Hornby Dublo - Modern Image?

[SR71]

I'd not considered the link with preservation. But of course the end of Dublo coincides neatly with Beeching and the nostalgia that follows.

 

I always felt that the diversification into 2 rail was probably a mistake and if they'd refined 3 rail prospects would have been better. I wonder what the 1970 catalogue would have looked like...

[Nearholmer]

Assuming that they'd cottoned-on to the nostalgia trend, it might have contained a photo of a K's kit Adams Radial tank, heralding a new model that would in fact never be produced.

 

 

[kevinlms]

2 hours ago, SR71 said:

I'd not considered the link with preservation. But of course the end of Dublo coincides neatly with Beeching and the nostalgia that follows.

 

I always felt that the diversification into 2 rail was probably a mistake and if they'd refined 3 rail prospects would have been better. I wonder what the 1970 catalogue would have looked like...

Why was diversification into 2 rail a mistake? Surely the best way to increase sales, was to make their products available to a larger market? Making models they were largely compatible with Tri-ang (already a large percentage of new sales to new modellers were to this upstart) has to be seen as an advantage.

 

The whole issue of compatibility was strongly advocated by the US NMRA, the idea being to make different manufacturers stock interchangeable in 4 key areas - track, wheel, coupling and electrical standards. That way purchasers could buy any conforming model and it would just work, with others that already conformed.

 

Hornby Dublo 3 rail has its place in the nostalgia market, but suggesting that it ought to have continued and had further resources invested in a declining market, seems like a good way of going broke quicker! Trix was also going 2 rail, even their 3 rail system wasn't 100% compatible with Hornby Dublo.

 

Where would Hornby Dublo 3 rail have sat, if it had still been around in the mid 1970s, when the likes of Airfix, Mainline and Lima, started producing large quantities of cheap 2 rail models?

[Mountain Goat]

On 28/04/2020 at 00:12, andyman7 said:

The South African TC coaches are the 'short' versions too - I am lucky enough to have a pair

In a number of cases yes, but they also had their own tooling for some models - not just the TC coaches but subjects such as the R152 Diesel Shunter, which for some reason had a slightly higher roofline making it even more ungainly than its UK counterpart. The R159 double ended diesel also has minor differences. These days of course CAD would ensure that duplicate tools were identical but back then there was ample opportunity for variation.

 

R152 diesel shunter had a higher roofline to make room for a clockwork spring as it was available in both electric and clockwork forms. 

[robmcg]

On 02/04/2020 at 20:36, Sarahagain said:

There were a lot of Tri-ang tools made specifically for overseas markets.

 

It was indeed a method to lessen import duties, by shipping in components, and setting up factories in other countries so that items could be "made" in that country, even if some items were assembled from imported parts.

 

South Africa had their own tools as far as I know. Some certainly had slight differences to other tools.

 

There was tool sharing between New Zealand and Australia.

 

These models were marked Made in Australia & New Zealand.

 

The Australian and New Zealand TC passenger cars are indeed shorter than those from Margate for the North American and UK markets.

 

I don't know about South African passenger cars.

 

The Australian and New Zealand "Jinty" model has a dummy headlight in front of the chimney.

 

Interestingly, I have seen models where the Made in Australia and New Zealand has been scraped or otherwise rendered almost unreadable, and a Tri-ang Made in England transfer applied.

 

These are examples of the R.56 TC Baltic 4-6-4 Tank locomotives.

 

My theory is that the tools to be sent abroad were made and tested in Margate by being run on the production machines. Some at least of the mouldings made being "modified" with the transfers, and used to make up models.

 

 

I was aged 10-12yrs around 1960 and have fond memories of the Triang Baltic Tank with a New Zealand prototype,  in shop windows, but I was from a Meccano and Hornby family so never got to lust after that particular dream...    my first 'very own' engine was an R1...   but I think the Baltic Tank as a good model, what a pity they have mostly distorted    cellulose-acetate body?

 

I do have great memories of HD three and 2-rail and now have a good collection of 3-rail, but always look for a straight NZR Wab because I grew up when these were hauling our suburban trains.

 

 

 

 

We can dream!   

Edited June 17, 2020 by robmcg
typo

[Ruffnut Thorston]

4 hours ago, robmcg said:

 

I was aged 10-12yrs around 1960 and have fond memories of the Triang Baltic Tank with a New Zealand prototype,  in shop windows, but I was from a Meccano and Hornby family so never got to lust after that particular dream...    my first 'very own' engine was an R1...   but I think the Baltic Tank as a good model, what a pity they have mostly distorted    cellulose-acetate body?

 

I do have great memories of HD three and 2-rail and now have a good collection of 3-rail, but always look for a straight NZR Wab because I grew up when these were hauling our suburban trains.

 

 

 

 

We can dream!   

 

 

The later R.56 Baltic Tank locos were made in Polystyrene plastic, which doesn't warp...

 

There are some out there!

[andyman7]

7 hours ago, Mountain Goat said:

 

R152 diesel shunter had a higher roofline to make room for a clockwork spring as it was available in both electric and clockwork forms. 

Interestingly the very first releases 0f the R152 from 1956 differ slightly from subsequent releases which features a bodyside modeification to accommodate the key hole - this appeared on both electric and clockwork versions but on the former was a 'blind' hole covered with a fictitious studded plate.

 

The Australia/NZ body for the R152 is almost but not quite identical - it has an ever higher roofline (which is clearly nothing to do with the mechanism as that is the same as used in the UK) - a quirk of the toolmaker, which makes the model look even more ungainly. This is of course many years before the advent of CAD/CAM tooling which would have produced identical 'slave' tools if required.

3 hours ago, Lantavian said:

Hornby* was a very poorly run company in its later years.

 

*By this I mean the company that went bust in the 1960s, and was bought by Triang. Personally I don't consider the current company called Hornby actually to be Hornby. It's continuity Triang but using the Hornby name. 

 

There is a legitimate debate to be had about corporate DNA - but of course when you refer to 'Hornby', you mean Meccano Ltd, which was the parent company. Meccano never really got over the shift from being an innovator (when they were the only show in town) to being a competitor (when others worked out how to do it better, faster, cheaper). When the Triang group was broken up, Meccano Ltd were sold to the Airfix group (along with Tri-ang Toys, which is why the train range lost the trademark, as it and Scalextric were sold to Dunbee-Combex-Marx). Meccano were Airfix's single biggest liability, racking up losses and only surviving on government grants by the late 70s. They significantly contributed to the Airfix group's own demise in 1981.

 

I would agree that the 'Hornby' we know post 1965 was basically the Triang range and DNA until 1998. But the modern Hornby company, with Corgi and Airfix now in the stable and none of the manufacturing done in the traditional homes of any of those brands has I think absorbed a lot of the DNA of the former British model toy industry and deserves to be the custodian of the name.

[Nearholmer]

12 minutes ago, andyman7 said:

has I think absorbed a lot of the DNA of the former British model toy industry

 

Which, like all DNA includes instructions that are helpful, and instructions that might have helped once, but possibly now hinder, plus a few random mutations that might help or hinder.

[kevinlms]

5 hours ago, Lantavian said:

Hornby* was a very poorly run company in its later years.

 

This article tells its sad story.

 

(I've shared it before. I think it's well worth sharing again.)

 

 

*By this I mean the company that went bust in the 1960s, and was bought by Triang. Personally I don't consider the current company called Hornby actually to be Hornby. It's continuity Triang but using the Hornby name. 

 

 

Business Archives Journal on Hornby Archives Number66.pdf 1.92 MB · 4 downloads

Almost nothing is mentioned about the products, except that nothing at all was done to improve the production efficiencies and the deterioration of the product quality. 

It would be interesting to read about how the change from 3 rail to 2 rail affected the business, but there is nothing.

 

But you are correct, there was only one thing that was going to happen - Meccano's demise.

 

As for the Hornby name, as others have stated, the Tri-ang name had been sold off, so reusing the Hornby brand, was the obvious thing to do. Like it or not, there was no real choice in this matter.

[SR71]

19 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Why was diversification into 2 rail a mistake? Surely the best way to increase sales, was to make their products available to a larger market? Making models they were largely compatible with Tri-ang (already a large percentage of new sales to new modellers were to this upstart) has to be seen as an advantage.

 

The whole issue of compatibility was strongly advocated by the US NMRA, the idea being to make different manufacturers stock interchangeable in 4 key areas - track, wheel, coupling and electrical standards. That way purchasers could buy any conforming model and it would just work, with others that already conformed.

 

Hornby Dublo 3 rail has its place in the nostalgia market, but suggesting that it ought to have continued and had further resources invested in a declining market, seems like a good way of going broke quicker! Trix was also going 2 rail, even their 3 rail system wasn't 100% compatible with Hornby Dublo.

 

Where would Hornby Dublo 3 rail have sat, if it had still been around in the mid 1970s, when the likes of Airfix, Mainline and Lima, started producing large quantities of cheap 2 rail models?

 

Well I wasn't around at the time, so I'm only basing it on personal experience of the various systems having run at shows, HD 3 rail was by far the least stressful of them with best function/operability.

 

Before I damn the competitors with faint praise I'll qualify that these were all using stock serviced before the show, not granddad's trains with the dust blown off and a large dose of hope applied as I have seen done more than once.

 

HD 2 rail wasn't considerably different from triang but in 7 hours running it never settled in and had niggling issues all day. Once something got running you left it rather than go through the pain of setting something else up.

 

Triang takes a while to get going then runs at 300mph with an hourly pile up where everything goes wrong - but that is what you expect from a toy and good fun. This fun element being it's advantage over the somewhat serious HD 2 rail where the finickyness gets to be wearing. 

 

Trix I've experienced less but on both occasions it was when the owners asked me to cover them going for lunch etc. I ended up being abandoned with it for several hours! One even admitted he had gotten fed up with trying to keep it running. I certainly won't go near it, twice bitten. :-)

 

HD 3 rail is the only system that after an hour or so settles down to the extent I've had the chance to be bored at a show. It's also the only one with the functionality where we dared to incorporate a functioning terminus with complex crossovers etc.

 

So a final qualification that have seen all run at shows successfully but the above were my experiences and these were all loose lay so I would say in terms of a table top railway HD 3 rail potentially has never been surpassed.

 

After my long thesis I should answer your question. Triang were doing 2 rail better than HD were subsequently able to but HD must have invested a fair amount in New tooling to convert to 2 rail. By adopting the same system they lost the differentiator between them and triang but I believe were considerably more expensive.

Had that money gone into incremental development of the system which was already superior in operation, improving the look of the track for instance, then they could have kept going longer I think. 10 years development on the super detail coaches could easily have ended up with a product to rival mainline?

 

In searching around to write this I found much to my surprise Márklin 3 rail is still being sold new so there is some sort of a market for 3 rail.

 

[SR71]

10 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Almost nothing is mentioned about the products, except that nothing at all was done to improve the production efficiencies and the deterioration of the product quality. 

It would be interesting to read about how the change from 3 rail to 2 rail affected the business, but there is nothing.

 

But you are correct, there was only one thing that was going to happen - Meccano's demise.

 

As for the Hornby name, as others have stated, the Tri-ang name had been sold off, so reusing the Hornby brand, was the obvious thing to do. Like it or not, there was no real choice in this matter.

It's an interesting read and I can certainly say they lost their focus on quality. I'm repainting a late N2 as practice (it looked like the local pot hole crew had been using it to stir the tar when I picked it up) and after priming it was apparent how poor the casting is. Lumps and bumps and divets all over. More like a small run white metal kit.

 

As for the corporate attitude it's one I recognise today in UK engineering. I deal with suppliers all over the world and dread getting a UK supplier on one of my jobs. They always insist on supplying what they think is best not what you've asked for and won't be told what they are doing won't work.

[sagaguy]

I operate a fairly large Dublo 3 rail layout & my feeling with Hornby Dublo was once you`d seen one Montrose with a couple of crimson & cream coaches,you`d seen the lot,the Dublo range was finite.Over the past few years,i`ve 3 railed quite a few reasonably modern image locos& EMUs,the photo below show a Lima Cl.73( there is also a Hornby version lurking about on the layout) & a Hornby Cl.71.Also on the layout is a Bachmann 4CEP,a Hornby 2BIL & a Hornby 2 HAL.If Meccano had survived,this could have been a way forward,sadly ,not to be.

                  Ray.

[Nearholmer]

Southern electrics seem particularly right for HD and would have made wonderful additions to the fantasy catalogue of 1970.

[Nearholmer]

Southern electrics seem particularly right for HD and would have made wonderful additions to the fantasy catalogue of 1970.

[Il Grifone]

On 17/06/2020 at 23:09, SR71 said:

It's an interesting read and I can certainly say they lost their focus on quality. I'm repainting a late N2 as practice (it looked like the local pot hole crew had been using it to stir the tar when I picked it up) and after priming it was apparent how poor the casting is. Lumps and bumps and divets all over. More like a small run white metal kit.

 

As for the corporate attitude it's one I recognise today in UK engineering. I deal with suppliers all over the world and dread getting a UK supplier on one of my jobs. They always insist on supplying what they think is best not what you've asked for and won't be told what they are doing won't work.

 

The later N2 had several casting changes for completely unnecessary modifications as well. The 2 rail changeover was too little - too late. They could have started out in 2 rail in 1938 (Trix have shown the way with insulated wheels and track several years earlier), but perhaps the company's ties to Märklin were rather strong (at least they didn't copy the AC motor*). Failing that, they could have used the break for the Korean War to change-over and started the BR range as 2 rail. A part exchange as previously offered with 0 gauge could have maintained company loyalty. At the time of the 2 rail changeover (1959), I was fiercely pro-steam and anti-diesel (as were most of my friends) and all we were offered was a poor (and expensive) rebuilt West Country and a load of diesels. Rehashing the Castle and 8F to use the ringfield motor must have cost a fortune too. Conversely Tri-ang produced both and in greater variety. I can remember thinking about 1958 that a decent pannier tank (rather than the Gaiety horror) would have been nice, but instead we got an obscure Southern 0-6-0T (2 rail only) which, despite a completely new chassis, was spoiled by having the wrong wheelbase to use an existing stamping for the coupling rods and save a few pence.

 

* The unreliability of Trix is down to two things IMHO: the AC sequence reverser, which is 1. cr*p and 2 operates with loss of contact. Märklin uses a over-voltage pulse operating a relay to reverse avoiding the unwanted stops and reversals to which Trix is prone. The other is it's steel track (both Bakelite and fibre based which generously provides the lost of contact. Both makes work reliably once converted to DC with rectifier diodes.

 

This attitude is nothing new and probably why the Dollar/Sterling rate is no longer 2.8/1. (It used to be 5/1 further back in time, but I think we can blame two world wars for that.)

Edited June 19, 2020 by Il Grifone

[Nearholmer]

3 minutes ago, Il Grifone said:

At the time of the 2 rail changeover (1959), I was fiercely pro-steam and anti-diesel (as were most of my friends)

 

That is interesting, and reflects the way that attachment to steam seems to have grown as the proportion of steam traction decreased. Reflected in Rev Awdry's stories too; in fact they probably fostered it.

 

Suggests that Hornby were getting it even more wrong than I imagined, in that I thought the steam nostalgia grew a few years later.

[Il Grifone]

Steam was very much still around in the late fifties. I can remember a discussion with a fellow 'spotter' where I said that I didn't collect diesel numbers and was asked what I would do when there weren't any more. My reply was that since a steam locomotive would last 30 years this would be in 1990 and I would have stopping collecting numbers anyway. Little did I know! I think at the time the projected date was around 1980, but then we had Beeching the hatchet man* and the mad dash to eliminate steam traction.

 

Waffle alert!

A fairly recent BBC programme stated that Britain was behind Europe in modernisation but was actually among the first. I personally say working steam in France in 1972 (141Rs IIRC). Somewhere I have the slides.... and Italy had stocks 'in reserve' into the eighties. (I saw some stored, but whether they were actually useable is debatable). My avatar is still in existence, but somewhat weathered and unlikely to be used again - the usual BS about causing fires! The line from Macomer to Bosa is currently closed, but allegedly under restoration.

 

* I am convinced he was hired purposely to close down most of the network and take the blame, but it is just another 'conspiracy theory'....

Edited June 18, 2020 by Il Grifone

[kevinlms]

9 hours ago, Il Grifone said:

Steam was very much still around in the late fifties. I can remember a discussion with a fellow 'spotter' where I said that I didn't collect diesel numbers and was asked what I would do when there weren't any more. My reply was that since a steam locomotive would last 30 years this would be in 1990 and I would have stopping collecting numbers anyway. Little did I know! I think at the time the projected date was around 1980, but then we had Beeching the hatchet man* and the mad dash to eliminate steam traction.

 

Waffle alert!

A fairly recent BBC programme stated that Britain was behind Europe in modernisation but was actually among the first. I personally say working steam in France in 1972 (141Rs IIRC). Somewhere I have the slides.... and Italy had stocks 'in reserve' into the eighties. (I saw some stored, but whether they were actually useable is debatable). My avatar is still in existence, but somewhat weathered and unlikely to be used again - the usual BS about causing fires! The line from Macomer to Bosa is currently closed, but allegedly under restoration.

 

* I am convinced he was hired purposely to close down most of the network and take the blame, but it is just another 'conspiracy theory'....

Fact was in 1948/51, British Railways had a handful of mainline diesels to experiment with. It took until 1955 to come up with a modernisation plan, with more types of diesel to trial. Before this plan had even started properly (many of the design were yet to enter traffic), but panic mode kicked in based on increasing losses of the network.

So large orders were placed, largely based on salesmen advice as to when they could supply and how much, rather than buying proven locomotives.

The worst possible way to implement a completely new fleet. But it did mean BR ended steam earlier than planned, but with a lot of pain of poor quality and unneeded variety.

 

Edit to add

 

Perhaps BR management, should have taken on the Meccano management. They were just as bad as each other, as per the previous posts!

Edited June 19, 2020 by kevinlms
Updated info.

[sagaguy]

10 hours ago, Il Grifone said:

 

* I am convinced he was hired purposely to close down most of the network and take the blame, but it is just another 'conspiracy theory'....

 Ernest Marples,transport minister at the time ,made Beeching his useful idiot.Being a partner in Marples Ridgeway,road constructors,it suited Marples to shut the railways down.He wouldn`t get away with this conflict of interest today,at the time,we had a pretty tame press.

[Ruffnut Thorston]

4 hours ago, sagaguy said:

 Ernest Marples,transport minister at the time ,made Beeching his useful idiot.Being a partner in Marples Ridgeway,road constructors,it suited Marples to shut the railways down.He wouldn`t get away with this conflict of interest today,at the time,we had a pretty tame press.

 

 

I believe that Mr. Marples transferred all his road building interests away when he became Minister....

 

 

To his wife!

 

[Ruffnut Thorston]

In the early 1950s, the UK was still working to recover from WW2.

 

The debt incurred was quite crippling.

 

The drive to 'Export or die', prioritising materials for export production, etc.

 

There wasn't the Foreign Exchange currency to pay for increased fuel oil imports, no North Sea Oil then.

 

It made more economic sense to use the coal from UK mines.

 

The cunning plan being to move to electric propulsion.

 

It being far more efficient to burn the coal in power stations than individual locomotives.

 

It was going to take some time to electrify the railways, so a transitional period would require a fleet of steam locomotives, which was the Standard classes.

 

Shunting engines were already moving towards the Diesel Shunters, and that would continue, as the most economical method.

 

The 'Pilot' scheme was to evaluate the various UK made Diesel locomotives, by running examples, and decide on the best for volume orders.

 

This was sensible. The lack of Foreign Exchange, again, mitigated against ordering locomotives from outside the UK.

 

Politics though, came in...

 

That and the 'full' employment situation, which was to lead to the appeal to the commonwealth for labour, which shewed as a reluctance for people to go towards the perceived 'dirty' and low status work, including Transport.

 

This led to a 'U turn' from the original testing and sensible policy of electrification, to a big push to rid the UK of steam traction, and the ordering of volume quantities of Diesel locomotives from various UK makers, some of which had not even delivered the Pilot Scheme orders yet.

 

Then, the Beeching Report started a speed up of the contraction of the network.

 

This led to the traffic some of the newly built steam, and Diesel, traction was built for dying away, leading to a surplus of traction.

 

The scrapyards 'never had it so good', as the quantity of withdrawn stock, both traction, wagons, and coaches, far outstripped the capacity of the Railway Works to recycle!

 

The government policies towards the investment in the railways always seemed to favour other transport modes. Any proposal to electrify a route being made to 'pay its way, mile by mile', as opposed to the apparent financing of road building.

 

The original nationalised transport system had led to the shareholders being compensated, very well.

 

This was to lead to a financial burden to the nationalised industries.

 

The BRS, British Road Services, had made investment in new lorries.

 

The change in political party in charge led to some of the people that had recently been compensated for their companies being nationalised, being able to restart their road haulage business, using 'privatised' ex BRS infrastructure, at bargain prices.

 

The Road Haulage Association is now a very powerful political lobbying association...

 

Oops.  I seem to have gone off on one here!

 

 

 

Edited June 19, 2020 by Sarahagain
typo

[Il Grifone]

7 hours ago, sagaguy said:

 Ernest Marples,transport minister at the time ,made Beeching his useful idiot.Being a partner in Marples Ridgeway,road constructors,it suited Marples to shut the railways down.He wouldn`t get away with this conflict of interest today,at the time,we had a pretty tame press.

 

I understand that he avoided the conflict of interest by selling his shares (to his wife).

(I see Sarah beat me to it!)

 

I think the press is probably tamer now; we didn't have Murdoch then....

 

I understand that in an about face from the fifties 'the railways must pay their way, (Why? In any case, road transport certainly never did!*) today's subsidies to 'privatised' companies are rather higher than the losses of the fifties allowing for inflation. (these were supposed to be 'phased out' by 2003 but have actually increased).

 

* I remember a bit of 'union bashing' propaganda from across the pond in the 70s, attacking the 500 mile daily limit for train crews. They conveniently ignored the then current blanket 55 m.p.h. speed limit for road transport which would have allowed at most around 400 miles in an eight hour shift and ignoring the rather larger load hauled by the train.

 

IIRC it was a political decision to order only from British manufacturers. EMD already had a successful diesel electric design. An F series would not have fitted the British loading gauge, but we might have had the Class 66 a little earlier.

 

I recall one of the arguments for dieselisation was that the locomotives could be easily converted when electrification finally took place. (It didn't and they weren't.)

 

Not so Iong ago. I found a NYC report from 1946 that steam traction was actually cheaper than diesel. This was obviously quickly buried....

 

I seem to recall that the fifties argument was that despite both the first and fuel costs of diesel traction being about two and a half times greater than steam that the increased availability made it more convenient (based on being in use 22 hours a day). Yeah.... Pigs might fly etc..

Edited June 19, 2020 by Il Grifone

[Ruffnut Thorston]

As some US steam locomotives had been built to just fit in the majority of British loading gauges for the Transportation Corps in WW2, it would have been quite possible for the internal gubbins of a Diesel Electric loco to be fitted into a shell to suit the composite BR loading gauge...

 

Exactly what this would look like is a good modelling excuse!

 

Possibly not the F7 in BR livery made by some toy manufacturers...

 

There were Political, economic, and financial, reasons not to allow the tendering from overseas manufacturers.

 

Must support British manufacturers, and British jobs, that's political and economic...

 

Not having the actual dollars to buy from GMC EMD. That's financial.

 

A pity that lend-lease had stopped...

 

But the interest would have added yet more to the financial burden on the Railways...

 

Just when did the UK finally finish paying the US for its assistance in WW2.

 

Not so long ago I seem to recall?

 

 

 

 

Edited June 19, 2020 by Sarahagain
clarification...

[Nearholmer]

32 minutes ago, Sarahagain said:

it would have been quite possible for the internal gubbins of a Diesel Electric loco to be fitted into a shell to suit the composite BR loading gauge...

 

 

Depending upon power rating, yes, of course.

The LMS/SR/EE designs achieved probably the best that could be done at the time within British loading gauge in a single unit, 1600hp, rising to 2000hp.

 

A US manufacturer, Alco, did the same a few years later for military applications, the MRS1 type.

 

There was a huge thread here discussing all this c2016, but I can’t for the life of me find it just now.

 

 

Edited June 19, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Il Grifone]

For 'Treasury' read 'Taxpayer'. Income taxes were rather high, until Maggie's and Reagan's 'Trickle Down Economic's'* shifted it onto indirect taxes. (VAT was initially set at 10% and then reduced to 8% as it produced too much income.)

 

* I thought this reasoning was BS when I first heard it. It's never worked throughout history. Why should things suddenly have changed?

 

I read somewhere that railway shareholders were paid 3% as compensation. AFAIK it's still being paid....

 

Wasn't 1,600 HP more that a single F-unit?

Edited June 19, 2020 by Il Grifone