The history of the Triang/Wrenn/Lima N gauge range?

[John M Upton]

The CCT van was decent enough, have a few which make decent grounded van bodies.

 

Always wondered what happened to the toolings for the old N scale stuff. Is it still lurking in a dusty forgotten corner of the Hornby empire somewhere?

[Ben B]

9 minutes ago, John M Upton said:

The CCT van was decent enough, have a few which make decent grounded van bodies.

 

Always wondered what happened to the toolings for the old N scale stuff. Is it still lurking in a dusty forgotten corner of the Hornby empire somewhere?

 

With the tooling, I suppose it depends where it is. If it ended up here in the UK at any point recdntly I imagine it will have been weighed-in with Steptoe and Son...

 

Problem is I don't think there's room for it in this day and age. Personally I love the old Lima and Minitrix ranges, they're quirky and colourful and damned robust. But in an age where modellers will pay 30 quid for a wagon, just to know it has every unseen frame strut in place on the chassis, I can't see modellers accepting 'toy' n gauge :(

[John M Upton]

I was more thinking that one day Hornby suddenly entered the N scale market and Lazarus like, these old dinosaur era toolings suddenly resurfaced at eye watering prices!!!

[Ben B]

3 minutes ago, John M Upton said:

I was more thinking that one day Hornby suddenly entered the N scale market and Lazarus like, these old dinosaur era toolings suddenly resurfaced at eye watering prices!!!

 

That's a fair point- N gauge 'Railroad' maybe, but yeah it probably would be astronomically priced. At least the relative indestructibility of those models means there's plenty secondhand now. And lets face it, a Lima n gauge loco that ran appallingly in 1973 will run just as appallingly in 2023 ;)

[Steamport Southport]

ISTR they weren't exactly cheap back in the day. Unless you had a model shop like Hattons that used to flog them off to get rid of them....

 

Cost was probably the reason I never got properly got into N Gauge. I could pick up good quality 00 from Mainline and Airfix for far less.

 

 

Jason

[montyburns56]

Did anyone ever buy the model of 86235 Novalty? 😁

 

https://lima-n-scale-locomotives.webnode.cz/album/electric-locomotives/img-6289-jpg/

 

[Ben B]

4 hours ago, montyburns56 said:

Did anyone ever buy the model of 86235 Novalty? 😁

 

https://lima-n-scale-locomotives.webnode.cz/album/electric-locomotives/img-6289-jpg/

 

 

It does look quite good in that livery, to be fair :)

[40152]

The Lima 31 from the 84-85 catalogue had a similar feel to the ‘big number’ 86 as well:

 

 

[RichardT]

On 06/09/2023 at 09:23, John M Upton said:

 

I was more thinking that one day Hornby suddenly entered the N scale market and Lazarus like, these old dinosaur era toolings suddenly resurfaced at eye watering prices!!!

 

Given how overscale the locos were, perhaps Hornby will re-release them as TT120…

 

RichardT

[montyburns56]

22 hours ago, 40152 said:

The Lima 31 from the 84-85 catalogue had a similar feel to the ‘big number’ 86 as well:

 

 

 

I remember that as I think that I had that catalogue. What's that saying about putting lipstick on a pig...

[cypherman]

Hi all,

Back in the day I ran a small N gauge layout. Mainly Minitrix with a couple of Grafar 0-6-0 tank engines. They were great as a 12 year old they were robust and worked. I was not interested counting rivets. They looked like the engines I wanted and that was enough. 12 year olds today probably are still the same. So I believe there would still be a market for them if targeted at the right people. I mean if Hornby thought they could make money from the awful abortion of the steam punk range they may consider it. But now they have reintroduced the new TT range it is less likely to happen. I must admit that I quite like TT scale. I personally think it is the best possible gauge for scale and space. But I will not be swapping my 00 for it. Too much invested in it.

[melmoth]

50 minutes ago, cypherman said:

I was not interested counting rivets. They looked like the engines I wanted and that was enough. 12 year olds today probably are still the same.

 

Spot on. You could have said "They looked like the engines I wanted them to look like and that was enough". The role of the imagination in play - which is what all our train sets are - is significant, but often understated or taken for granted.