Updating 'Nellie'

[rockershovel]

Googling the Borrows locos, I notice that "The King" has D-shaped front cab windows as found on the Nellie/Polly/Connie bodies. We seem to be well into "prototype for everything" territory!

[edcayton]

Whilst I haven't compared the designs in detail, the LNER Y7 and Y8 are small 0-4-0s with everything on the inside. Why would Nellie be so much more difficult?

 

They seem to have a longer rear overhang, and more room for the firebox to clear the crank axle.

 

Ed

[rockershovel]

They seem to have a longer rear overhang, and more room for the firebox to clear the crank axle.

 

Ed

The Y8 series were originally fitted with marine type fireboxes, but were reboilered with Y7 type boilers. One of the Y8 was the last LNER locomotive with Joy valve gear

[Nearholmer]

Looking at some of the railmotor 0-4-0t, they have the boiler pitchedvery high, and I wonder if the ashpan was over the crank axle. And, of course, the first iteration of the LSWR ones were 2-2-0t, with outside valve gear, which should give people who wish to be cruel to Nellie's a few ideas!

[bertiedog]

Before arranging a real valve gear to suit Nellie, you must remember that the entire design was done by Bodgers of Margate, who when faced with making an 08 diesel simply put a 3f 060 chassis in place of the shorter outside framed real ones, I suspect it ranks with putting wheels on the Titanic as idiocy.

Dear old Tri-ang could not have cared less about accuracy, it was a toy........the policy slid them slowly into bankrupcy in the end, unlike Euro makers who made the toys look accurate, and pleased both markets. Hornby survived by the skin of their teeth and Chinese production woke them up at last to the modern model railway world.

Stephen.

[Budgie]

I'm not bothered with the accuracy or otherwise of Nellie. I'm replacing the wheels, motor and gearing, repainting the body, and adding a DCC chip for good measure. Why? For old time's sake.

[RJS1977]

Before arranging a real valve gear to suit Nellie, you must remember that the entire design was done by Bodgers of Margate, who when faced with making an 08 diesel simply put a 3f 060 chassis in place of the shorter outside framed real ones, I suspect it ranks with putting wheels on the Titanic as idiocy.

Dear old Tri-ang could not have cared less about accuracy, it was a toy........the policy slid them slowly into bankrupcy in the end, unlike Euro makers who made the toys look accurate, and pleased both markets. Hornby survived by the skin of their teeth and Chinese production woke them up at last to the modern model railway world.

Stephen.

 

Because Hornby are now such a financially successful company..... Now they're not pleasing *either* market!

 

 

If anything, Triang's downfall was getting involved in too many other toy markets, and perhaps also buying out the failing H-D range....

 

What Triang did do was to introduce many people to the hobby who would not otherwise be here.

[Nearholmer]

Agreed, but it is also true that Triang locos were regarded as "hack-and-bash" fodder right from the outset.

 

From the RM January 1961, announcing Nellie: "...... an almost certain candidate for modifications by branch line, industrial, and light railway modellers." (They also said it was based on a B4 tank!).

 

Even at junior school age, self and pals knew that the locos were poor representations, and I think I first took a hacksaw to a Jinty when I was about nine years old ........ it was a jumble-sale bargain, and the result was doubtless truly horrifying, but my point is that if a nine year old knew it was a dodgy model, then an adult modeller wouldn't be interested in it at all.

 

The M7? Even the RM review of it when it was released came pretty close to calling it terrible; damned by faint praise is, I think, the phrase.

 

My reading is that Triang's offerings were under-shooting what the market really wanted as early as, say, 1965.

 

Kevin

Edited October 24, 2016 by Nearholmer

[New Haven Neil]

I'm not bothered with the accuracy or otherwise of Nellie. I'm replacing the wheels, motor and gearing, repainting the body, and adding a DCC chip for good measure. Why? For old time's sake.

 

Yup, that's why I have a display shelf full of them!

[rockershovel]

Google informs me that the ORIGINAL "Nellie" was one of the three Emmett style locomotives at the Festival of Britain's Oyster Creek and Far Tottering miniature railway

[davknigh]

I'm thinking a 2-4-0T might be a better fit with inside motion. ISTR one of the light railways had one?

 

Cheers,

 

David

[Nearholmer]

There were several light railway 2-4-0T, and Nellie might work as a "sort of" version of the RVR/KESR ones.

[great central]

Agreed, but it is also true that Triang locos were regarded as "hack-and-bash" fodder right from the outset.

 

From the RM January 1961, announcing Nellie: "...... an almost certain candidate for modifications by branch line, industrial, and light railway modellers." (They also said it was based on a B4 tank!).

 

Even at junior school age, self and pals knew that the locos were poor representations, and I think I first took a hacksaw to a Jinty when I was about nine years old ........ it was a jumble-sale bargain, and the result was doubtless truly horrifying, but my point is that if a nine year old knew it was a dodgy model, then an adult modeller wouldn't be interested in it at all.

 

The M7? Even the RM review of it when it was released came pretty close to calling it terrible; damned by faint praise is, I think, the phrase.

 

My reading is that Triang's offerings were under-shooting what the market really wanted as early as, say, 1965.

 

Kevin

 

Not sure I can fully agree with that. That Triang had some poor products (perhaps read that as old?) I wouldn't dispute,  but they did have some pretty good ones as well in my opinion. The Brush Type 2 (class 31) is, I believe, still looked on quite favouably today as is the EM2. I have an EM2 which has been re-worked, although the basic body is unaltered, wire handrails, mould lines removed, flush glazing, etc.  The Britannia whilst compromised somewhat to fit on a Princess chassis still looks very much like a Britannia, I detailed and weathered two of them many years ago.

The thing is when we look back from today at what was available in the past, yes it will look poor by todays standards, but compared to what was available at the time some of it was pretty good. We were all younger then and looking back with an older and hopefully wiser viewpoint doesn't necessarily allow a good comparison. Let's face it there is plenty of whingeing over models released 15 or so years ago not being up to current standards, Hornby Black 5 and MN come to mind but almost anything, it seems to me, that isn't the newest thing off the boat is likely to be criticised as not up to current standards. Standards improve all the time, naturally, but I don't think it's perhaps fair to berate something too much when it was some of the better stuff at the time, 

[RJS1977]

And the point of Triang was that by producing trains which could be bought for a lower price than HD, Trix etc, it opened the model railway market to people who wouldn't otherwise have been able to afford the more expensive offerings. For them, an 08 with inside frames, a shortened Princess, or an inaccurate Jinty were far better than no trains at all - something which seems to have been largely forgotten in today's hobby.

[Nearholmer]

GC

 

You are right, Triang did make some locos that were looked upon very favourably at the time, and stood the test of time pretty well, so perhaps I should have said that some if their offerings were under-shooting what the market really wanted.

 

But, what I very definitely am not doing is retrospectively applying current standards, partly because I haven't dabbled in British r-t-r 00 since about 1976, so couldn't, even if I wanted to, and partly because to do so would be rather silly.

 

What I am doing is remembering how Triang products were perceived by boys in the late 1960s, and reading RM Reviews from the 1960s. Impressions were by no means wholly favourable at the time.

 

One factor was that, by the late 1960s, there was enough knowledge of, and access to, continental and US H0 within the U.K. for that to be providing a benchmark of the achievable. The RM was saying very nice things about the quality and value for money of these things, and I remember being bowled-over by a Jouef WAgon Lits bogie baggage car that I bought on my first school trip to France in 1969. It made Triang look crude.

 

RJS1977

 

What you say is true, but that affect had very definitely begun to "burn out" by the mid/late 1960s among hobbyists.

 

Disposable incomes were creeping-up, and hobbyists were beginning to get pickier. I well remember the "At long blooms' last!" reactions when finer r-t-r (Airfix? Palitoy?) became available in the mid/late 1970s, and Lima items were greeted enthusiastically, once they got past the sort-of-H0 phase.

 

I defend my view that there was latent demand for better quality than Triang was offering, as early as the mid-1960s.

 

(I haven't mentioned Wrenn, because it was only if your Dad was a pretty serious railway enthusiast himself that Wrenn locos could be fitted into the family budget - most of us just drooled over the catalogues!)

 

Kevin

Edited October 25, 2016 by Nearholmer

[Horsetan]

....The thing is when we look back from today at what was available in the past, yes it will look poor by todays standards, but compared to what was available at the time some of it was pretty good. We were all younger then and looking back with an older and hopefully wiser viewpoint doesn't necessarily allow a good comparison. Let's face it there is plenty of whingeing over models released 15 or so years ago not being up to current standards, Hornby Black 5 and MN come to mind but almost anything, it seems to me, that isn't the newest thing off the boat is likely to be criticised as not up to current standards. ....

One might almost say standards aren't up to current standards.

[Nile]

Found one on ebay with added outside cylinders.

 

link

[Coppercap]

Found one on ebay with added outside cylinders.

 

link

Obviously improved by someone who knew what could be done to make a toy look like something half decent.

[DCB]

The biggest failing of the Nellie (and Polly and Connie) was that these kids toys have lasted 50 odd years in many cases, instead of failing and needing replacement within 6 months like other toys.

 

I have the remains of man Nellie's.  The Triang TT single start worm fits the X04 and meshes with the small worm wheel . I am pretty sure the power bogies have two start worms but use the same worm wheel as the Nellie.     One of mine had Romford wheels on Markits axles and ran really well.   2 others have standard 200 mph gearing, standard wheels and run on our Super 4 floor layout on holiday, they run on Peco code 100 but hit the chairs on GT code 100.

 

The chassis are useful, they were the last Triang with separate side plates, I file off the rivets and put bolts through or use brass spacers, I had Romford gears fitted to one with a small computer motor but it has been dismantled

 

Plans include cutting several badly damaged bodies up to make a fleet of 2-4-0Ts for a Scottish themed layout .

 

The problem with Nellie for me is there is no clearance above the front axle for the crosshead and conrods     In the Y7 and Y8 the front axle is further forward and the small end of the con rod must be almost directly above the axle when at front dead centre.  

 

My apologies for borrowing a photo to alter but inside cylinders would have to be steeply inclined and the loco would need a very shallow firebox and ashpan, and or the Dolgoch style valve gear to make the Nellie arrangement work.  Most 0-4-0T s are outside cylindered for this reason and most have the firebox behind the rear axle, which is why most do not have a bunker behind the cab, coal boxes alongside the firebox being more common, often inside the cab

Edited October 26, 2016 by DavidCBroad

[rockershovel]

.... hence the obvious bow in the rods on the eBay one, to allow the side rods to rotate behind the slide bar

[RJS1977]

 

 

And a couple of photos of her older sister:

 

 

 

These two put in sterling service on the branch shuttle trains on my father's layout.

 

I just spotted that there's the cab of another one (the remains of one of the two bodies I cut and shut into a Tanat Valley loco) just visible to the left of the picture! The smokebox of the other body is just out of view - it acts as a stationary boiler in the lean-to on the back of the shed.

 

PS - the Airfix signalbox has now been repaired!

[BernardTPM]

There's also the steeple cab electric that used the same chassis (just in front of the ships).

[RJS1977]

There's also the steeple cab electric that used the same chassis (just in front of the ships).

 

Yes - that would have looked rather silly if Triang had put cylinders on the Nellie chassis! 

[bertiedog]

Yes - that would have looked rather silly if Triang had put cylinders on the Nellie chassis! 

A point often made was just that, that Tri-ang swapped around things, but then why did they not simply screw on the cylinders for one loco and remove for another, no, it was too complex an idea!! The Tea lady at Margate could have told them of major problems like O8 diesel above the waist and 3F steam down below, but they merrily went on bodging along.

 

I remember the first delivery of the Blue Coronation in the early 1970's, with the disappointment of no new chassis, and adjusted dimensions, but added to by the crates of the boxes containing locos with a strange sticky surface to the blue plastic.

 

Tri-ang had decided that good coat of varnish would enhance the look of the blue plastic, but totally forgot to check if the varnish could dry off, and managed to pack them still sticky into the boxes.

 

All had to be returned, and I believe were scrapped at great loss, but in those days they simply got the British production line to work on replacements and they were delivered about a month later. The Reps admitted that Tri-ang were at fault as the sticky varnish should have been spotted at some stage in the process of delivering to us.

 

But this was typical of Margate, they lived in a world of their own at times, in those days far more worried about Scalextric than trains, with their interest only reviving as the Hornby range was taken over and the name changed from Tri-ang.

 

Stephen

[relaxinghobby]

 

This is my mod to a Nelly chassis....

 

An Ultra Scale gear box, you need to find one with a small cog wheel as the loco wheels are small. Finer scale loco wheels, 14mm to get the buffer beam height down to scale height from the lofty Tri-ang position. The motor is salvage from a computer disk drive, I don't know what voltage it is? It gets a bit frantic at the right hand end of the control knob. Had to cut away some of the side frames to get the front corner of the motor in, this is the steel side frames with chassis spacers, not a solid block.. It runs with umbilical leads.

 

It needs new pick ups to both wheels, the body fitting, perhaps a cab interior and some detailing. Definitely needs a bit of ballast to improve general performance.

Edited April 13, 2018 by relaxinghobby