R 157 the old Triang Class 101

[adanapress]

When these things were new-ish there were plenty of articles in the mags about how to get a better length, a little nearer scale. Can anyone point me to any of those articles. It'll be a long time ago for sure. No jeering please, at 76 I have to do my modelling quite literally on pennies, and I have spare bodies. (After all, someone had to make 'Daisy' for the Reverend Wilbert Awdry.)

[Xerces Fobe2]

Unfortunately it is more than just the bodies whih need attention the wheels are plastic and really need replacing. The motor bogie is very crude as well however I have improved a few in the past and have a one that has been painted in Scotrail Orange without any other changes and it looks quite good consifering it's age.

 

Maybe a cosmetic paint job acrylic paints might improve the appearence of the unit and even flush glaze it

 

XF

[SRman]

I detailed one up many (many many!) years ago and I still have it, albeit unused for a long time. I didn't worry about the length but the biggest improvement in appearance, in my opinion, was to add microstrip gutters along the sides just above door height and then paint the roof colour right down to those strips.

 

I also flush glazed it using SE Finecast sets of glazing but making my own windscreens, thus eliminating the slight 'bubble' effect of the commercial glazing kits. Picking out the window frames also helps but depends on livery as well.

 

In earlier days, when I had Triang Super 4 track, it was also very good at cleaning the track for me! Nowadays, it would probably do a better job of cleaning the sleepers it runs on!!

[john new]

A long time ago but can anyone answer the OP? There was one (IIRC in MRC) and I am happy to pay to get a copy from the British Library but to do so I need to know the date, edition and article name etc. I started the project, and have just discovered the part finished job.

[The Johnster]

The Triang MetroCam is of it's day, and by those standards not the worst RTR model from that era of underlength coaches and generic bogies.  If you can accept the shortness of the coaches, which is less objectionable if the unit is not used in conjuntion with modern scale length dmu models, and they were reasonably proportioned to the length and had the correct number of window, unlike the concurrent 8" Triang mk1s, then the biggest problem is probably the incorrect bogies.  The power bogie is a crude cast mazak representation of a Southern Region emu bogie, without the 3rd rail pickup sledges and from the cod SUB unit that Triang had brought out previously, in turn based on their suburban stock.  The other, non powered, bogies are generic B1s intended for mk1 coaches. 

 

Other problems are the thickness of the body sides and the overscale relief around the windows representing the aluminium frames, which were not picked out in paint.  The destination blind and marker lamps were, though, and kudos to Triang for producing separate DTSO and DMBC toolings, as well as the TS centre car.  Lima's 1970s 117 and Trix's 1960s Trans-Pennine, which were the only other RTR dmus available for some time, failed miserably in this respect.  The power bogie was a reasonable performer but very noisy; it was used under the Triang Blue Pullman as well. 

 

If I were to be working one up on a limited budget (obviously, if one could afford it one would buy a new Bachmann 101), I would probably look to source better power and trailing bogies from donor Lima 117s, and repaint/transfer to include the very characteristic aluminium window frames and the central yellow lining that MetroCam always put in a sweep up from beneath the cab windows to level with the lower edge of the sliding ventilators.  Fortunately, Triang made 'proper' moulded underframes for these sets, so picking out the silver bits down there is a good idea, as it draws the eye from other shortcomings.  New buffers and bufferbeam detail, silver or grey paint to replace the white marker lights, a destination in the blind, first class and no smoking transfers in the windows, and interior detail will help to 'lift' the model. 

 

IIRC Triang made retrofit interiors for these coaches (more kudos for a 1958 model), though availability will be a problem and scarcity may well impact on the asking price on the 'Bay.  One might cobble up something reasonable out of card, though; don't forget the first class sausages and no smoking triangles on the windows of the internal partitions.  First class seats for green livery era were dark grey/blue, and the second class were a mid grey with red detail; mid grey will be fine in 4mm. Interior surfaces were a pale green Formica. 

 

Dmus in those days carried tail lamps at the rear, and lamp brackets not only raise the level of detail but provide something to mount a Modelu (or Springside with a hole drilled up it) lamp on.

[john new]

Thanks for the above, and all concurred with. I started the project, and have just discovered the part finished job put aside when I moved house back in the 1980s. I am still of the old school, does it remind me enough of what it is supposed to be (yes in this case) that I can overlook the deficiencies. Also it would be nice to finish this off, in the spirit of the age, even if only as a spraying and lining exercise. It owes me nothing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 15, 2021 by john new

[BernardTPM]

5 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 The other, non powered, bogies are generic B1s intended for mk1 coaches.

 

Early production used those BR1s (the open axlebox variety), but by 1960 (possibly earlier) they got DMU style bogies.

Strictly speaking the Tri-ang Met.Camm. isn't a Class 101, but one of the early units, hence the unusual fitting under the windows on the cab fronts and the slight cowling on the bufferbeam.

[john new]

The conversion/detailing article I’ve lost covered altering the lights on the nose amongst other things. I would love a copy of that article to finish the job.

[33C]

There is a letter, detailing a front end conversion x3, with pictures, in "Model Trains" magazine, page 95, February/March issue. Could be right up your street. Also "Model Railways" magazine for December 82, pages 752/3, shows a refurbished 101, 3 car set conversion.

[33C]

Maybe this is what your looking for....posted photo's as do not know the date of the, possibly, MRC article.

[GeraldH]

 

I still run an upgraded Triang blue 101 on the BNR (some images of it via link above).  It has new metal non-driven wheels on matchstick bearings, finer Ringfield driven wheels on the original axles (modified to fit by an Ebay seller I recall), exhausts from a Hornby 110, some buffer beam detail, better decals and passengers.  It also has a blue centre coach repainted in rail blue to make a 3 car blue set.  It runs very nicely alongside my Limby 101 and other Triang rolling stock.

 

[john new]

12 hours ago, 33C said:

Maybe this is what your looking for....posted photo's as do not know the date of the, possibly, MRC article.

 

That is the one I remember and was working to. Magazine since lost. Thanks for finding it, your searching obviously picked better keywords than I did.

[uax6]

On 31/05/2012 at 02:06, SRman said:

I detailed one up many (many many!) years ago and I still have it, albeit unused for a long time. I didn't worry about the length but the biggest improvement in appearance, in my opinion, was to add microstrip gutters along the sides just above door height and then paint the roof colour right down to those strips.

 

 

Don't forget that they only had rainstrips/gutters over the doors as built, the full length gutters being added some time in the 70's.

 

Andy G

[SRman]

9 hours ago, uax6 said:

 

Don't forget that they only had rainstrips/gutters over the doors as built, the full length gutters being added some time in the 70's.

 

Andy G

For my model that was fine: I had modified it to class 101 style with the yellow diamond multiple sockets filed off and painted in the refurbished white with blue stripe.

[russ p]

Shame it was probably the only ever RTR model of a 79xxx metcamm . Modelling 60s norfolk I could really do with a few of those but vast see Bachmann ever doing one . They haven't done a four light 101 I can convert either 

[Halvarras]

3 hours ago, russ p said:

Shame it was probably the only ever RTR model of a 79xxx metcamm . Modelling 60s norfolk I could really do with a few of those but vast see Bachmann ever doing one . They haven't done a four light 101 I can convert either 

 

Hornby tooled up a 4-light cab front for the ex-Lima model, then AFAICT in typical Hornby fashion only used it to produce two 3-car sets in blue/grey livery (R2698 & R3146). I bought the first and had to convert the thing to headcode panels and repaint the ends as I wanted to model one of the first three sets in blue/grey in 1974. Grrr. A reminder of my disappointment with the covering abilities of modern yellow enamel paints too.......

[Halvarras]

Back in the early days of my railway modelling career (late 60s) I bought a pre-owned Tri-ang Blue Pullman 3-car and treated it as a DMU. Why I didn't just buy the MetCam DMU I can't say, always thought it was a bit odd in retrospect......! Anyway, I finally bought one at the September 1975 Swindon Works Open Day and set about improving it. Additional parts were underframe engine castings from Anbrico (I think) with MTK exhaust stacks & bogies with Jackson wheels running in Peco bearing cups. The motor ran OK so I replaced the wheels with Millholm turned brass items, cut and filed away the sideframes and fitted MTK DMU bogie sideframes which had to be 'stretched' slightly to match the wheelbase. Cab ends were converted to 2-panel headcodes and bufferbeams modified. Then, having painted the sides, ends, roofs and underframes, (deep breath) I painted around all of the windows with black paint to hide the depth, and then picked out the side windows frames in silver. Looking back at things like this, and the three 'shortie' Tri-ang clerestory coaches which I fully repainted into chocolate and cream with all of the beading painted black around the same time, I can only conclude that in my twenties I had infinite patience, a very steady hand and excellent eyesight........and more patience! It's long gone now (the model I mean - the others are suffering the ravages of old age..........!!) and here's the only photo I took of it, in 1978 I reckon in my mother's back garden - this was not my layout I hasten to add, just some spare old Super 4 track and a deteriorating Superquick station building chucked together as a rather cr*p diorama.........

 

This wasn't my only contact with Tri-ang's R157 - some years back a 4-car set passed through my hands, I painted it Bfye and converted one of the trailers to a Buffet vehicle with two blanked windows, it ran very nicely but had no interiors. I did however install SEF Flush Glaze........or tried to. The lower big windows weren't too bad but the top small ones were mostly a bit mangled. Note to self, next time file out those top frames......oh yes, there was a next time, sadly........part 2 follows!

 

[Legend]

My one was a 1975 version with the large illuminated head code panel on roof . I repainted it in refurbished livery . It wasn’t a great runner though always being a bit of a growler .  In the eighties I decided to paint it Strathclyde Orange Black but it was a bit of a disaster . I tried to fill in the head code panel and take off the over scale headlights . It was my first filling job and I didn’t do it well . It ended up in the spare parts box . Bit of a shame . I wish I kept it in refurb livery . Quite fancy doing another 

Edited October 18, 2021 by Legend

[Halvarras]

Around 15 years ago (could be longer but I won't own up to it, because as you can see it's still embarrassingly unfinished) I spotted this two-car set on a stand at a local exhibition for £16 and, having some Lima Scottish diesels under way, thought it would a cheap way to have a DMU join the small fleet...........putting the money towards a proper Lima set would have saved me a great deal of work, as this cheap project got somewhat out of hand, although at least it remained cheap! My plan was to install the left-over motor bogie from an MTK Class 119 after I had 'Lima-fied' it and sold it on. The spare motor unit utilizes the gubbins from a Tri-ang Hornby Hymek with the worms shifted in a little and said gubbins installed into a plastic motor bogie frame with the correct 8'6" wheelbase of MTK manufacture (as you can see I still have a spare). At the time Hornby Class 110 DMU parts could be bought quite cheaply, I obtained a centre car underframe with bogies, and a few spare bogie frames which were just 25p each! One frame was 'made to fit' the MTK motor and the other three were installed by cutting away the wheel units of the existing bogies 'in situ' to leave just the rivetted cross member, the end faces of which were filed down a little to fit within the Class 110 frames (which are usefully wider than the Lima equivalents). These bogies were not glued in place as access to wheelsets may be required, so small countersunk screws into the cross member were used instead. A rummage in the spares box turned up some Lima engine mouldings and the centre part of the Class 110 trailer went under the non-powered vehicle (by now you'll realise this was not a high-fidelity model of a Met Cam, but hey, it's too short anyway!!) The outer bufferbeams were Lima Class 117 and buffers MTK. It has also had parts fitted from a 'proper' Lima Class 101 detailing kit (good idea grabbing those while available years ago). The headcode panels are 20thou plasticard and the destination panels 10thou.

Having got it together I realised that the Tri-ang/MTK motor could not be made to run particularly smoothly or quietly........where's the original motor bogie.......oh yes, I flogged it under that 4-car set, d'oh! So another rummage turned up a couple of old Lima motor bogies and I managed to assemble one good one with the correct wheelbase and, oddly, no traction tyres. So out came the MTK thing, with its plasticard top mounting plate, and in went the Lima unit fitted into a Hornby Class 110 frame, in turn fitted into one of the spare bogie pivots from the sawn-up 110 centre car underframe. With pick-ups to the four driven wheels and two more on the trailing bogie it runs quite well. But when will I ever get it finished?! (I have a lot of projects like this, I'll get there. One day.....)

This definitely qualifies as one of those "it seemed like a good idea at the time" projects, it has been worked on on and off over the years and I only swapped the outer buffers a few months ago as I needed those fitted for another purpose. You can see from the photos that I took my own advice and filed out those top window frames in the hope I can get the SEF Flush Glaze kits to fit when the time comes. Livery will be blue full yellow.

Admittedly all this is of limited use to anyone who doesn't have all those parts collected over decades but I hope the tale is still of interest and shows that this model can still look the part with a bit (or a lot?!) of work. As long as it doesn't share space with scale-length DMUs it has its uses, and its shortness can be a benefit on small layouts. But I'm so pleased I didn't choose to do another 3-car set!

 

The rejected MTK/Tri-ang Hornby motor unit with a spare MTK frame (which will most likely remain spare.....!)

 

The Lima motor unit installed (the brown Class 110 pivot frame is just visible). Plasticard adjustments everywhere! The lack of traction tyres requires extra weight to be fitted.......

[Northmoor]

This was my effort from a couple of years ago.  I filed off the unwanted lights and sawed off the buffer beam cowling to make it more like a Class 101, then drilled the remaining lights.  New buffers added, it still needs the pipes on the ends (got them somewhere) and painted the window frames instead of lots of palaver with SE glazing.  One day I'll finish it off; like others here I know it's hopelessly inaccurate but in my youth I wanted a model of a Met-Camm DMU as it's what ran locally; now nearly 40 years later I have one.  Of course I could just spend a small fortune on highly-detailed new one, but it wouldn't be the one I wanted 40 years ago, would it?