What made Triang more successful than Hornby Dublo and Trix?

[Pacific231G]

1 hour ago, kevinlms said:

The CKD idea was based around the theory that models could be cheaper, if some of the factory assembly was reduced.

Fact is extra care in packing is required and then there is warranty issues, where often potential builders lose parts and claimed that they were missing on opening the box.

Potentially bad for packers, if management were to come round and tell them 'too many complaints' - not worth the trouble.

 

The idea came from the US, where many 'kits' were shake together ones, with very few parts to put together. It was because in the US, there were taxes on 'toys', but not on 'kits', so such kits were a lot cheaper. AIUI this didn't apply in the UK, there was no difference in tax. It certainly had nothing to do with VAT.

Apart from any tax advantages (which didn't apply in Britain anyway) The American "shake the box" kits from the likes of Athearn and Roundhouse made quite a lot of sense anyway. I bought a good few of them them for my North American switching layout  and I'm sure they would have been less prone to damage in transit than a fully assembled model. For anyone unfamiliar with them, for a typical reefer or box car you got the body shell, doors if any and chassis (with draft boxes moulded in) ,  as single mouldings , the assembled trucks (bogies)  and their mounting screws were usually in a small plastic bag and a sprue held the roofwalk, brake wheel, draft box covers and any other details that usually just clipped on .There were also a couple of steel weights.

The loose components were usually wrapped in tissue but that was all they needed as packing - none of the expanded poly or plastic oregami that complete models require. The sprue usually included a pair of the horn hook couplers that nobody used so you bought a packet of Kadee #5s and fitted those. It took about ten minutes if that to build them. ISTR that the only fiddly task was to set the truck mount so that the Kadees were at the correct height. If you wanted to subsitute a better set of trucks with metal wheels - ISTR that Kadee did good ones- you didn't have to take anything apart to do so and the same applied to any interior detailing you wanted to add to things like passenger cars.

 

The other slightly more subtle thing I'm sure was the "just add an egg" factor*  as you felt, rather spuriously,  that you'd actually built the model (I did usually weather the roof walks) rather than just taking it out of its box.  It was a very different matter from the so called "craftsman" kits where you really did have to do some modelling

 

*This was a famous marketing psychology story from the 1950s. where a new instant cake mix that just needed mixing with water and baking sold badly until they removed the dried egg and instructed the consumer (usually a housewife in those days) to add a fresh egg. Bingo, sales soared as the "bakers" felt they'd done something towards it.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/inside-the-box/201401/creativity-lesson-betty-crocker

 

 

Edited June 24, 2021 by Pacific231G

[Pandora]

57 minutes ago, andyman7 said:

The Triang reissue of the E3001 (AL1) essentially has AL2 bogies so the tooling must have been far enough advanced when the H-D range was acquired to make the mating of the H-D body to the Triang mechanicals a viable option. The R753 E3001 and the slightly later R864/R871 Coronation locos are really the only genuine 'Triang-Hornby' models as they feature parts originating from both ranges.

Please advise as to the R864/871 Coronation locos,, launched in either 1969 or 1970,  I recall them as a Triang Princess  chassis,  B12 front bogie and an  streamlined very  underscale body , which parts came from the Dublo range? Was it the tender?

 

Postscript,   the loco chassis of the Coronation was not a centre axle worm drive, the axle with worm was the end  driving wheel below the firebox, is  this a B12 or a Flying Scotsman chassis or something else?

Edited June 24, 2021 by Pandora

[andyman7]

2 hours ago, Pandora said:

Please advise as to the R864/871 Coronation locos,, launched in either 1969 or 1970,  I recall them as a Triang Princess  chassis,  B12 front bogie and an  streamlined very  underscale body , which parts came from the Dublo range? Was it the tender?

 

Postscript,   the loco chassis of the Coronation was not a centre axle worm drive, the axle with worm was the end  driving wheel below the firebox, is  this a B12 or a Flying Scotsman chassis or something else?

The R865/R871 was a Triang parts bin classic, it utilised the then-new A3 chassis from the R850/R855, with the diecast Dublo 'City of London' tender chassis sourced from Wrenn (at that time a sister company in the Lines Brothers group). The body was of necessity underscale to fit the chassis.

[Butler Henderson]

In Ramsays British Model Trains Catalogue in respect of the Wrenn Class 20 it is commented that it seems the H-D tooling was not available and a new tool had to be made. In The Story of Wrenn, Maurice Gunter , Irwell Press 2004 it is noted the Class 20 was originally intended to be produced in June 1973 and in December 1976 retailers were advised they were scheduled for production in January 1977 "having been held up as a result of a tooling error".

[roythebus1]

8 hours ago, Pandora said:

The fault on the Dublo class 20 was lack of electrical continuity, the loco would stall on diamonds, otherwise it would pull anything,   I think this fact of the design fault came from the Pat Hammond books, Wrenn  put the 20 back into production after a long hibernation with a few changes to the model, the bogie sideframes were changed from metal to  plastic, there may be other changes too. Perhaps Triang had surrendered exclusive  access of  the class 20 tooling to Wrenn?

I wonder about the quality of Dublo towards the end, a school friend received a Christmas present of a Dublo AL1electric, the loco was returned to the shop as a non-runner with a failed motor within a month,   the  dealer exchanged for the model for  another in stock,  the replacement also failed with the same fault, by now the dealer had none in stock, so  the replacement was  a new Triang Britannia instead.  Would any owners of the Dublo AL1 care to comment on the reliability of the AL1 Dublo motor, and, did Triang select their own bogie due to warranty  issues with the Dublo bogie?

As I worked in Patricks toys in Fulham at that time (1965-1968) full time and part-time after school, I was privy to bargains and other information. I saved up for the Hornby Dublo AL1 when they became available. I don't recall having any running problems with it as it had a Ring Field motor bogie as fitted to the "SR" EMU. Just the side frames were different from what I remember. Unfortunately the loco was converted to a class 73 following a Model Railway Constructor article on the conversion with the coming of the Bournemouth Line electrification. Pity I didn't know in those days what it would be worth these days! Whether this was a Chris Leigh or GM Kichenside article I can't remember! But as an AL1 it ran well on the MRC's test track and on the Longridge Brampton Sands and Calshot layout, though th GWR bracket signal didn't like the pantograph! 

I remember showing the loco to a driver who was on an electric loco at Harrow & Wealdstone, stabled in the Stanmore branch bay in connection with promoting "Britain's New Electric Railway.

 

[roythebus1]

On 22/06/2021 at 21:34, Titan said:

 

I believe that they are a fairly good representation of  the flexible drive from the motors of the real thing to the wheels.  No axle hung motors on AL's until they tried to cut corners on the AL6...

As I may have mentioned earlier, the Trip AL1 was made to 4mm scale. The late Adrian Swain of aBS Models made the patterns for the bogie sidefames. I saw a brass master of one in his car in abut 1974 when I met him somewhere to collect a batch of bus kit castings from him. He told me the bogies were overcall length to "do a Triang" and use the existing motor bogie from the Western diesel. 

 

Remember too Trix "done a Triang" with their range of loco and carriage kits. They were of course dearer than tiring CKD kits but made their locos affordable. Over the few years I worked a tPatricks toys I must have acquired 5 of the AL1s in kit form. I still have a couple today, one being converted to an 85. All ran on the MRC's New Annington layout in th 1980s with no problems.

 

I also got a Britannia kit, a Western kit and several coach kits in blue/grey and a Pullman.

 

[roythebus1]

12 hours ago, Il Grifone said:

The T in MT stands for (mixed) Traffic (as opposed to P (Passenger) and F (Freight) (an LMS idea). Done properly there is a coloured disc (for route availability) with a letter (for power class).

 

Lima got the bogie wheelbase wrong on their Deltic too, but at least the length was right. Dublo's looks too high to me, as well as being too short or is this an optical illusion?

 

They didn't stand a chance with their model of the APT. The real thing was killed off by political incompetence (I'll say no more here).

 

Meccano Ltd. tried to be fair to their dealers, giving each one a monopoly in their area. Other makes were not so scrupulous. This wouldn't work today, but back then retail prices were fixed by the manufacturer (plus purchase tax set by the government and based on wholesale price. (Toys were considered a luxury (???) and taxed (typically) at 35%. This seems high, but, since the wholesale price was about half the retail price, less than today's VAT @ 20% of the retail price (22% in Italy!). (Strangely, no-one has advanced the idea of scrapping this EU imposition post Brexit.... Lots of things were exempt or taxed at a lower rate.)

I think you'll find VAT was introduced pre our membership of the EU/Common Market. It came with the end of Retail Price Maintenance and was originally set at 10% of selling price if I remember correctly. Wholesale price was as you say usually 50% of the retail price, giving the retailer a mark-up of 33.3% of the selling price.

 

[roythebus1]

I remember just after the take-/over of Hornby Dublo by Wrenn they had far too many breakdown vans in red livery and offloaded them very cheaply. I bought "quite a few" and simply painted them brown. I've still got some on Airfix meat van chassis. they also offloaded the remaining HD stuff quite cheaply. I persuaded Mr.Patrick to stock up, but he limited the amount he'd let me order as I was inly 14 or 15 at the time!

At my grammar school we had an annual open day and a couple of us got together to make a big model railway in the science lab. One lad had a lot of HD stuff, another had Trix Twin and my pal and I had Triang. I got the Triang rep to get me a couple of pre-production converter tracks and a couple of adaptor wagons. The chap with the Trix Twin couldn't join us at all!

The Trix rep showed me a catalogue that showed a proposed Brush type 4 (class 47) as well as the A3 and A4 as well as the freight liner wagon mentioned in a post up the page. They also produced quite a good BR standard 4-6-0 and a Britannia in metal. I had one of each, the 4-6-0 was a good looking loco and a good runner, also running on the MRC's old layout with fin scale wheels. there was aplastic bodied E1 (I think) which I got from a local newsagent, and in Patricks stockrooms I found an EM1 and a Warship. They were sold in the shop. I also discovered some Triang/Lines Bros tinplate buses and cars which Mr.Patrick gave me. I was saving up to buy my prototype GS bus by than and the money they raised helped me on my way. I still have the GS bus, having bought it in 1969 at the age of 17!

[GoingUnderground]

34 minutes ago, roythebus1 said:

I think you'll find VAT was introduced pre our membership of the EU/Common Market. It came with the end of Retail Price Maintenance and was originally set at 10% of selling price if I remember correctly. Wholesale price was as you say usually 50% of the retail price, giving the retailer a mark-up of 33.3% of the selling price.

 

VAT was introduced on 1 April 1973, 3 months after we joined the EEC and was a step towards harmonising taxation structures.

[GoingUnderground]

26 minutes ago, roythebus1 said:

I remember just after the take-/over of Hornby Dublo by Wrenn....

Take over by Wrenn? They were far to small to take over Hornby Dublo.  I think you mean takeover of the Meccano Group by Lines Bros. Or are you referring to when Wrenn first started selling models made with the ex-HD tooling?

[St Enodoc]

7 hours ago, Il Grifone said:

the useless smoke effect*

 

7 hours ago, Il Grifone said:

*IMHO - the effect is rubbish and I always disconnect it.

It was quite spectacular if you used white spirit instead of smoke oil...

[Il Grifone]

6 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

 

It was quite spectacular if you used white spirit instead of smoke oil...

 

I would imagine there would be a severe risk of the whole thing catching fire... (or was that what you intended by "Spectacular"?)

[St Enodoc]

Just now, Il Grifone said:

 

I would imagine there would be a severe risk of the whole thing catching fire... (or was that what you intended by "Spectacular"?)

Yep.

[PatB]

8 hours ago, kevinlms said:

This loco looks remarkably like it has bogies (couplings are Lima's 'Dunny Seats') that would fit the the Deltic and others.

 

http://mmiwakoh.de/Eigene Webs/Ersatzteilblaetter/ET8058.pdf

 

I've had a look around the above site and cannot see where the spoked wheels with cranks came from. I assume it's from the US 6 wheeled steam switchers?

 

 

Those bogies look an awful lot like the inside of the tender drive as well. 

 

As for where the wheels came from, I wondered about a small, rod drive diesel, if such a thing existed, from their European range. 

[Joseph_Pestell]

20 hours ago, Il Grifone said:

(Strangely, no-one has advanced the idea of scrapping this EU imposition post Brexit.... Lots of things were exempt or taxed at a lower rate.)

 

Even more strangely, nobody proposed it during the referendum campaign. It would, I believe, have led to a much more emphatic result.

[Hroth]

8 hours ago, roythebus1 said:

just after the take-/over of Hornby Dublo by Wrenn

 

Subject to correction, as well as taking over HD, Wrenn were absorbed into the Triang empire, who then gave some of the the HD tooling to Wrenn for production as "higher value" models, so as not to dilute Triang Hornby as a cheap'n'cheerful toy brand and make some money out of the assets that Triang Hornby could not use directly.

 

 

[GoingUnderground]

Wrenn seemed to have an interesting history, as they reached an agreement in 1964 with Courtaulds, then owners of British Trix that Trix would market Wrenn products in the "home market" meaning the UK, and Courtaulds got a seat on the Wrenn Board in exchange for financing through £15,000 worth of debentures (a type of loan) held by Courtaulds. Co-operation between Trix and Wrenn seems to have been quite deep and Wrenn are supposed to have advised Trix on track design.

 

Lines Bros, not G&R Wrenn, bought the entire Meccano Group lock, stock and barrel for £781,000 in early 1964, and that included the Hornby name, the Binns Road premises and all the stock and tooling it contained and as the new 100% shareholder had total control.

 

In 1965 Wrenn's debenture loans from Courtaulds were repaid and on 1 January 1966 Lines Bros became the majority shareholder in G&R Wrenn, buying 2/3rds of the shares held by the current owners, George and Richard Wrenn. The reason for buying control of Wrenn was probably to take out Wrenn's slot racing system, Wrenn 152, which was a competitor to Lines Bros Minimodels subsidiary's Scalextric.

 

Once G&R Wrenn was inside the Lines Bros empire, George Wrenn is reputed to have asked for the HD tools to be transferred to Wrenn so they they could use them. Lines Bros agreed as it allowed them to control the flow of ex-HD models back on to the market. Selling the Dublo tooling to a buyer outside the Lines Bros group would probably have resulted in them being bought by a competitor, and having "disposed" of Dublo, Lines didn't want to see the Dublo products being put back on sale by a potentially powerful rival. The first Wrenn reissue of a former Dublo loco was the Cardiff Castle in December 1966, which was sold for 5 1/2 Guineas =  £5/15/6 = £5.78.

 

Wrenn were also used as the means to dispose of the remains of Triang's TT system under the name of "Wrenn Table Top". Wrenn was clearly the means that Lines Bros chose to liquidate "embarrassing" assets without damaging the Triang name or brand.

 

The Triang Wrenn branding for models made using the Dublo tooling was first used in 1969.  

 

So by the end of 1966, Lines Bros were the dominant player in the UK OO gauge model railway market having come from nowhere to overtake and finally acquire Hornby Dublo, gaining a controlling interest in Wrenn, and refusing an offer from Courtaulds in late 1966 to buy the ailing Trix. A remarkable transformation in the 16 years since the first Rovex train set went on sale in Marks & Spencer, and 14+ years since Triang Railways first appeared in the shops.

Edited June 25, 2021 by GoingUnderground

[BernardTPM]

Through the Wrenn link-up it meant that by 1967/8 Lines Bros. had model railways in gauges 0 (Big Big Train), 00/H0, TT an N (Lima through Wrenn).

[Il Grifone]

4 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

Even more strangely, nobody proposed it during the referendum campaign. It would, I believe, have led to a much more emphatic result.

 

It's obviously useful to 'them', as I'd forgotten another fundamental difference. Purchase tax was levied once on the wholesale price. VAT is levied on financial transactions and can then be reclaimed by a commercial buyer, if sold on. Obvious scope for a feast of red tape, accountants and dodgy dealings....

 

I think the Lima small wheels originated  with their USA style* starter 0-4-0s and 0-4-0Ts. These are described as 'Alco 1930' in their catalogues, but there only seems to be a passing resemblance. The nearest I've found was an 0-6-0T.

 

* Other liveries were available including BR!

Edited June 25, 2021 by Il Grifone

[roythebus1]

12 hours ago, GoingUnderground said:

VAT was introduced on 1 April 1973, 3 months after we joined the EEC and was a step towards harmonising taxation structures.

Yes, you're right, I've subsequently looked it up. Thanks. Memory fade...

[roythebus1]

12 hours ago, GoingUnderground said:

Take over by Wrenn? They were far to small to take over Hornby Dublo.  I think you mean takeover of the Meccano Group by Lines Bros. Or are you referring to when Wrenn first started selling models made with the ex-HD tooling?

I meant the take-over of the tooling dnd HD stock by Wrenn, however it was arranged.  It's how it seemed at the time.

 

[GoingUnderground]

48 minutes ago, Il Grifone said:

 

It's obviously useful to 'them', as I'd forgotten another fundamental difference. Purchase tax was levied once on the wholesale price. VAT is levied on financial transactions and can then be reclaimed by a commercial buyer, if sold on. Obvious scope for a feast of red tape, accountants and dodgy dealings....

And your statement "can be reclaimed by a commercial buyer if sold on" is wrong. All VAT on purchases can be reclaimed if you are not an exempt business. You don't need to be an accountant to do a VAT return or keep a businesses books. There is little red tape in VAT returns, and dodgy dealings are not confined to VAT fiddles. The biggest fiddle is paying in cash to a sole trader so that none of the transaction goes "through the books" or if its does for an amount less than what was paid.  

 

If you want to debate the merits or otherwise of VAT, please do it in a new topic in Wheeltappers as it has nothing to do with what made Triang more successful than its rivals.

[andyman7]

On 25/06/2021 at 06:42, Hroth said:

 

Subject to correction, as well as taking over HD, Wrenn were absorbed into the Triang empire, who then gave some of the the HD tooling to Wrenn for production as "higher value" models, so as not to dilute Triang Hornby as a cheap'n'cheerful toy brand and make some money out of the assets that Triang Hornby could not use directly.

 

 

Lines Brothers was a holding company with a number of interests both in the UK and abroad. As Going Underground has said, the Meccano buyout was a complete takeover of stock, assets and intellectual property. Although 'Meccano Ltd' was retained as a separate registered company it was only used by Lines Bros for Meccano and Dinky Toys which continued to be made at Binns Road, Liverpool. The train interests were managed within what was then Rovex Scale Models Ltd (later Rovex Industries and finally in Lines Bros ownership Rovex Triang Ltd, based in Margate). Amongst other interests Scalextric was manufactured by the Minimodels Ltd subsidiary in Havant, before being absorbed into Rovex Triang and production moved to Margate. Dolls and Minic were made at the Pedigree factory in Canterbury. In the case of Wrenn, this was a semi-independent company even when Lines Brothers held the major share capital, which is why when Lines Brothers collapsed into administration in 1971 George Wrenn was able to buy control of his own company back. Even in the DCM/Hornby Railways era a relationship was maintained as the Wrenn A4s used Triang-Hornby A3 tender mouldings.

Edited June 26, 2021 by andyman7
Spelling

[roythebus1]

Which all makes me wonder what did the Triang factory in Merton make? they had a factory next to the Merton Abbey line which ran from Tooting Junction to Wimbledon. The Triang factory had a couple of sidings AND Triang containers that appeared in the Triang Trains catalogue.

 

Maybe they used to make tinplate toys there? The whole site has now disappeared under a new trading estate and the Merton relief road. If you get the 93 bus from Wimbledon you can still see the bump in the road where the road used to cross the railway, about 500m before the tramway bridge.

 

[Ruffnut Thorston]

10 hours ago, Il Grifone said:

>Snipped

 

I think the Lima small wheels originated  with their USA style* starter 0-4-0s and 0-4-0Ts. These are described as 'Alco 1930' in their catalogues, but there only seems to be a passing resemblance. The nearest I've found was an 0-6-0T.

 

* Other liveries were available including BR!

The HO scale Lima starter set 0-4-0 tank loco is very much like the Transport Corps 0-6-0 tank locos built for use in Europe during WW2 (some were acquired by the Southern Railway for use at Southampton Docks, Class USA) but with the rear set of wheels missing, to accommodate the Ringfield motor.

 

A great pity that the Kitmaster USA tank model was never released...

 

Hornby ACHO did make HO scale versions of those used by the SNCF in France. One version had simplified rods and valve gear.

 

It has taken until very recently for a OO gauge RTR model to be made, albeit as a special model tied in to a magazine.