Original Wrenn Wagons

[Sweet pea]

Hi can anyone help I'm looking to collect wrenn original wagons but ebay is like a minefield. Any other places sell original wrenn wagons.

[Captain Slough]

Well I am selling several original wrenn wagons in eBay currently so not sure how it's a minefield. Just search for wrenn theb use the filters to limit to just wagons. Loads on there.  It's not even an expensive thing to start collecting 

[Legend]

Yeah I’ve picked up quite a collection over the years from eBay and exhibitions/swapmeets .  Prices will vary if they are mint and boxed but generally you can pick them up £5 - £10. A particular favourite of mine are the Robertson’s Jams ones as Robertson’s was based in my home town of Paisley and my Aunt worked there( as a youngster I was told she made jam). Not sure if they are in anyway prototypical . 

[cypherman]

You could try Vectis auction house. They often have sales of model railway items. But they are a proper auction house with proper auction days.

https://www.vectis.co.uk/

[melmerby]

11 minutes ago, cypherman said:

You could try Vectis auction house. They often have sales of model railway items. But they are a proper auction house with proper auction days.

https://www.vectis.co.uk/

Also bear in mind that the hammer price does not include buyers premium or VAT.

[Il Grifone]

Masses (1000+) on eBay at the moment:

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p3519243.m570.l1311&_nkw=wrenn+wagons&_sacat=0

 

(I understand the "minefield", but Wrenn wagons are like that - they vary from Dublo originals to weird and wonderful pseudo private owners. (Apart from coal and tank wagons, these were not as common as model railway manufacturers would have us believe. (Blame Hornby and their biscuit vans from the 1920s!)

 

and odd bits:

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l2632&_nkw=wrenn+spares&_sacat=180250&LH_TitleDesc=0&_odkw=wrenn+wagons&_osacat=0

 

There are /were even some new ones Not so long ago, I bought some Prestwin bodies (and then stuck them on Dublo chassis, but that's me!).

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/wrenngalore?_trksid=p2047675.m3561.l2563

 

Strictly a new' boxed example should come with Dublo type couplings* to replace the Tri-ang horror.

* Not quite the same. Early ones were the same (and probably were actual ex-factory stock from Binns Road), but later on they modified the casting (several times) to take their pin point axles (a great improvement) and the push-on Dublo-type coupling.

 

I always regret not buying a mint boxed hopper for £9 about 20 years ago, but I see there is one available now for not much more which in real terms is a considerable drop in value.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/185844065875?epid=844511545&

Edited April 8, 2023 by Il Grifone

[Captain Slough]

I have 2 Wrenn NCB hoppers as cleared out by Dapol - they have Dapol couplers. which are too short and cause buffer-lock....

[Sweet pea]

Thanks for all the informative replies. So am I right in saying P4 boxes were before the Basildon works closed.

[locomad2]

Genuine Wrenn wagons are a nightmare as mentioned before, there is a lot of "private" wagons about and I avoid ebay as tend to be overpriced and not quite "Genuine" although a lot of small batches of almost anything came out of the wrenn factory and more so the Dapol at Llangollen.

 

Another reason there is lots of Wrenn unpainted and painted bodies on the 2nd hand market some with old imprints of Hornby Dublo transfers on the side. Easy now for anyone to print a name on the side, plus I've seen wrenn stickers for sale to attach names on sides of cement wagons.

 

 

Take above wagon picked it up recently for £2.33 (part of group purchase) at a local north west toy fair recently. Could be genuine as "book" says made between 73-83, but the "Wall's" definitely hand painted although its good paint work. What's more it's on the "rarer" Breakdown" packing van body, such there must have been quite a "glut" of Hornby Dublo bodies.

 

Still the wagon is reasonable quality  although this version has the old hanger axles not the pin point

[roythebus1]

There was indeed a glut of breakdown packing vans at Wrenn. they were getting rid of them at a ridiculously cheap price. I took advantage of that at the time and painted the bodies brown. I have several mounted on Airfix meat van chassis..

Edited April 13, 2023 by roythebus1

[Captain Slough]

1 hour ago, roythebus1 said:

There was indeed a glut of breakdown packing vans at Wrenn. they were getting rid of them at a ridiculously heap price. I took advantage of that at the time and painted the bodies brown. I have several mounted on Airfix meat van chassis..

now thats funny because in my collection of stuff I'm slowly auctioning off I found one vehicle that I'm pretty sure is an airfix body on a Dublo chassis

 

Also got several Airfix vans that were built in the 60s presumably with Dublo couplings in place of the Airfix ones - the standard Airfix coupling mounting pin was probably deliberately designed to be at the right height and the same diameter as a Dublo coupling mount.

[cctransuk]

49 minutes ago, Captain Slough said:

now thats funny because in my collection of stuff I'm slowly auctioning off I found one vehicle that I'm pretty sure is an airfix body on a Dublo chassis

 

Also got several Airfix vans that were built in the 60s presumably with Dublo couplings in place of the Airfix ones - the standard Airfix coupling mounting pin was probably deliberately designed to be at the right height and the same diameter as a Dublo coupling mount.

 

Indeed it was - the provided mounting pin is fractionally tight on a Peco / HD R2 coupling, and the inner two pins on the Airfix bufferbeams are intended to limit the sideways swing of the coupler.

 

The outer two bufferbeam pins were intended as attachments for Tri-ang tensionlock couplers - though this resulted in an excessive projection of the coupling.

 

CJI.

[roythebus1]

Hornby Dublo and Peco patents prevented others copying the coupling. that's how Mr.Pritchard of Peco made his fortune. Airfix used the American version! 

[locomad2]

5 hours ago, roythebus1 said:

There was indeed a glut of breakdown packing vans at Wrenn. they were getting rid of them at a ridiculously heap price. I took advantage of that at the time and painted the bodies brown. I have several mounted on Airfix meat van chassis..

 

This might explain the drop in price of the Hornby dublo breakdown van, some 40 years ago this was quite a rare item and considerable expensive. With a "glut" of bodies and easy to swop the chassis cheaper way to obtain a van. Plus about this time some quite convincing Replica boxes appeared on the market. I've noticed some boxes just don't "fade" like originals plus some original boxes had price marked by shop keepers in biro in old money, that ink doesn't fade either, while later ink does. Oh the Joy's of collecting

[5050]

On 12/04/2023 at 18:58, roythebus1 said:

 I have several mounted on Airfix meat van chassis..

I've got one mounted on a Ratio chassis for P4.  Built it years ago and no idea where it came from!

[andyman7]

On 12/04/2023 at 22:13, roythebus1 said:

Hornby Dublo and Peco patents prevented others copying the coupling. that's how Mr.Pritchard of Peco made his fortune. Airfix used the American version! 

It was Peco that had the patent, Hornby-Dublo licensed it for toy trains/RTR use. Triang wouldn't pay up and designed their own coupling. Indeed Triang were very resistant to being beholden to anyone else's Intellectual Property. Their first smoke generators were Seuthe but a chap called Cyril Fry offered to sell them the technology for a 'puffing' smoke generator. They looked at his engines and he named his price to take the lid off. They said 'no thanks' and went and developed Synchrosmoke, no more payments to Seuthe (or Mr Fry).

[GoingUnderground]

There are one or two dealers at shows who specialise in Wrenn. Try doing a search for Wrenn and you should find them as I know that at least one of them, Andy Dayton, has a website, https://www.wrennspecialist.co.uk/. I have no connection with him other than as as a satisfied customer.

[GoingUnderground]

On 12/04/2023 at 22:13, roythebus1 said:

Hornby Dublo and Peco patents prevented others copying the coupling. that's how Mr.Pritchard of Peco made his fortune. Airfix used the American version! 

Whilst British Trix paid up, same as Meccano did for Dublo, and used the Peco design.

[locomad2]

Minefield! and watch out for lots of "Forgers" or was it put together on a Friday afternoon in a factory.

 

Heres's a oddities and it's the rare "Hopper" again

 

 

 

The Wrenn is the tarmac hopper but been stuck on a break van chassis yet the chassis is a wrenn

 

 

The triang coupling has been removed and look at the clever way the peco coupling has been added.

 

I think it looks like a engineering wagon, however not impressed with the retailer trying to sell them in a Wrenn box at £20, although some lot cheaper no box

[GoingUnderground]

On 24/04/2023 at 13:44, andyman7 said:

It was Peco that had the patent, Hornby-Dublo licensed it for toy trains/RTR use. Triang wouldn't pay up and designed their own coupling. Indeed Triang were very resistant to being beholden to anyone else's Intellectual Property. Their first smoke generators were Seuthe but a chap called Cyril Fry offered to sell them the technology for a 'puffing' smoke generator. They looked at his engines and he named his price to take the lid off. They said 'no thanks' and went and developed Synchrosmoke, no more payments to Seuthe (or Mr Fry).

It's worth remembering that the Seuthe smoke generator added a lot to the price of the Triang locos which for a time were sold in With and without smoke options. For instance in 1962, the Princess loco R258 without Smoke was 54/7 = £2/14/7 = £2.73 whilst the same loco with smoke R258S was 70/5 = £3/10/5 = £3.52. By the way the tender R34 was extra at 6/8 = 33p. There were similar price differences ranging from 12/- (60p) to just under £1 on the other locos which had without and with smoke options, R59/59S 3MT, R259/259S  "Britannia", R350/350S L1, R354/354S Lord of the Isles, R356/356S Winston Churchill, and R54/54S CPR Hiawatha. This might not sound like a lot these days, but smoke added roughly 25% to the sale price of the loco.  The smoke unit was sold separately for 17/9 = 88p and it was possible to fit it to the non-smoke versions provided they had the modified chassis introduced to take the Seuthe smoke unit. So I think that cost/selling price was as much to do with the change from the Seuthe units to the Margate developed Synchrosmoke ones as the "not invented here" syndrome.

[Il Grifone]

Tri-ang dealers could fit the smoke unit to earlier models (there is a series of instructions). Presumably there was a large charge* for this, so I doubt many were done.

*Retail price of the smoke unit plus labour charge. (No VAT on the latter back then (a Common Market invention), but the spare part was liable to purchase tax.

 

The Tarmac hopper could well be a genuine 'end of range' clear out of left over bits, though the Peco couplings must be a later 'add-on'. Wrenn had their own plastic couplings.

[andyman7]

1 hour ago, Il Grifone said:

Tri-ang dealers could fit the smoke unit to earlier models (there is a series of instructions). Presumably there was a large charge* for this, so I doubt many were done.

*Retail price of the smoke unit plus labour charge. (No VAT on the latter back then (a Common Market invention), but the spare part was liable to purchase tax.

 

The Tarmac hopper could well be a genuine 'end of range' clear out of left over bits, though the Peco couplings must be a later 'add-on'. Wrenn had their own plastic couplings.

Yes, the instructions are in the Service Sheets and require a level of engineering that would not be routinely found in today's hobby shops, including grinding, drilling and tapping.

[Il Grifone]

I doubt it was routine even back then.

I suspect anything much beyond changing the brushes would have involved return to the factory. My local Meccano dealer certainly sent my Dublo repairs to Binns Road and I suspect Margate got the Tri-ang ones.

[Captain Slough]

remind me to post pictures of my Wrenn NCB hoppers. Bought from Dapol's mail-order store about a year after Wrenn closed down, they have what seems to be genuine wrenn chassis as well as bodies - and the right chassis - but Dapol couplings.. and came in Dapol boxes.

 

The Dapol coupling being shorter than the Hornby type that Wrenn used, they cant actually be run on curved track as the buffers clash

Edited April 29, 2023 by Captain Slough

[GoingUnderground]

Thinking further about Triang's attitude to other firms' intellectual property, they were not averse to using it. Well known examples are the helicopter car, the giraffe car, and, IIRC, the side tipping log carrier, which were all based on products made by the US firm Lionel. The relationship with Lionel seemed to be quite close, with at one point Triang Lionel science sets being included in the 9th edition (published January 1963) of the Triang Railways catalogue. I believe the sets were made by Lionel but sold in Triang Lionel branded boxes. t the time I thought it rather odd to include them in the model railway catalogue which, incidentally, was also the only time AFAIK that both the OO/H0 and TT ranges appeared in the same catalogue.