Hornby Sir Dinadan

[cessna152towser]

I just parted with thirty quid today for a boxed Hornby Sir Dinadan with two BR Mk1 coaches in pseudo Southern Railways lettering and numbering, all in nearly new condition.  Forty years ago my original "Sir Dinnergong" quickly fell from favour and was traded to Hattons back in 1980.  Nostalgia got the better of me today.    We have a continuous run layout based on the Hornby trackmat at our local Men's Shed where I test ran it then I bought it there as an executor's sale item.  Now it is had its first trip on my small fiddle yard to branch terminus layout and is back in its box.  Complete with original instruction sheet and an inspection date of August 1978.

[cypherman]

Hi,

I love this engine. Perhaps that's why I have 5 of them. All bar one repainted and renumbered. I have one kept in it's original glossy olive green for nostalgias sake as it was my first one bought when they were first released about 50 years ago. This is my latest one. It is 746 Pendragon.

 

Edited May 24, 2021 by cypherman

[33C]

I, too, love this engine. It's all you ever need in a loco really......I have a few in various guises, but this one was in a bit of a state so, into black she goes and S15 she is! (Must do the balance weights...)

[cypherman]

14 hours ago, 33C said:

I, too, love this engine. It's all you ever need in a loco really......I have a few in various guises, but this one was in a bit of a state so, into black she goes and S15 she is! (Must do the balance weights...)

Hi 33C,

I do like your flooring in the cab.

[GoingUnderground]

Forgive me for asking, but why does this model seem to be so despised and disliked by so many? It came out just as I was getting into cars and women, if you'll pardon the expression, and was no longer an active modeller. So I don't know the story behind its "disgrace".

[Steamport Southport]

9 minutes ago, GoingUnderground said:

Forgive me for asking, but why does this model seem to be so despised and disliked by so many? It came out just as I was getting into cars and women, if you'll pardon the expression, and was no longer an active modeller. So I don't know the story behind its "disgrace".

 

Because it looks nothing like a King Arthur and ISTR it's not accurate in any of the main dimensions as it used the same parts of other models in the range such as the Hall and B12.

 

The last of the old toys I'm afraid. The Ivatt 2-6-0 and the J83 also suffered. Nice as a collectors item or for nostalgia reasons. But not if you want a King Arthur.

 

This was the era when Mainline and Airfix was starting to release the accurate models. They really do look poor when put next to an Airfix Castle or Mainline Jubilee.

 

 

Jason

[GoingUnderground]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Because it looks nothing like a King Arthur and ISTR it's not accurate in any of the main dimensions as it used the same parts of other models in the range such as the Hall and B12.

 

The last of the old toys I'm afraid. The Ivatt 2-6-0 and the J83 also suffered. Nice as a collectors item or for nostalgia reasons. But not if you want a King Arthur.

 

This was the era when Mainline and Airfix was starting to release the accurate models. They really do look poor when put next to an Airfix Castle or Mainline Jubilee.

 

 

Jason

Thank you.

 

Living in NW London at the time, the only trains that I had seen for many years apart from very occasionally a very dirty object steaming away in Harrow-on-the-Hill platforms 1 or 2 in the first part of the '60s all were painted red or brown or maroon or were unpainted aluminium and had London Transport or Underground in gold or red lettering on their sides. So I wouldn't have known whether it looked like a King Arthur or not. In some ways it is surprising to me when Triang got the EM2 so right in 1961, and did a pretty good job on the L1, B12 and Evening Star so I'm told. But from what you say, it sounds like "Sir Dinadan" was a desperation "We need a new loco fast. What can we use from the bits that we've got on hand?" design.

[cypherman]

41 minutes ago, GoingUnderground said:

Thank you.

 

Living in NW London at the time, the only trains that I had seen for many years apart from very occasionally a very dirty object steaming away in Harrow-on-the-Hill platforms 1 or 2 in the first part of the '60s all were painted red or brown or maroon or were unpainted aluminium and had London Transport or Underground in gold or red lettering on their sides. So I wouldn't have known whether it looked like a King Arthur or not. In some ways it is surprising to me when Triang got the EM2 so right in 1961, and did a pretty good job on the L1, B12 and Evening Star so I'm told. But from what you say, it sounds like "Sir Dinadan" was a desperation "We need a new loco fast. What can we use from the bits that we've got on hand?" design.

Triang and Triang/Hornby has a history of using what's in the parts bin to get new models out. It used the B12/Hall chassis and the tender from the L1 4-4-0. So the only thing they had to design was the loco body. Most of the valve gear came from the Hall as well. The rest I think came from the early princess or 2mt 2-6-2. One of the big hates for this engine was it came out in what can only be described as an oily green plastic. Far too bright. They changed that later on when the engine was painted in to a more reasonable colour. But at the time when it came out I had never seen an N15. So to my child's eyes it was wonderful.

[BernardTPM]

The Hall does not have outside valve gear. Given the cylinders are from the Princess that's almost certainly where the valve gear came from. Had this model come out in the late 1960s it wouldn't have looked out of place, but by the time it arrived the magazines were rightly comparing it to the latest offerings from Mainline (J72) and Airfix (Large Prairie). It was found lacking both dimensional accuracy and detail. 1971's Evening Star and 1973's Black Five were better. This and the J83 were very retrograde models.

 

Now their failings are more easily forgiven and the simple and robust (and still easy to get spares for) mechanism is a distinct advantage.

[Compound2632]

Sir Dinadan was a knight more famous for his deeds at the Round Table than away from it. 

 

I'd rather have sat next to him than Sir Bors, though.

[PatC]

I was given Sir Dinadan for either my 12th or 13th birthday, not sure which now. It was indeed in that awful green plastic that looked nothing like any livery used by the Southern Railway with gold lettering and sticker name plate.. At the time RTR offerings for Southern fans were almost non existent, I already had the Wrenn R1, but the Wrenn  Bullied pacifics were way out of my price range so the Hornby King Arthur at last gave me some Southern express motive power. To my young eyes it was a thing of beauty and used to hurtle round my tail chaser layout with three Hornby carriages (also nothing like real SR carriages) in tow. That engine brought me a great deal of pleasure. Over the years I've sold off a lot of my old stuff but the R! and Sir Dinadan are still in the bottom of a stock box  upstairs, there are far too many happy memories associated with them to contemplate selling.

[sncf231e]

2 hours ago, PatC said:

To my young eyes it was a thing of beauty 

To my (old) eyes it still is:

Regards

Fred

[GoingUnderground]

3 hours ago, cypherman said:

Triang and Triang/Hornby has a history of using what's in the parts bin to get new models out. It used the B12/Hall chassis and the tender from the L1 4-4-0. So the only thing they had to design was the loco body. Most of the valve gear came from the Hall as well. The rest I think came from the early princess or 2mt 2-6-2. One of the big hates for this engine was it came out in what can only be described as an oily green plastic. Far too bright. They changed that later on when the engine was painted in to a more reasonable colour. But at the time when it came out I had never seen an N15. So to my child's eyes it was wonderful.

It's very well known, or at least it is to me, that Triang made compromises when producing a loco to keep the cost down, which included using parts from other locos and stretching or shrinking dimensions to make things fit. But we need to remember that back in the 1950s and early to mid 1960s their target market was rugged toy electric trains for children like me that were moderately affordable, not detailed and consequently delicate and pricey scale models for adults who knew what the locos modelled were supposed to look like.

 

Pat Hammond reckons that much of the success of the Transcontinental range in the UK was down to the bright colours used. It may be that the colour used for Sir Dinadan was chosen in the belief that it would help sales, or it may simply have been an error.

 

But thank you to everyone for enlightening me.

[andyman7]

For a while Sir Dinadan was quite collectable due to its short two-year 1977-78 production run but the wide availability of more accurate models has long dealt with that. Only made for two years, it crossed the divide between the ridiculously glossy lacquered finish used until 1977 and the equally ridiculous dead matt lacquer used from 1978 - so both glossy and matt versions exist.

It really is the last of the pure Triang parts-bin efforts (even though it is a Hornby-era model) so definitely has a place in the history of British RTR. The other thing to mention is the unique automatic loco-tender coupling, featuring the flexible loco drawbar. This was the only model ever to have this feature.

[33C]

7 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Because it looks nothing like a King Arthur and ISTR it's not accurate in any of the main dimensions as it used the same parts of other models in the range such as the Hall and B12.

 

The last of the old toys I'm afraid. The Ivatt 2-6-0 and the J83 also suffered. Nice as a collectors item or for nostalgia reasons. But not if you want a King Arthur.

 

This was the era when Mainline and Airfix was starting to release the accurate models. They really do look poor when put next to an Airfix Castle or Mainline Jubilee.

 

 

Jason

Yes, but where are they now? Loose wheelsets, burnt out armatures and flimsy, missing valve gear yet these Hornby/ Triang loco's just keep going! Seriously, i bought a carrier bag of builders rubble mixed with late 70's Hornby "bits", that the vendor scraped out of the bottom of a skip (no exaggeration) and i gave him £15 for it! 2 days later i have a 9F, a J83 and Jinty complete chassis, a mk.2 brake coach, a class 37 diesel, a Consett iron ore hopper and enough parts to nearly make a Pannier. Unbelievably they all work perfectly! They have very little wear and were obviously well looked after before they ended up in the skip. These are tough, little toys!  

Edited May 25, 2021 by 33C
added detail

[33C]

7 hours ago, cypherman said:

Hi 33C,

I do like your flooring in the cab.

Ta! Simply matt sand and aluminium with 2B pencil lines and cross hatching.  

['CHARD]

Why, when clicking to reveal this topic, was I expecting to see Lord Westwood!?!  

 

I'd completely forgotten that this loco existed.  Or perhaps I had excised it from memory! 

[cypherman]

1 hour ago, andyman7 said:

For a while Sir Dinadan was quite collectable due to its short two-year 1977-78 production run but the wide availability of more accurate models has long dealt with that. Only made for two years, it crossed the divide between the ridiculously glossy lacquered finish used until 1977 and the equally ridiculous dead matt lacquer used from 1978 - so both glossy and matt versions exist.

It really is the last of the pure Triang parts-bin efforts (even though it is a Hornby-era model) so definitely has a place in the history of British RTR. The other thing to mention is the unique automatic loco-tender coupling, featuring the flexible loco drawbar. This was the only model ever to have this feature.

Hi Andy,

The reason for the coupling used for the tender was that this was at the time the only model they did that had a proper footplate which over hung the drawbar and the tender. made it easier for kids to couple up the engine while giving it a bit more realism. I must admit that on this black engine I removed the plastic coupling and replced it with the drawbar from a Hall. People need to realise that in this day of ultra scale models Triang and Hornby were trying to weave a way through with models that looked like the real engine but could still be played with. In their day they were as accurate as you could get in RTR form.

Edited May 25, 2021 by cypherman

[BernardTPM]

15 minutes ago, cypherman said:

People need to realise that in this day of ultra scale models Triang and Hornby were trying to weave a way through with models that looked like the real engine but could still be played with. In their day they were as accurate as you could get in RTR form.

But that is the point and why the model had such a poor reputation - they were no longer good enough. The game had moved on and Hornby were slow to catch on.

[Ruffnut Thorston]

The Sir Dinaden (R.154) cylinders and valve gear were, in the main, unique to this loco.

 

The coupling rods were shared with most locos using the B12 chassis block.

 

The bracket holding the expansion link was in two pieces, and had a special plastic piece to hold the two halves to the chassis, while isolating them from each other.

 

 

 

The Sir Dinaden page..

 

http://www.hornbyguide.com/item_details.asp?itemid=15

 

 

 

 

 

[GoingUnderground]

10 hours ago, BernardTPM said:

But that is the point and why the model had such a poor reputation - they were no longer good enough. The game had moved on and Hornby were slow to catch on.

Looking through the Triang/Hornby Railways catalogues from 1957 to 1980, it is clear that there was a shift of emphasis around the end of the 1960s. The early catalogues show very few pictures of children, it's all about showing the range to its best advantage

 

Then around the time of the Dunbee-Combex-Marx acquisition of Rovex the emphasis changed more towards the models as "toys". Not too surprising as my memories of Marx toys are of cheap and nasty looking tinplate marked "Empire Made" (meaning Hong Kong). There are far more pictures of kids in the 1970s catalogues and the models are more garish and highly coloured, lots of use of primary colours. Whether that was the DCM influence or just a coincidence is open to speculation, but it is obvious that Rovex and its new masters still saw children as their main target market, a market where price mattered more than realism. So, to my way of thinking "Sir Dinadan" in 1976, fitted in with that thinking. As has already been said in this thread, the team at Rovex probably were trying to tread a delicate path between recruiting kids into the hobby and keeping their original customer base who were now adults, with potentially deeper pockets than schookids, who had moved on to want more realistic models happy, and meeting whatever targets DCM had set for them. Unfortunately "Sir Dinadan" just wasn't good enough for the adults, but from the comments on here it kept the kids happy.

 

Would Rovex have spotted the trend away from toys and towards scale models for adults sooner if Lines Bros hadn't gone bust and DCM acquired Rovex? Possibly, or possibly not, as it was at heart a toy company and toys are intended for kids, and it can be hard to leave what you know. But I think they might have, and the indications are Richard Lines's comments about the origins of "Evening Star" where he said that he wanted a more realistic model.

Edited May 26, 2021 by GoingUnderground

[GoingUnderground]

On 25/05/2021 at 00:09, 33C said:

I, too, love this engine. It's all you ever need in a loco really......I have a few in various guises, but this one was in a bit of a state so, into black she goes and S15 she is! (Must do the balance weights...)

Nice loco, at least to my very untutored eye, and a quality repaint. It would look good next to my black Schools 30910 "Merchant Taylors" originally 30909 St Paul's.

 

But I must resist the temptation. The last thing that I need is yet another project. I have enough part way through sitting around waiting to be finished as it is!

 

 

Edited May 26, 2021 by GoingUnderground

[cypherman]

16 hours ago, PatC said:

I was given Sir Dinadan for either my 12th or 13th birthday, not sure which now. It was indeed in that awful green plastic that looked nothing like any livery used by the Southern Railway with gold lettering and sticker name plate.. At the time RTR offerings for Southern fans were almost non existent, I already had the Wrenn R1, but the Wrenn  Bullied pacifics were way out of my price range so the Hornby King Arthur at last gave me some Southern express motive power. To my young eyes it was a thing of beauty and used to hurtle round my tail chaser layout with three Hornby carriages (also nothing like real SR carriages) in tow. That engine brought me a great deal of pleasure. Over the years I've sold off a lot of my old stuff but the R! and Sir Dinadan are still in the bottom of a stock box  upstairs, there are far too many happy memories associated with them to contemplate selling.

Hi Pat.

I know how you feel. I still have virtually all my original engines from being a child, Except the Deely 3F and the fully working chassis of my Triang continental 2-6-2 prairie. God knows what has happened to the body. I have replaced the Deely with several engines in my collection. But it is not the same as the one I had. Mine came from the Old Smokey trainset and was the first engine that has been known to be weathered at source by Triang. Plus it was the first engine I ever had.

[cypherman]

31 minutes ago, GoingUnderground said:

Nice loco, at least to my very untutored eye, and a quality repaint. It would look good next to my black Schools 30910 "Merchant Taylors" originally 30909 St Paul's.

 

But I must resist the temptation. The last thing that I need is yet another project. I have enough part way through sitting around waiting to be finished as it is!

 

 

Hi,

Go on you know you want to. It is a very quick job. Only a few days. Not long really. You sure can fit it in between the others. go on, go on. you will, you will. You know you really want to......

[David_Belcher]

13 hours ago, andyman7 said:

For a while Sir Dinadan was quite collectable due to its short two-year 1977-78 production run but the wide availability of more accurate models has long dealt with that. Only made for two years, it crossed the divide between the ridiculously glossy lacquered finish used until 1977 and the equally ridiculous dead matt lacquer used from 1978 - so both glossy and matt versions exist.

It really is the last of the pure Triang parts-bin efforts (even though it is a Hornby-era model) so definitely has a place in the history of British RTR. The other thing to mention is the unique automatic loco-tender coupling, featuring the flexible loco drawbar. This was the only model ever to have this feature.

It must be one of the few from that mid-70s era of Margate, along with the Ivatt 2MT, not to get a revamp/second chance. The J83 made a comeback on a better chassis, whilst the L1-derived Fowler 2P was the basis for Edward in the 'Thomas' range, I believe (just as James was a stretched-out 3F).

 

I guess the vastly superior Schools must have rendered it utterly obsolete as Hornby's "Southern passenger loco for layouts too small for a Light Pacific" option.

 

David

Edited May 26, 2021 by David_Belcher
Information added.