Tri-ang Railways.

[sandwich station]

I always thought Series 5 was intended to be the Tri-ang version of the 2 rail Dublo track, but it was decided to run the range down (It showed up their own inferior product I suppose). Of course this is my assumption and could well not be the case. In the end about the only thing to be adopted was the Dublo wheel and track standards.

 

Super 4 was their answer to HD 2 rail track. They decided to keep the rail the same size as earlier track so that older rolling stock could still be used on it.

[Il Grifone]

At that time, Triang was selling better than HD (hence Triang buying out HD rather than the other way round!). So in that case, from a commercial point of view, winding down HD made sense.

 

It wasn't just HD. The whole Meccano empire was in decline due to bad management decisions. Slot racing was thr toy of the moment in the late fifties but was ignored (Their belated entry with a non compatible system was 'too little too late'). There were too few new locomotives and the switch to 2 rail should have started 10 years earlier (or even twenty - Trix had already shown the feasiblity of insulated wheels and track several years before the launch of Dublo. Too much collaboration with Märklin in the 30s?). Their passion for diesels didn't help. Their target market was still comprised of staunch steam fans.

 

It probably made commercial sense to buy up and close down the opposition. (They call it 'rationalisation' (aka 'asset stripping') today.) A merger of the two systems would have been preferable to their customers. At the time, the first effect of the takeover I noticed was an all round increase in price of Tri-ang's products.

 

Waffle alert!

(SWMBO and daughter both say I should be more concise. I blame having to write essays at school - lots of foolscap pages to fill on boring topics I couldn't care less about!   )

 

I think that Series 4 was motivated more by a product improvement than a response to Dublo 2 rail as they already had Series III. They must have begun to feel the limitations of the 13½" radius inherited from the Rovex toy train they started with. Most of the fifties was spent eliminating its features (one ended couplings and track, expensive track, acetate, ridiculously short coaches etc.) the new standard radius was the same as Dublo large radius (17¼" - radius 2), but using this for pointwork meant a change in geometry resulting in radius 1 being less than Dublo's 15". Unfortunately they continued with their coarse standards (though they had already been refined slightly) and it took several years to convert to Dublo's. There was was no need to maintain the code 154 rail section (they could have saved tons of steel by reducing this long before) as Tri-ang wheels will run quite happily on Dublo track (itself at code 125 25% larger than necessary, Dublo wheels run perfectly well on code 100.) The other feature of 2 rail Dublo track, nickel-silver rail, took rather longer to catch on. Back then, I always wondered why people would spend a lot more on nickel-silver rail rather than steel. I know now  and always take care to not buy any Dublo track from the Korean war period with it's steel rail and cardboard insulators. (Why can't we get any trains I asked? but I was only 5/6 years old and didn't realise we were at the beck and call of the United States...  Avoids politics and shuts up!)

 

EDIT for an 'n't' thst got lost in cyberspace (in sentence 2 of the waffle) - must improve typing skills....

Edited January 12, 2018 by Il Grifone

[sagaguy]

I don`t think Roland Hornby had the same buisness acumen or drive of his father,the Dublo 2 rail system was designed by a model railway enthusiast & therein sowed the seeds of it`s destruction.The average father bought the set for his children along with some points etc.but wasn`t familiar with the electrical requirements of a complicated system with live frog points unlike Triang which worked straight out the box.It was pretty soon superseded by simpler points with dead frogs which did away with double isolating rails & all the other complications of the 2 rail system as originally designed.Hindsight is a wonderful thing & who knows where Hornby Dublo would have progressed  to if it had survived.I read somewhere (can`t remember where) that Hornby Dublo died along with the end of steam & if you think about it,it seems about right!.

 

                           Ray.

[Legend]

Richard Lines tells the story in Triang Hornby video that when he arrived at Hornby Dublo Binns Road production had already stopped . They were taking out the Boardroom Table .  So the merger was little more than Tri-ang absorbing existing stocks of models (West Countries and CoBos appeared in catalogue) and selling them off .  HD was already dead.

 

Series 5 track was never announced , it may have been the old Hornby Dublo track . Tri-ang Hornby certainly went directly from Super 4 to System 6. System 6 used the geometry of Super 4 but with code 100 track, maybe as used in HD track.  Simple system worked well. As a wee boy I knew all about 45 deg curves (R605/607/609) and 22.5 deg (R604/606/608) . Helped me a lot in geometry! Never could find a railway application for Calculus , which is probably why never understood it!

[kevinlms]

I don`t think Roland Hornby had the same buisness acumen or drive of his father,the Dublo 2 rail system was designed by a model railway enthusiast & therein sowed the seeds of it`s destruction.The average father bought the set for his children along with some points etc.but wasn`t familiar with the electrical requirements of a complicated system with live frog points unlike Triang which worked straight out the box.It was pretty soon superseded by simpler points with dead frogs which did away with double isolating rails & all the other complications of the 2 rail system as originally designed.Hindsight is a wonderful thing & who knows where Hornby Dublo would have progressed  to if it had survived.I read somewhere (can`t remember where) that Hornby Dublo died along with the end of steam & if you think about it,it seems about right!.

 

                           Ray.

You forgot to mention that Hornby Dublo was more expensive than Tri-ang. Price is and always will be a significant factor.

[Legend]

You forgot to mention that Hornby Dublo was more expensive than Tri-ang. Price is and always will be a significant factor.

 Absolutely . Manufacturers today might well remember that!

[sagaguy]

Hornby Dublo will always have it’s adherents as likewise for Triang.Judging by the activity on eBay for HD equipment,very little in the way of locos will fail to work to a reasonable standard but they are not cheap.Some Triang equipment from the 50s & 60s,EM2s & double pantograph transcontinental demand premium price but on the whole,they don`t reach the prices of HD & Wrenn locos.

 

Ray.

[Golden Fleece 30]

Hornby Dublo will always have it’s adherents as likewise for Triang.Judging by the activity on eBay for HD equipment,very little in the way of locos will fail to work to a reasonable standard but they are not cheap.Some Triang equipment from the 50s & 60s,EM2s & double pantograph transcontinental demand premium price but on the whole,they don`t reach the prices of HD & Wrenn locos.

 

Ray.

Some Tri-ang TT ones go for far more.  I have seen a few near the two hundred mark recently.

 

Garry

Edited January 11, 2018 by Golden Fleece 30

[locomad]

You forgot to mention that Hornby Dublo was more expensive than Tri-ang. Price is and always will be a significant factor.

Interesting and agree with you up to about 1965, after that there was a lot of surplus Hornby-dublo about, prices dropped so for a few years they were about the same, but of course different locos.

[locomad]

Hornby Dublo will always have it’s adherents as likewise for Triang.Judging by the activity on eBay for HD equipment,very little in the way of locos will fail to work to a reasonable standard but they are not cheap.Some Triang equipment from the 50s & 60s,EM2s & double pantograph transcontinental demand premium price but on the whole,they don`t reach the prices of HD & Wrenn locos.

Ray.

What I've noticed at swop meets/ toy fairs that common Hornby-dublo prices have dropped, there's a lot more about, common triang and triang-Hornby stock seems to be less about.

 

I like both systems from this period and still run them today, both have there advantages and disadvantages, I run current layout on peco 100 track both work well.

 

I prefer the peco type coupling, but use some tension lock in racks, I've a fair share of converter wagons mainly early wrenn

[Wolseley]

Interesting and agree with you up to about 1965, after that there was a lot of surplus Hornby-dublo about, prices dropped so for a few years they were about the same, but of course different locos.

 

 

An excerpt from Hattons' advertisement in the April 1965 Railway Modeller:

 

 

Does anyone have a time machine I can borrow?

Edited January 12, 2018 by Wolseley

[luckymucklebackit]

An excerpt from Hattons' advertisement in the April 1965 Railway Modeller:

 

Advert.png

 

Does anyone have a time machine I can borrow?

 

Would have been interested to see how the Tri-ang conversion kit worked, I had the Co-Co Diesel Electric (Deltic) and the Hornby Dublo Coupling was very securely riveted in place

 

Jim

[Golden Fleece 30]

Would have been interested to see how the Tri-ang conversion kit worked, I had the Co-Co Diesel Electric (Deltic) and the Hornby Dublo Coupling was very securely riveted in place

 

Jim

I guess it was the Eames conversion kit for the couplings.  These were small whitemetal blocks that were fastened on the Dublo boss after the Dublo coupling was removed.  The tail fitted between the Dublo limiting pegs to stop it turning and the Tri-ang coupling was screwed to this which was then the correct height.  They were very cheap and very good although I don't know if the would fit the Deltic and Co-Bo as they had couplings on top of the casting not below.  I still have some of these but don't use them now as most of the stock is Kadee fitted.

 

The later diesels like the Co-Bo and Deltic had the screw in coupling with a nut set into a recess in the casting like the EMU and E3002 locos

 

Garry

Edited January 12, 2018 by Golden Fleece 30

[sagaguy]

An excerpt from Hattons' advertisement in the April 1965 Railway Modeller:

 

Advert.png

 

Does anyone have a time machine I can borrow?

I sometimes look at my old magazines & think of the time when 50 bob could buy a 3 rail motor coach but of  course,at the time,that was just under  a weeks wages for me.I often thought about purchasing one of the Triang conversions but i never did,probably for the same reason.

 

                      Ray.

[Nearholmer]

Yes, what do Wolseley's prices work out to in current terms using the highly reliable 'Railway Modeller cover price index'?

[Robin Brasher]

1967 Model Railway Constructor 12.5p, Hattons 1965 N2 £2.25.

 

2017 Hornby Magazine £4.50 so present value of N2 £4.50 x 18 = £81.

 

Value of mint and boxed 3-rail N2 1954-1961 £90 according to 9th edition of Ramsay's Model Trains. I think these prices are a bit optimistic as I bought a 'Duchess of Atholl' set for £35 a couple of months ago and R1s were selling for £22.

 

When I joined the Orpington and District Model Railway Club my Tri-ang Hornby locomotives would not run on their Peco track. Some members rewheeled their Tri-ang Hornby locomotives with Romford wheels but they did not run very well. Another member who did not know anything about modelling sent his M7 to Eames of Reading who turned down the wheels to Hornby-Dublo standards and the M7 ran perfectly. Peco supplied some wheel sets for my Tri-ang Hornby rolling stock and these ran well on both my super 4 layout and the club layout.

 

I made an unsuccessful attempt at re-wheeling my Tri-ang Princess with Tri-ang see through wheels so I threw it away after it had given faithful service at least once a week for ten years.

[NCB]

Hornby had good products but had no idea of marketing. They were churning out way more bodies than they could sell, and one partial solution was to turn out a model with different numbers, or even different liveries; after all, they had the basic castings already. Hornby had a fixation on sticking to the latest prototype livery whereas there was a lot of interest in the modelling community for the older liveries. Sydney Pritchard approached Hornby with an idea for turning out Duchesses with near-scale wheels for modellers and they turned him down. Hornby's prices looked too expensive, but they didn't know what to do about it.

 

I think Triang seriously thought about incorporating the Hornby stuff with their own, but the figures didn't add up. Wrenn showed what could be done with a much leaner operation.

[Il Grifone]

Today's Railway Modeller doesn't really compare to a sixties example. It's thicker and in colour for a start. The earlier ones had more instructive articles rather than acres of other people's layouts though. Its then cover price of 2/6d really compares to £2.50-£3. You could get a car for £5/600 (a top of the range Mk IV Ford Zodiac was around £1500) and a decent house for £5-10,000 (my uncle bought a house in Ruislip for £8500). (Granted these last figures are two or three years later but inflation was not high in the sixties*.) The Dorchester at 65/- (say £70-80 today) was a bargain, but strangely they are charging more than list price for a Ludlow or Cardiff Castle according to their figures (£3/8/6d seems a tad low though, I recall nearer £4).

 

Dublo coupling rivets come out easily with a suitable punch (a broken drill bit of the right size (1.5mm IIRC works well)  or they can be drilled out. The rivet can be reused or I have used a 4mm screw in the past. It will cut its own thread in the zinc alloy (3.5mm hole IIRC). I've fitted tension locks by drilling two holes and mounting them on screws. Simple and robust, but pointless as it's better to replace the tension lock with a Peco/HD coupling (we were going to a car boot sale and I thought to weed out some of the inferior specimens. The price received ensured I didn't repeat the experience....). Export models (not valued highly - why?) had the coupling fitted with a screw as did the converter wagons produced by Tri-ang after the take over (useful items - they are not unreasonable models of an RCH side door mineral and an ex GWR horse box).

I've seen Dublo Duchess (both Atholl and Montrose) sets for around £35 recently; they were over £100 not long ago.

 

It would be expected that production ceased at Binns Road. They had fair stocks of many items and there was no point in making things for the new owners. In the end Tri-ang hived the Dublo rolling stock off to Wrenn, who sold them at a much higher price. Tri-ang incorporated the Dublo buildings into their own range for a while, but I think they were too expensive to manufacture and they produced new cra inferior ones of their own**. Meccano production continued at Binns Road for over fifteen years and is still avilable, but made in France. Unfortunately they have copied the Lego idea of 'one box, one model'.

 

* This changed dramatically in the seventies!

** I never had any Dublo diecast stations in my youth. Mine were Hugar (or similar including a beat up second hand overbridge with 1 in 1 approach ramps) and later Trix Manyways. I did have a Dublo pre-war island platform (green roof), but I never realised it was Dublo (no 'bibles' then!) and it disappeared in the mists of time.

 

One reason for the high prices was the marketing strategy: wholesale price x  retail price 2x. Part of the mark up was purchase tax (typically 35% levied on the wholesale price), but the rest covered the retailer's cost and profits, Resale Price Maintenance ensured a level playing field and enabled shops to carry stocks of slow selling items, a luxury that can't be afforded today (thank you Tesco!)

 

Sorry more waffle....

Edited January 13, 2018 by Il Grifone

[RJS1977]

. Hornby's prices looked too expensive, but they didn't know what to do about it.

 

 

Not much changed there then....

[Wolseley]

 I never had any Dublo diecast stations in my youth. Mine were Hugar (or similar including a beat up second hand overbridge with 1 in 1 approach ramps) and later Trix Manyways. I did have a Dublo pre-war island platform (green roof), but I never realised it was Dublo (no 'bibles' then!) and it disappeared in the mists of time.

 

 

I had a Dublo plastic island platform that my father sawed in half lengthwise so it could be used at the back of the layout like a low relief building (it also meant that it was one platform length longer).  I also had one Dublo buffer stop which had to be screwed down as it didn't fit the track I had.  The few other buildings I had were all Airfix kits.

[sandwich station]

Tri-ang incorporated the Dublo buildings into their own range for a while, but I think they were too expensive to manufacture and they produced new cra inferior ones of their own**.

Rovex actually thought that Dudlo's station buildings were better than their own. That's why they initially started to sell them. It soon became apparent that there was a couple of things wrong with them.

 

Take the mainline terminus/through station.

 

First thing was, it's assembled with nuts and bolts, rather time consuming for a 5-10 year old everytime he got his trains out of the box to play and the other was the price, you could buy a new locomotive for what they retailed at, so most would want another loco instead.

 

And Rovex being inferior is a matter of choice. I have both station complexes and to be honest, I prefer the Rovex, much more versatile and user friendly.

[locomad]

.When I joined the Orpington and District Model Railway Club my Tri-ang Hornby locomotives would not run on their Peco track. Some members rewheeled their Tri-ang Hornby locomotives with Romford wheels but they did not run very well. Another member who did not know anything about modelling sent his M7 to Eames of Reading who turned down the wheels to Hornby-Dublo standards and the M7 ran perfectly. Peco supplied some wheel sets for my Tri-ang Hornby rolling stock and these ran well on both my super 4 layout and the club layout.I made an unsuccessful attempt at re-wheeling my Tri-ang Princess with Tri-ang see through wheels so I threw it away after it had given faithful service at least once a week for ten years.

Somewhere I read that if you pulled the wheels out a little they would run on peco track, I tried this years ago using a wheel puller and it worked so they would go thought peco point frogs, I use orginial traing course wheels on peco track to this day.

[roythebus]

We had a look round the various antique shops in Rye this afternoon. Not much railway stuff about at all, but what did catch my eye in the same place but in different dealer's showcases were a pair of the very short LMS Triang coaches in god condition, not bowed like most of them, but one had a bit of a crack in the centre of one side. they were £5 each. There were also some of the early wagons, a couple of opens and box vans and a whit tanker, all with the 1950s couplings also at £5 each, again in very good condition.

 

In another cabinet were another pair of short LMS coaches, this time in maroon and cream, again not apparently bowed or cracked, but at £45 for the pair I though a bit expensive. 2 Lima BR mk1 coaches in GW livery were marked up at  rather optimistic £9 each with B4 bogies. Another cabinet had some Hornby tinplate 4 wheel pullman coaches at £5 each and a couple of open wagons also at £5 each, all in good condition, played with but not apparently damaged.

 

Edited to add there was also a Trancontinental coach on offer also for a fiver, plain silver, number R327 or similar underneath, again with the early type couplings. If anyone's interested I can pop back and get them.

Edited January 13, 2018 by roythebus

[Nearholmer]

The Hornby 0 tinplate four-wheel Pullmans are very common, and very hard to sell, because nobody much really likes them, so they might not move, even at £5, unless in very good condition.

[Golden Fleece 30]

Somewhere I read that if you pulled the wheels out a little they would run on peco track, I tried this years ago using a wheel puller and it worked so they would go thought peco point frogs, I use orginial traing course wheels on peco track to this day.

Pulling the wheels out a little will work, but, if using set track curves it can cause resistance on the curves due to less play. That is why I turned a very small amount off the backs. This includes the original solid wheels and they run fine though modern Peco points. Peco changed their universal range to a finer standard around the 90's I think as even Hornby were making their finer wheels by then. The good thing is all old Hornby Dublo wheels run very well without any modification, that is both 2 and 3-rail.

 

Plenty of videos on You Tube about my Tri-ang locos running on modern track.

 

Garry