Tri-ang Railways.

[BernardTPM]

Back on topic, the Tri-ang (and Graham Farish) Pullman Cars in 'Wagon-Lits' blue fool nobody. (That reminds me my collection lacks both versions. )

Actually the Farish Pullman Kitchen car is correct in this respect (but not the Triang 00 one, being a very short generic version of the SR EMU Pullman coaches). There were sight built by BRWC for CIWL in 1925 and some later came back and ran as Pullmans. One of this batch was Ibis which would have looked exactly like the old Farish model. The CIWL brake is fiction though.

[Il Grifone]

Actually the Farish Pullman Kitchen car is correct in this respect (but not the Triang 00 one, being a very short generic version of the SR EMU Pullman coaches). There were sight built by BRWC for CIWL in 1925 and some later came back and ran as Pullmans. One of this batch was Ibis which would have looked exactly like the old Farish model. The CIWL brake is fiction though.

 

I had forgotten those!

[Golden Fleece 30]

 (but not the Triang 00 one, being a very short generic version of the SR EMU Pullman coaches). 

How many of you have an actual Tri-ang EMU Pullman train, Brighton Belle?  In the 70's some whitemetal castings were made to cut some Pullmans up to convert, BUT, about 7 years ago some all plastic full mouldings of these coaches became available.  I think someone had used the castings then had moulds made to produce a kit of plastic parts to make a Brighton Belle, without the need for cutting or gluing anything.  Here is mine and the driver/motor vehicles had moulded panels for the EMU/DMU motor bogie (just as those vehicles had. After buying and making mine I have never seen another set for sale.

 

Garry

[BernardTPM]

That was the Chris Leigh conversion set. Though the Triang Pullmans are the correct profile and pattern for the Pullman EMUs they're still well short, but a short conversion like that would go well with trains of the old 9" Triang coaches.

[Nearholmer]

Grifone

 

Remaining off topic and sotto voce, the Blue Train set was issued by Hornby France before their Flèche D'Or set, 1926 and 1928 respectively, and I was right that the locos were first made in Liverpool, but oddly the tenders for the French-sold ones were made in France!

 

Jean-Michel Blevot has written the histories of both train sets for the Club des Amis du Meccano, republished in English in the HRCA 'The Hornby Collector' Nr 522 and Nr524.

 

Kevin

[GoingUnderground]

Grifone

 

Remaining off topic and sotto voce, the Blue Train set was issued by Hornby France before their Flèche D'Or set, 1926 and 1928 respectively, and I was right that the locos were first made in Liverpool, but oddly the tenders for the French-sold ones were made in France!

 

Jean-Michel Blevot has written the histories of both train sets for the Club des Amis du Meccano, republished in English in the HRCA 'The Hornby Collector' Nr 522 and Nr524.

 

Kevin

And the relevance to Triang is....?

 

This would really be better in its own thread, not lost in this one.

[Nearholmer]

Tangential.

 

I apologise, and will delete posts if they are too offensive.

[Il Grifone]

And the relevance to Triang is....?

 

This would really be better in its own thread, not lost in this one.

 

It sort of linked to Tri-ang's efforts in the French market (after all Tri-ang is now Hornby). I'll put a link in the 0 gauge thread anyway.

 

EDIT.   This got lost in cyberspace this morning - link placed

[GoingUnderground]

Tangential.

 

I apologise, and will delete posts if they are too offensive.

No, Kevin. they're not offensive at all, far from it, and no need to apologise as far as I'm concerned. We've all gone OT I'm sure many times, including me. They're really rather interesting, but just not relevant, IMHO, to Triang.

 

More to the point, they really are worthy of having their own thread/topic as you wouldn't look for information about Hornby/Meccano French O gauge tinplate from the 1920s, which was the start of tbe Hornby O Gauge, in a Triang Railways thread.

Edited December 1, 2018 by GoingUnderground

[5050]

In the clubrooms last night I was handed these vans by a mate who knows my interest in old things.  They are both nominally Triang, sharing the same body moulding (almost!) but with differences in the underframes.

 

Here they are together.  As well as the underframes the right hand one doesn't have any roof ventilators.  It is a Western Region one but the grey has a greenish tint.

 

 

The left hand one has an underframe with closed axleboxes so I reckon it is one of the first production with the Trackmaster underframe and with early Triang couplings.  The 'Triang' branding is in a very simple font with no model number.

 

 

A close up of the end shows the split in the 2 part underframe proving its Trackmaster heritage.

 

 

The right hand one has the Triang design open axleboxes, push out axle and 'split' wheels and the later 'Triang' logo lettering and model number.

 

 

The underframe is in one piece not split.

 

 

Is there any scarcity value in the 'Trackmaster' version?

 

[Il Grifone]

There isn't a lot of value in any of them unfortunately as depite being acetate* and invariably warped, there are plenty about.

 

The first ones were Trackmaster ib GWR grey and LNER bauxite, both open wagons and vans. The van roof can have ventilators or not. Rumour has it of a BR version but I have never seen one.

Once in the Tri-ang fold, the underframe was modified to take the Tri-ang coupling (the Trackmaster one is of the tag and slot type beloved of cheap 0 gauge) and given spindly buffers for some reason. These are often broken. They continued in the grey and bauxite (often swopped) and were joined by a white 'fish van' (R.14 - R.11 is the goods van), which apart from colour and markings is identical. This underframe still had the closed axleboxes and the strapping on the solebars, including crown plates which suggest pre-1923.

 

The next steps were the open axleboxes and simplified solebars. Other colours of plastic for the bodies also**. A brake van (usually red in my experience) joined the series on the same underframe with a metal stamping for the steps. In due course further wagons appeared. From 1959 onwards, they were fitted with the Mk III tension Lock and at some point gained an extra 2mm in buffer height.

 

More details in the Tri-ang 'bible'.

 

The van appears to most resemble an L & Y Diagram 3 van (these had an opening roof hatch for loading, but probably if any actually survived to BR days this was closed up.

 

http://www.lyrs.org.uk/Wagons

 

The open wagon appears to be a standard R.C.H. design, but should have a 9 ft wheelbase. As usual curb rails got lost along the way.

 

*    From about 1956 the plastic changed to polystyrene curing the worst of the warping, but the sides still manage to bow inwards.

**  Depending on what colour they had most of or could get cheap. Hence the greenish grey. They gave it a Western number, but it looks nothing like any GWR wagon.

 

I scratchbuilt one of these vans in my youth. It was only long afterwards that I realised I could have saved myself the trouble and used the Tri-ang one. I still have it somewhere and I'll have to dig it out. I need to correct the roof, as I gave it two hatches instead of one. IIRC I built it because it had a LH brake lever one side and it was something unusual. The one in the photo appears to have two RH levers though.

Edited December 4, 2018 by Il Grifone

[Golden Fleece 30]

The modern day train set.

 

Garry

[RJS1977]

I don't know about 'modern day' - there were plenty of 'replacement bus services' from 1963 onwards!

[GoingUnderground]

I believe that the LMS ran buses in some places back in the 1940s. My grandfather worked for the LMS, which is why my father's Hornby O gauge clockwork tinplate train set had a loco in LMS colours. I still have the set, but without the box. I'm afraid that my younger self wasn't careful with it. Oh how I wish I'd looked after the box as well.

Edited December 10, 2018 by GoingUnderground

[Legend]

Getting back on subject , this time of year just feeds my nostalgia, getting models of old out and running them again . Oscar Paisleys videoes featuring Triang Hornby days are superb . For me everything from Freightmaster Brush Type 2s through AL1, Jinty , Diesel Shunter , Princess Elizabeth that I had are trotted out. They all still work . Last few years I’ve run those celebrating their 40th anniversary , so I’ve had 1976s Flying Scotsman Set and 1977s HST . Ironically this year it will be an Airfix 4F with Farish OO suburban coaches , bought from Argyle Models and a Lima 09 from McKay Models Paisley. Happy days.

[GoingUnderground]

Getting back on subject , this time of year just feeds my nostalgia, getting models of old out and running them again . Oscar Paisleys videoes featuring Triang Hornby days are superb . For me everything from Freightmaster Brush Type 2s through AL1, Jinty , Diesel Shunter , Princess Elizabeth that I had are trotted out. They all still work . Last few years I’ve run those celebrating their 40th anniversary , so I’ve had 1976s Flying Scotsman Set and 1977s HST . Ironically this year it will be an Airfix 4F with Farish OO suburban coaches , bought from Argyle Models and a Lima 09 from McKay Models Paisley. Happy days.

I couldn't agree more.

 

For me the Warley show at the NEC is the start of the Christmas period. I spent quite a lot of time watching and enjoying Dave White's Triang Railways & Minic Motorways layout this year. On the Saturday he was running an EM2 (R.351) in Electric Blue livery, IIRC, which was picking up power from the track, and at one point put on a green steeplecab (R.254) with pickup from the catenary on another track which already had a train running round -  independent control of 2 locos on the same track, lovely. Rovex products at their best!

 

There was in the sidings a rather interesting EMU set sporting a diamond pantograph, sort of a Class 302 or 307 lookalike, which I gather was made from 4 of the Triang suburban coaches. Which reminds me, I must get back to my class 501 conversion. It's been on hold for the last few months, and I need to finish it, having bought the EMU green paint for it at Warley last month.

Edited December 10, 2018 by GoingUnderground

[GoingUnderground]

How many of you have an actual Tri-ang EMU Pullman train, Brighton Belle?  In the 70's some whitemetal castings were made to cut some Pullmans up to convert, BUT, about 7 years ago some all plastic full mouldings of these coaches became available.  I think someone had used the castings then had moulds made to produce a kit of plastic parts to make a Brighton Belle, without the need for cutting or gluing anything.  Here is mine and the driver/motor vehicles had moulded panels for the EMU/DMU motor bogie (just as those vehicles had. After buying and making mine I have never seen another set for sale.

 

Garry

According to Pat Hammond, there were articles by what Pat called the "knife men" in his Story of Rovex, describing how to convert them. He mentions one article in MRC from April 1961 which used 6 of the Triang Pullmans to create a 5 car Brighton Belle. Anybody got a copy of that article to hand? I'd love to see it!

[Robin Brasher]

I am sorry that I have not got a copy of the MRC of April 1961 but one may turn up in magazines donated to a preserved railway.  Meanwhile I enclose some pictures of my friend Terry Jenkins' rake of Tri-ang Pullmans that he ran at our South Dorset Modellers meeting at Winterborne Kingston village hall last Friday.  The locomotive was a green Tri-ang Princess Victoria locomotive that was produced for a catalogue shop. With the benefit of magnadhesion on a mixture of series 3 and super four track it was able to cope with the load.

 

 

[BernardTPM]

Mary should be the oldest of those Pullmans as the roof does not have the cut-outs added for the South Wales Pullman headboards.

[Robin Brasher]

Mary  also has open axle boxes.

[BernardTPM]

Yes, and so does Anne, but Anne still has the roof cut-outs so is later than Mary. I'm not 100% sure, but I think the SWP plates date from 1961. As closed axle boxes came in around 1962 that dates Anne to around 1961-2.

Edited April 7, 2019 by BernardTPM

[kevinlms]

11 hours ago, BernardTPM said:

Yes, and so does Anne, but Anne still has the roof cut-outs so is later than Mary. I'm not 100% sure, but I think the SWP plates date from 1961. As closed axle boxes came in around 1962 that dates Anne to around 1961-2.

Unless someone has swapped roofs in the past!

[Il Grifone]

Changes in design were never clear cut. It would have depended on stocks of the various parts. Maybe another bin turned up....

 

They would have ensured the slotted roofs went in sets but individual coaches could well have received the old ones. What previous owners did is entirely guesswork.

 

[BernardTPM]

6 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Unless someone has swapped roofs in the past!

Very true (and I nearly put that in the post when I wrote it, but decided it was an unnecessary complication). The slots were added fairly early on in the life of the model so slotless roofs are likely to be in the minority. If you find a model with closed axleboxes and no slots in the roof then it's definitely not in original condition.

Edited April 8, 2019 by BernardTPM

[Dorkingian]

To entertain some very young visitors recently I decided to run some more robust rolling stock, specifically the Tri-ang Class 37 D6830 and some Mk I coaches (which are surprisingly good for their period).  A good time was had by all - although the loco was reluctant to run over Peco points.