily was sat next to the cab door. I can confirm from personal observation that on the leg from Acton to UJxbridge it ran at between 40 and 45 between stations according to the speedo in the cab. The weak field flag was not showing but I was told that it was set permanently.

You will have, as I have done such a conversion. I posted the images on here some time ago, but they were amongst the many images lost when the RMWeb website had to be "restored". Here it is again. These photos were taken during the conversion, and the white areas show where the body has been modified the scratchbuilt parts added. The roof shows as white, but the only parts added are the "box" and the exhaust. The horns have been moved from above the cab. The body length is slightly longer than an R55 but shorter than the unmodified R159 due to the removal of the nose at one end. The new flat end has been based on the layout of the flat end on an R55, so if it looks familiar that is why. The top of the headlight faring has been filled so that it flows into the bonnet in the same was as it does on an F unit, but I haven't tried to replicate the way that the bonnet then flows into the windscreen surround.

To quote Richard Lines in an article for the Train Collectors Society "Canada was the main target for these early models." but went on to say "Triang were expanding their activities in other Commonwealth markets, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa in particular. Additional models were required which would be acceptable in all these markets." This is clear if you at the bodyshell and livery of the 1950s R55 and the moulding lines introduced to make painting easier. It is very clearly based on the Canadian Pacific livery of the time. The Yard Switcher is based on an Alco loco, sorry I can't remember the model, that was also in service with Canadian Pacific at the time. Back to R55, as I said before, it is a hybrid, showing features of the EMD F7, the Alco FA and the Fairbanks Morse C Liner locos. The nose is very obviously wrong, the running number boards are in the wrong place, and the number 4008 comes from a Canadian Pacific Alco FA loco, not a CP F7 or F9. The box and cement cars were very similar to those running in Canada at the time. Though it must be admitted that some of the cars were just UK models without buffers, such as the bogie well wagon/depressed centre car, the freightliner flats with containers bearing Canadian Pacific or CP Rail branding, and the very unusual UK bogie brick wagon in CP Rail livery. The snow plough and caboose were also clearly of Canadian origin. The Series 2 TC passenger cars are also based on the cars running in Canada at the time, and the Series 2 observation car even has the moulding on the end door for the Canadian Pacific shield. Triang Hornby did sell Margate made Series 2 TC passenger cars and the R55 and R155 diesels in both Canadian Pacific and CP Rail liveries in Canada in the late 1960s early 1970s. You might find this link interesting https://tri-ang.weebly.com/. But having made the models, Triang would have sold them in Australia and S Africa, and N. Zealand which was why they were made country non-specific by giving them the road name of Triang Railways with the TR logo. The guards van that you've cited as an example of a non-Canadian prototype was from 1977 which places it very firmly in the Hornby Railways era, several years after the end of the Triang Railways/Triang Hornby era and to all intents and purposes the TC series was allowed to die out in the early 1970s, at least in the UK. The EMD F7 had 4 axles, and the Triang TC motor bogie chassis is based on the one used on the F7. I have seen an F9 in real life at Banff hauling a train, the 9 was a further development of the F series, and I can assure you that it was a Bo-Bo as was the F7. The consist comprised 2 F9s and between them a cabless "B" unit loco, which was also a Bo-Bo.

Thinking further about Triang's attitude to other firms' intellectual property, they were not averse to using it. Well known examples are the helicopter car, the giraffe car, and, IIRC, the side tipping log carrier, which were all based on products made by the US firm Lionel. The relationship with Lionel seemed to be quite close, with at one point Triang Lionel science sets being included in the 9th edition (published January 1963) of the Triang Railways catalogue. I believe the sets were made by Lionel but sold in Triang Lionel branded boxes. t the time I thought it rather odd to include them in the model railway catalogue which, incidentally, was also the only time AFAIK that both the OO/H0 and TT ranges appeared in the same catalogue.

You're quite right. But I was thinking about the single ended diesel R55, the yard switcher R159 and the 4.-6-2 Hiawatha R54, and the Budd Rail Car R352, not to mention the rolling stock which is almost exclusively inspired by what was being operated on the Canadian Pacific at the time. The only other Australian inspired item in the TC range was the Sydney Suburban "Red Rattler" EMU. And before some corrects me, the double ended diesel was R159 not R160, and the dummy non-powered version was R250. Sorry for misrembering the R number as R160, I should have looked it up before posting.

If you want, why not, it;s your layout. The Transcontinental range was introduced primarily for the Canadian market but also for sale in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. So whilst inspired by what was running in Canada in the 1950s they were never intended to be exact models. And the likely sales volumes never justified highly accurate models, for, after all, what were made and sold as children's toys.

It's worth remembering that the Seuthe smoke generator added a lot to the price of the Triang locos which for a time were sold in With and without smoke options. For instance in 1962, the Princess loco R258 without Smoke was 54/7 = £2/14/7 = £2.73 whilst the same loco with smoke R258S was 70/5 = £3/10/5 = £3.52. By the way the tender R34 was extra at 6/8 = 33p. There were similar price differences ranging from 12/- (60p) to just under £1 on the other locos which had without and with smoke options, R59/59S 3MT, R259/259S "Britannia", R350/350S L1, R354/354S Lord of the Isles, R356/356S Winston Churchill, and R54/54S CPR Hiawatha. This might not sound like a lot these days, but smoke added roughly 25% to the sale price of the loco. The smoke unit was sold separately for 17/9 = 88p and it was possible to fit it to the non-smoke versions provided they had the modified chassis introduced to take the Seuthe smoke unit. So I think that cost/selling price was as much to do with the change from the Seuthe units to the Margate developed Synchrosmoke ones as the "not invented here" syndrome.

Whilst British Trix paid up, same as Meccano did for Dublo, and used the Peco design.

There are one or two dealers at shows who specialise in Wrenn. Try doing a search for Wrenn and you should find them as I know that at least one of them, Andy Dayton, has a website, https://www.wrennspecialist.co.uk/. I have no connection with him other than as as a satisfied customer.

Apart from a different roof moulding to accommodate the pantographs and changeover switch and a different livery, it is identical in all other respects to the R160 double ended diesel. If the fuel tank offends you that much it is very easy to unclip and could be replaced with whatever scratchbuilt underframe equipment you felt to be appropriate. On the R160 the fuel tank is dark blue, the same shade as the body, but on the R257 double ended electric loco it is black. That's one relatively easy way to tell if the tank on an R160 is original = blue, or black = replacement. The R160/257 also makes a very good starting point for producing a more realistic-looking EMD F7/F9 than the mix'n'match R55 which has features of the F7/F9 as well as contemporary locos from Alco, their FA, and the Fairbanks Morse "C" Liners.

The banner seems to be a relatively recent addition to their PoS materials. Personally.I wouldn't say that the TV series "... dramatically simplified the history", to me it's more like rewriting the history by omitting references to Triang and Lines Bros.

As far as I'm concerned HS2 into Euston might as well be cancelled as statistically speaking I'm likely to have died before HS2 eventually gets there.

Tonight's "Top 10" programme was full of inaccuracies. The Rovex later Triang Railways Princess being the most obvious, never having been made by Meccano or carrying the Hornby brand. But it also gave the impression that Minic Motorways and Scalextric were made by rival independent companies when both were part of the Lines Bros group, and both ended up being made at different times in the Lines Bros Margate factory so prominently featured in the series. The 007 Aston Martin and the success of Corgi completely whitewashed the fact that Corgi, the brand name used by tbe Mettoy company, was in competition with the Dinky Toys made by Meccano who also made Hornby Dublo. Corgi models had interiors, windows, and steering when Dinky Toys had none of those features and was another reason that Meccano went broke in 1964. The 1960s version of Rocket was made by Triang, but that didn't stop it being referred to as the "first Hornby Rocket". The 1920 O gauge clockwork loco was the only true Hornby item in that it was created by Frank Hornby and was made by the company that he founded namely Meccano. But even there the fact that Frank Hornby's educational toy was Meccano, and the Hornby O gauge tinplate railway system was derived from Meccano. IIRC, everything else in the "Top 10" came from the businesses who were competitors to Meccano and hence Hornby Dublo, namely Lines Bros Triang Railways and Scalextric brands, Ralph Ehrmann's Airfix, and Mettoy's Corgi. or from their successor companies or businesses which are the continuation of and direct descendants of Rovex, not of Meccano's Hornby and Dinky Toy businesses. The only connection with Frank Hornby is the Hornby name which was saved from oblivion by Lines Bros acquisition of the Meccano company and its Hornby Dublo and Dinky Toy branded ranges. But why let factual accuracy get in the way of a good story. I'm sorry, but I do get very annoyed with the way that today's Hornby company seems to go out of its way to ignore, if not deny, its Rovex/Lines Bros/Triang Railways origins.

This is ridiculous parochialism. London is such an expensive place to buy or rent property that many end up having to move out of the immediate area and end up commuting daily to work. Back in the 1970s I had colleagues who lived outside the GLC area in Essex, Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Bucks, Kent, Sussex and Surrey and commuted daily in to Central London to work. I even know of folks who commuted daily from Birmingham. One of the reasons that the Lizzie Line was built was to ease congestion on the Underground routes from Paddington with many of those commuters coming in from outside the GLC area. If HS2 ever gets to Euston and paths get freed up on the WCML for more shorter distance travel inevitably this will encourage more commuting into London from outside the GLC. And I do know that if is called the GLA, but I can remember when Middlesex existed as a separate local authority, and part of the rationale for its abolition was to recognise that London as a city had spread far beyond the LCC area and by default a huge proportion of Middlesex was in reality part of London. This whole idea that London, or any city come to that, stops at the boundary and that responsibility for public transport must also stop at that boundary is ridiculous and selfish, and ignores the reality of people's lives, especially those of us who live on the outskirts of major cities.

How wrong an interpretation of history that is. TfL and its predecessors have been pruning back what the LPTB inherited in 1933. The Brill branch was absndoned in the late 1930s. Quaimton Road to Verney Junction went in the 1940s. The Metropolitan was cut back from Aylesbury to Amersham in 1962 IIRC. The Bakerloo beyond Harrow shut on 24 September 1982 even though that left 2 stations in the London Borough of Harrow, Headstone Lane and Hatch End without a direct Tube service. That was the direct result of cost cutting flowing complaints from boroughs south of the Thames about having to contribute to Ken Livingstone's Fares Fair policy. Epping to Ongar went in the 1990s. Much of the housing in the outer N and NW GLC area only exists because of the Underground lines. Since the Watford DC lines came under TfL the service has improved and the quality of the rolling stock is much better. London Overground has increased ridership thanks to these changes, made the network almost part of the Tube, and taken over routes south of the Thames. Anyone looking at a rail map of London will see how few Tube lines go south of the Thames. That was due to opposition by the Southern and its predecessors to plans for lines into its territory. My income tax and VAT pays for rail services across the UK, which includes all the commuter routes south of the Thames. My council tax pays for the Tube north of the Thames because there are relatively few non-Tube line commuter lines in that area, and for the tram routes round Croydon. That seems pretty damned fair to me.