Tri-ang Railways.

[Captain Slough]

9 hours ago, roythebus1 said:

when I worked in Patricks toys in Fulham in the mid 1960s all the TC locos went the opposite direction.

So was the TC dock shunter wired differently to the UK dock authority version too?

[kevinlms]

10 hours ago, roythebus1 said:

The reason the TC series of locos go the other way is because they were manufactured that way. I remember it from way back when. As I said earlier, I had the diesel "switcher" which went the opposite way to my Jinty. when I worked in Patricks toys in Fulham in the mid 1960s all the TC locos went the opposite direction.

That is most odd, I wonder why they did that? Loads of customers must have purchased TC stuff and ran it with British outline.

[roythebus1]

1 hour ago, kevinlms said:

That is most odd, I wonder why they did that? Loads of customers must have purchased TC stuff and ran it with British outline.

Yep, but it's a fact.

[roythebus1]

3 hours ago, Captain Slough said:

So was the TC dock shunter wired differently to the UK dock authority version too?

I don't know, I don't recall seeing them in stock at Patricks Toys. the shop incidentally is still going today, having been in Lillie Road Fulham since about 1948! When I started rooting around the railway stock room upstair as a 13 year old, it was a bit of an Alladin's cave. Trix Twin EM1/SECR E class/GW 0-6-2T/Brittania kit/standard 4-6-0/Maerklin Warship, Hornby 3-rail; a large tinplate Triang double deck bus which Mr.Patrick let me have as it was "old stock"... I used my staff discount facility to buy Trix locobuilder kits to get AL1 kits at about £3 each..

Edited May 12, 2023 by roythebus1

[Captain Slough]

>I used my staff discount facility to buy Trix locobuilder kits to get AL1 kits at about £3 each..

 

*distant sound of wailing & gnashing of teeth from AndyMan7...

[DCB]

16 hours ago, roythebus1 said:

The reason the TC series of locos go the other way is because they were manufactured that way. I remember it from way back when. As I said earlier, I had the diesel "switcher" which went the opposite way to my Jinty. when I worked in Patricks toys in Fulham in the mid 1960s all the TC locos went the opposite direction.

It sounds as if they were assembled  that way. You only have to turn the magnet round to change direction.    To change the wiring may need the motor tag to be the other way round to look neat. To change which side was insulated needs a new chassis casting as there is a cast in wire trough on the insulated side .   The old TC's are DCC compatible needing only an extra insulated sleeve and a bit of wire to convert unlike the next generation A1A, Hymek etc and  silver seal they gave up on waiting. 

 

On 09/05/2023 at 17:15, GoingUnderground said:

I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but if the knurling is removed from the wheels, the loco doesn't haul as wel las it did before. I had one that was noticeably less able to pull a rake of coaches. When I checked it had smooth wheelssets, which I replaced with knurled sets, and it then hauled much better. Rovex introduced the knurled wheelsets after they introduced the dummy loco, R57, and the dummy B unit, R58, versions of the single ended loco R55, the dummy being R. Both of these use the same metal chassis, but are much heavier and have a noticeable rolling resistance greater than the TC coaches. It is possible to fit the powered chassis plus motor bogie in the dummy units to get round this problem. 

  I scrapped a dummy double ended diesel for parts twenty odd years ago and I am pretty sure the bodies are the same between powered and dummy  and  the dummy may even have the powered chassis minus power bogie with an insert to take the upowered bogie. I had the bogie insert hanging around for ages, I may still have it.  I doubt the B unit can be powered with standard components.  Two tired TCs work well on 12VA, Mine used to top and tail trains HST like at a scale 120 but for freight and five or six TCs I found I needed two 12VA controllers in parallel.  The early open axle box TC stock has massive rolling resistance, three times that  of a pin point coach I reckon and even with period mods like peco pin point bearings and axles are still very draggy. 

 

One day I will grind down the flanges on a set of knurled wheels, fit one two start worm and one single start worm to an armature and make a rails cleaner grinder, or maybe two. 

[GoingUnderground]

10 hours ago, Captain Slough said:

So was the TC dock shunter wired differently to the UK dock authority version too?

No, No, No. Not now not ever. Never, at least in my experience.

 

Triang were masters of compromise and never, ever, spent a penny on a model that was unnecessary. These were toys, remember and keeping costs as low as possible were paramount. Wiring them differently would have added costs and required a separate X number (X was used for sub-assemblies and S for discrete components whilst R was reserved for complete items and RT for items that applied equally to the OO and TT ranges ( TT used the T prefix) so RT  = both. P was used for power supplies which by their nature did not attract Purchase Tax as they were not classed as "toys" as toys did attract purchase tax. 

 

The two dock shunter models, R253 - Dock Shunter and R353 - TC Yard Switcher (if I've got the R numbers correct as I don't have my catalogues in front of me at the moment) both used exactly the same bogie, including all the components as the R55, R155, R159, and R257 locos, the only difference being that R55, R155 R159 and R257 also had their own specific cowcatchers/pilots/valances. The body shell mouldings for R253 and R353 were identical apart fro the colours and markings and that R253 had buffers whilst and R353 didn't in common with all the TC series rolling stock. The other loco that crossed UK and TC ranges was the R254 SteepleCab loco. If it had the BR coach roundel it had buffers but if it had the TC shield it didn't.

 

If you have come across a loco that seems to run in the wrong direction, IMHO, it is very unlikely to be an assembly error, and much more likely that someine i nthe past has swapped it over to match British Trix 2 rail locos, which I think might have been wired ~"the other way round" ex-works, or they took the motor apart and when reassembling it either managed to turn the motor magnet through 180 degrees reversing N and S poles in the process, or swapped over the insulated sleeve and the wire from the pickup strip.

[GoingUnderground]

3 hours ago, DCB said:

It sounds as if they were assembled  that way. You only have to turn the magnet round to change direction.    To change the wiring may need the motor tag to be the other way round to look neat. To change which side was insulated needs a new chassis casting as there is a cast in wire trough on the insulated side .

Wrong. No new chassis casting was ever needed on the models using the X.04 motor or the Bo-Bo motor bogies, excluding the Hymek and Budd Railcar which used fully insulated axles, same as the Class 31, 37 and EM2/Class 77. 

 

That's why there so damned simple to convert to DCC.

 

You swapped over the insulating sleeve and the tag from the pickup strip on the X.04 or the above, see my earlier post above.

[GoingUnderground]

18 hours ago, Halvarras said:

 

Leave your coat where it is Keith, many thanks for a quick walk down Memory Lane, some familiar names there I'd almost forgotten about! I once had a collection of Minic Ships, including if memory serves the liner Canberra, NS Savannah and HMS Devonshire (?) which had a helicopter on the back with tiny revolving 4-bladed rotor, a pair of tugs, various bits of quay and breakwater and the all-important plastic 'sea mat' to assemble it all on. Somewhere at home I still have a surviving price list dated April 1962 (I turned 9 that month!) with my purchases marked on it, it surfaces from time to time but I can never remember where it is. Most if not all of them were bought in a small shop called Barham's in Falmouth. I was very surprised to see them back on sale again in a model shop in Brixham about 10 years ago but wasn't tempted to get back into them - that ship  sailed long, long ago 🤭!

Thsnk you for your kind words. It is appreciated.

[DCB]

4 hours ago, GoingUnderground said:

Wrong. No new chassis casting was ever needed on the models using the X.04 motor or the Bo-Bo motor bogies, excluding the Hymek and Budd Railcar which used fully insulated axles, same as the Class 31, 37 and EM2/Class 77. 

 

That's why there so damned simple to convert to DCC.

 

You swapped over the insulating sleeve and the tag from the pickup strip on the X.04 or the above, see my earlier post above.

I am pretty sure You can't swap which side is insulated easily as there is a clearance channel for the wiring on the insulated side of  the chassis.  You need to  grind a channel  into the chassis to swap which side is insulated  as in if you want to run two dock shunters nose to nose as the front couplings are not insulated.  

[Captain Slough]

9 hours ago, DCB said:

I am pretty sure You can't swap which side is insulated easily as there is a clearance channel for the wiring on the insulated side of  the chassis.  You need to  grind a channel  into the chassis to swap which side is insulated  as in if you want to run two dock shunters nose to nose as the front couplings are not insulated.  

You can swap it, but you don't do it by turning the wheels and the pickup strip around

 

At the top of the motor there's a metal spring clip that applies pressure to the commutator brushes.

it has an uninsulated side that presses against the "chassis-grounded" commutator brush and a plastic insulating sleeve against the "pickup" commutator brush. The wire from the pickup is held in place against that brush.  

 

To reverse the "ordinary" direction of travel, remove the sleeve from one side of the spring clip, add it to the other side and move the wire across to that brush

Edited May 13, 2023 by Captain Slough

[roythebus1]

The easy way is to turn the magnet round. But if you use metal couplings, you still can't run 2 dock shunters (or most locos with metal chassis) nose to nose. That little red button will keep going ping! Think about it.

[Il Grifone]

I had that trouble with my new Trix 0-6-2T '6664'. Their chassis are live to the centre rail, whereas Dublo are live to the running rails. Metal couplings mean a short circuit. I seem to recall the cure involved 'Sellotape'. Trix plastic couplings have since resolved the issue on a permanent basis

I have a collection of the 1/1200 Minic ships and dock accessories - mainly the first series. Being of a pacific nature, I didn't collect the warships, apart from 'H.M.S.Turmoil', which as a rescue tug didn't count, and one of the minesweepers (H.M.S. Repton IIRC, though they are identical apart from the name cast into the base). I still need a 'Queen Elizabeth', but have two of the 'Queen Mary' to make up for it.

I have since acquired some plastic merchant ships, a Far Eastern copy of 'U.S.S. Missouri', and some Revell kits, including 'Titanic' which will be built as 'Olympic' (one day....) Apart from the garish colour scheme (to be corrected! - one day!) this is in some ways better than the original. They seem to have silly prices these days.... I wanted a 'Bristol Queen' having sailed on the real thing in my youth (or it might have been 'Cardiff Queen' - they were sister ships and it was a long time ago. Then I saw the price....

https://www.brightontoymuseum.co.uk/index/Category:Minic_Ships

Edited May 14, 2023 by Il Grifone

[railroadbill]

 

Well, here's my "running backwards" motor bogie. The insulated wheels are to the right and the brown lead from their pickups  goes to the left hand, (looking forwards), brush with the insulated sleeve.

 

Not sure about the red wires, they go to lights but the soldering looks more of an afterthought.

 

 

[railroadbill]

 

Well, it was a sunny day for photos...   collectable, vintage and Triang.

Lower left, original Triang Minic ships, cruiser HMS Superb, frigates are Torquay and Vigilant, minesweepers are 2x Repton and 2x Picton. In front of those, tug Turmoil, 2 harbour tugs, Isle of Sark (Channel Islands ferry) and Verne lightship.

Battleship Vanguard and carrier Bulwark are second series Hong Kong made.  At the top back, the carded ones are lightships and pilot boats, plus customs and rescue launches  from the revived Triang range that Oxford sold.

 

The original liners would probably be the best to have, I've got several of the second series ones. I had an original SS Nieuw Amsterdam liner which disintegrated in a very bad case of mazak rot, but the rest have survived ok.

[roythebus1]

9 hours ago, railroadbill said:

 

Well, here's my "running backwards" motor bogie. The insulated wheels are to the right and the brown lead from their pickups  goes to the left hand, (looking forwards), brush with the insulated sleeve.

 

Not sure about the red wires, they go to lights but the soldering looks more of an afterthought.

 

 

Turn the magnet round, it'll run the other way. :) 

 

[33C]

Your insulated sleeve/pick-up wire is on the opposite side to all of mine. Try swapping them over.

[GoingUnderground]

Time for some simple electrical wiring theory.

 

On a DC permanent magnet motor, the armature turns according to the direction of flow of the current through the armature windings. I hope we can all agree on that. on the TC motor bogies and the X.04 motors, the power gets to the commutator brushes on one side via the chassis from the wheels which are not insulated from the chassis then the body of the motor and one of the spring arms that holds the commutator brushes in place. That spring arm will not have the insulating sleeve. On the other side it comes from the insulated wheels via the pickup strips, through the brown wire to the little metal tag. The tag is held in contact with the commutator brush arm by the spring arm with the insulating sleeve. On the TC bogie there is a metal strip that touches the underside of the traction magnet at one end whilst the other end touches the centre of the spring arms that holds the commutator brushes in place. The motor bogies used on the SR EMU R156, the Diesel Railcar R157, and the R753 AL1/Class 81 Bo-~Bo loco have exactly the same construction as the TC motor bogies but twith their own unique metal bogie frames unlike the TC Bo-Bos which all use the same motor bogie. Indeed, if you look at the TC Bo-Bo bogies made after 1958 you'll see the I (Insulated) and R (Return) markings needed for the TC series OHLE R257 loco on them. 

 

To change the direction of flow of the current, all you do is move the insulating sleeve and the metal tag to the other spring arm instead. That is all that is needed. Leave the pickup strips alone, because as has already been said, if you do move the strip and don't create the necessary clearance on the underside of the bogie you risk creating a hidden and permanent short.

 

Alternatively, you could leave the wiring as you find it and just rotate the traction magnet to reverse the magnetic polarity of the motor. However, my advice is DON'T. Leave the magnet alone! Taking it out from between the pole pieces to turn it round can make older magnets lose some of their magnetism which will make the motor less powerful. Just stick to moving the insulated sleeve AND metal tag to the other arm of the brush spring. 

 

I cannot see any reason why Triang would have made it their policy for TC locos to be sold ex-works with the wiring reversed. I have occasionally bought a UK outline Triang loco on Ebay and when I got it found that it ran in reverse compared to all my other Triang locos. But that doesn't prove anything. There may have been the very occasional assembly error, placing the magnet with the wrong orientation, but that should have been picked up when the loco was tested in Margate before packing. In my opinion, backed up by my experience, it is far more likely to have been caused by a previous owner who had disassembled the motor and then put it back together incorrectly - magnet wrong way round or insulating the wrong brush spring arm). Or had done it deliberately so that ran in the same direction as locos that they had from other manufacturers as I don't think there was any standardisation on which wheel went to which side of the motor or on the magnetic orientation of the traction magnet. But each manufacturer would have had its own standardised designs and assembly processes.

 

Incidentally if you do both, i.e. turn the magnet round AND swap the insulated sleeve and metal tag over to the other arm, the motor will still turn in the same direction as before. Why? Because the two changes - direction of magnetic field and direction of current flow - cancel each other out.

Edited May 15, 2023 by GoingUnderground

[kevinlms]

The question may arise as to which is the correct way a locomotive should run on DC (DCC is not applicable), because if you only have say 2 Tri-ang locos and they run in opposite directions to one another,  which one is correct?

The rule is simple, if the right hand rail is positive, it should go forwards - steam locos or diesels with a single cab have an obvious advantage here!

If it runs backwards, then it is wrong and should reversed - preferably to Tri-ang's exploded diagrams.

If you don't know which terminal is positive from your controller - then unplug it totally and swap it for a freshish 9 volt battery, which has it's terminals marked, thus making it easy. It should run slower, but will indicate if right or wrong.

 

When I first got my second loco, I didn't know this and modified one and later found out that the 3rd loco was wrong, in relation to the first 2!!!!! My guess is that I had at some stage reassembled the first loco (a Jinty) wrongly - although it didn't seem to have any issues resulting from loss of magnetism.

[St Enodoc]

4 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

The question may arise as to which is the correct way a locomotive should run on DC (DCC is not applicable), because if you only have say 2 Tri-ang locos and they run in opposite directions to one another,  which one is correct?

The rule is simple, if the right hand rail is positive, it should go forwards - steam locos or diesels with a single cab have an obvious advantage here!

If it runs backwards, then it is wrong and should reversed - preferably to Tri-ang's exploded diagrams.

If you don't know which terminal is positive from your controller - then unplug it totally and swap it for a freshish 9 volt battery, which has it's terminals marked, thus making it easy. It should run slower, but will indicate if right or wrong.

 

When I first got my second loco, I didn't know this and modified one and later found out that the 3rd loco was wrong, in relation to the first 2!!!!! My guess is that I had at some stage reassembled the first loco (a Jinty) wrongly - although it didn't seem to have any issues resulting from loss of magnetism.

But isn't it the other way round down here, like water going down the plughole?

[GoingUnderground]

I have copies of the Triang service sheets relating to the Bo-Bo motor bogies.

 

Sheet 12a covers the X.3120 bogie for the R.156 EMU and X.3121 For the DMU R.157

Sheet 12b covers the X.3122 bogie for R.55, R155 and R.159 and the X.3166 bogie for R253 and by implication R.353. Both sheets refer to locos/bogies made from January 1959 onwards.

 

Whilst on both sheets the insulating sleeve S.5261 isn't shown in situ on one of the the brush spring S.3128's arm, it is positioned next to the right hand arm, on both sheets, Right as seen when looking along the length of the chassis with the commutator brushes between you and the magnet and pole pieces, with the coupling beyond them. All the bogies have the collector strips on the right hand side of the chassis, i.e. the same side as the insulated sleeve on the brush spring.  As the drawings are virtually identical, not too surprising given the commonality of the components used, that would seem, to me anyway, to be confirmation that there was no difference in the way that UK and TC models were wired/configured and that UK and TC models when ex-works should all run in the same direction.

 

Sheet 61 covers the X.3122 and X.3166 bogies from April 1968 and it does show the insulated sleeve on the right hand brush arm, this time as sub-assembly X.664.

 

So on that basis, RailroadBill's X3122 bogie from his R.159 as shown in his photo with the sleeve and metal tag on the left hand arm is not as per the service sheets, which explains why it runs the "wrong way round". Swapping the sleeve and metal tag with the lead to the pickup strip is fiddly, but very doable.

 

Incidentally. none of the sheets make any reference to the direction of travel when the positive lead was connected to the pickup strip/right side insulated wheels and negative to the chassis/uninsulated wheels. I don't think that Triang were too fussed as long as all their locos had the same direction of travel ex-works.

 

Edited May 15, 2023 by GoingUnderground

[GoingUnderground]

5 hours ago, kevinlms said:

When I first got my second loco, I didn't know this and modified one and later found out that the 3rd loco was wrong, in relation to the first 2!!!!! My guess is that I had at some stage reassembled the first loco (a Jinty) wrongly - although it didn't seem to have any issues resulting from loss of magnetism.

The R.52 Jinty, AFAIK, in Triang Railways and Triang Hornby days always used the standard X.04 motor, made in huge quantities over the years for use in the UK and TC steam locos. I doubt that you would have diassembled the X.04 motor to the extent of separating the traction magnet from its pole pieces. It's not something that I've ever needed to do myself at any time since I got my first Triang Railways train set R3.D in 1959.

 

So the question of weakening the magnet probably didn't arise with your Jinty as swapping the position of the insulating sleeve doesn't need the magnet removing. The sleeve might have slipped off if you'd taken the X.04 out of the chassis and removed the commutator brushes to get better access to clean the commutator slots with a pin and upended the motor in the process. Then it would be a 50:50 chance of putting the sleeve back on the "wrong" arm. I've put the sleeve back on the wrong arm myself on occasions on Bo-Bo motor bogies acquired secondhand when giving them a really good clean and service to restore them to full working order, and cursed myself when I test ran the reassembled bogie and found that I'd goofed. 

 

Nowadays I have the odd motor bogie or two, correctly assembled, sitting around to which I refer.

Edited May 15, 2023 by GoingUnderground

[andyman7]

8 minutes ago, GoingUnderground said:

The R.52 Jinty, AFAIK, in Triang Railways and Triang Hornby days always used the standard X.04 motor, made in huge quantities over the years for use in the UK and TC steam locos. I doubt that you would have diassembled the X.04 motor to the extent of separating the traction magnet from its pole pieces. It's not something that I've ever needed to do myself at any time since I got my first Triang Railways train set R3.D in 1959.

 

So the question of weakening the magnet probably didn't arise with your Jinty as swapping the position of the insulating sleeve doesn't need the magnet removing. The sleeve might have slipped off if you'd taken the X.04 out of the chassis and removed the commutator brushes to get better access to clean the commutator slots with a pin and upended the motor in the process. Then it would be a 50:50 chance of putting the sleeve back on the "wrong" arm. I've put the sleeve back on the wrong arm myself on occasions on Bo-Bo motor bogies acquired secondhand when giving them a really good clean and service to restore them to full working order, and cursed myself when I test ran the reassembled bogie and found that I'd goofed. 

 

Nowadays I have the odd motor bogie or two, correctly assembled, sitting around to which I refer.

Your post has reminded me that the very first design of TC motor bogie used an X.04 motor mounted in a cradle, and there is no way that these would have been assembled differently for TC models. Also the standard X.04 was exported for use in assembling NZ and Aussie Jinty and Princess models, all of which were assembled in line with the UK design.

Certainly all the TC models I have had run in the same direction as the British outline ones. 
However, as has been amply demonstrated above, there is more than one way to 'reverse the polarity' (hello Doctor...) on a Triang loco so I guess it comes down to what people have experienced versus what Triang intended. 

[BR60103]

I have a K's drive unit -- either a bogie or a tender drive -- which runs backwards.  Not sure if it was a kit as I bought used, but I can't see disassembling it without destroying it.

All my TriAng, Hornby, Wrenn units run the same way as all my North American units.

 

[kevinlms]

10 hours ago, GoingUnderground said:

 

Incidentally. none of the sheets make any reference to the direction of travel when the positive lead was connected to the pickup strip/right side insulated wheels and negative to the chassis/uninsulated wheels. I don't think that Triang were too fussed as long as all their locos had the same direction of travel ex-works.

 

I wouldn't expect the service sheets to state the direction of travel, the assembly line ladies, wouldn't need to know this, they would just assemble to the methods given to them and they will work correctly.

 

The right hand positive and loco goes forward is a convention, that I'm sure the engineers were 100% aware of and designed their locos accordingly. Even those where the motor is backwards should conform (0-4-0T if I remember correctly, it's a long time since I looked!).

 

Imagine the warranty claims if purchasers complained that half their locos ran backwards! So it would have been important to Tri-ang to build them correctly.

This makes Roythebus1 suggestion that the TC models all ran backwards, rather odd. I'm not suggesting that he is wrong, it sounds like a large batch was incorrectly assembled.

I wonder what others with collections of Tri-ang, have found the same to be true?