Were any of them any good?

[jjb1970]

I prefer the shorter length of Dublo super detail coaches to the very heavy, thick and deep window frames of Triang and Lima, and the very heavy silver frames of some models. I find Dublo coaches can create the illusion of a train in miniature which is what models are trying to achieve whereas when I look at old Triang and Lima coaches (except the Lima Mk.3) I just can't generate that illusion. Of course, ideally, and in today's world, we would want both scale length and convincing windows.

[Hroth]

54 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

I wonder when anyone will out a positive word in for my favourite, the Triang pseudo-08!  Useless pile of cra…!

 

You have to remember that the Triang "08" was designed to accept their 0-6-0 clockwork chassis too, which is why its oddly proportioned.  Their saddle tank loco (R.151) of the same era was similarly endowd with inelegant proportions for the same reason.  At least they had the sense to drop the saddle tank, I don't know why they carried on with the 08 when they had the Hornby 08 to play with.

 

I must say that I was surprised at you "liking" the HD Metrovick, as it has many of the same faults as the HD "Deltic". The attempt at the Metrovick was genuinely a box on rails and the underframe detail (ha!) was appalling.

 

Oh yes, and the Triang 31....

I've nothing against the appearance, and the motor bogie has decent pulling power, but its fake centre wheelset is as bad as the flangeless wheels that Hornby supply on their current Pacific pony trucks.  The funny thing is, the Airfix version of the 31 also has a fake center wheelset on the power bogie too...

 

 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Hroth
Just a bit more

[Steamport Southport]

The real engine the saddle tank was based on was oddly proportioned though. It was a C Class with a saddle tank fitted.

 

https://sremg.org.uk/steam/sclass.shtml

 

 

 

Jason

[Hroth]

3 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

The real engine the saddle tank was based on was oddly proportioned though. It was a C Class with a saddle tank fitted.

 

https://sremg.org.uk/steam/sclass.shtml

 

 

 

Jason

 

Oddly proportioned, but Triang made it worse...

 

 

 

[sncf231e]

15 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Just a bit of idle musing, about older RTR models.  I tend to think of them as being universally awful, poor runners, poor or missing detail, dimensional anomalies, noisy, clunky and generally of not much use to us. 

 

I agree when you look at UK products. I always felt and still feel sorry for UK model railway aficionados. The 00 stuff was and is far behind the continental H0 products I am used to.

Regards

Fred

[Rugd1022]

I remember being given an Airfix 31 to work on by a mate back in 1980 and thinking it was the bee's knees, particularly the bogies. After repainting, renumbering and weathering it and (gasp) fitting flush glazing all round it looked even better. Going back a lot further I had a Triang 31 in green livery which looked the part but I did think it a bit crude at the time. It surprised me how well it ran though.

 

When the Lima 50 came out I was over the moon and bought quite a few, but the motors were curmudgeonly sods most of the time and I now look forward to seeing the Accurascale version with a very large dose of relish.

 

It's strange to realise now that the 00 gauge Heljan 47 was released over twenty years ago and the 'tubby' aspect aside, I always liked the look of it. My brother bought six in Res livery as soon as it came out and asked me to weather them for him, looking back in many ways they are still nice models. MRJ raved over them in a very thorough review article c.2000.

 

The Mainline J72 seemed like a revelation at the time with it's separate wire handrails, it made my Hornby 57xx Pannier look like a toy, which of course it was.

 

We've come on leaps and bounds since then though - I wonder how we'll look back in another twenty years time on the models that are being released now, such as Accurascale's lovely Manor and 37 etc.

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, KeithMacdonald said:

I still have a Triang Hymek and a Triang/HD E3001

 

 

Have you thought of rewheeling them.  I believe Peter's do wheelsets that will run on code 100, and they are not bad runners.

[Not Jeremy]

The Triang Hymek is very believable, it's one of this pair.

 

 

Suitably "breathed on" by CK and with better wheels by Brian Clarke, who was the original owner. All these years later it  still runs beautifully and looks very "Hymek-ish".

 

That said, I think the Heljan Hymek is pretty much unimpeachable, a really lovely model.

[The Johnster]

Obviously a lot of love out there for the HD tinplate-sided mk1s.  The liveries were faultless, but they are still horribly undetailed and underscale to my taste, sorry, majority view recieved wisdom...

 

Another one to add to the rubbish pile, the Triang Hornby 37.  Wrong bogies (off the 31), silly little pinhead buffers, raised line edges for the swp, window pillars that made Triang and Lima mk1 coach sides look scale, and those hideous marker lights; ugh!  Their 47 wasn't much better.  Beyond redemption. 

 

For many years I thought that the saddle tank was an attempt at a Newport (Alexandra Dock & Railway) loco, probably from the 3-digit number which I took to be for a GW absorbed loco.  But, yes, more carp.  Had one as an anklebiter, and it was one of the smoothest runners I've ever had, ironically!

[31A]

5 hours ago, The Johnster said:

How can you make a scale model out of something so disproportionately short?  I agree about the motion, though, it was awesome for 1938, and ran like a sewing machine!  They were every bit as out of proportion as the Rovex Princess, which TTBOMK was the first RTR loco with cab detail!

 

Hardly short at all, really!

 

 

 

 

 The main difference is that the cab roof of the current model extends a bit further rearwards.  The main issue with the Dublo A4 body that I'm aware of is that it doesn't portray the 'hump' in the casing behind the chimney.

 

I have got a two-rail "Golden Fleece" stashed away somewhere, but it was easier to lay my hands on this body from a pre-War clockwork version.  Anyway, the casting is the same shape as far as I know.

 

 

 

[Captain Kernow]

3 minutes ago, Not Jeremy said:

The Triang Hymek is very believable, it's one of this pair.

 

 

Suitably "breathed on" by CK and with better wheels by Brian Clarke, who was the original owner. All these years later it  still runs beautifully and looks very "Hymek-ish".

 

That said, I think the Heljan Hymek is pretty much unimpeachable, a really lovely model.

I was going to mention the Triang Hymek, Simon. Doing that was a useful way for me to get back into the hobby after a short interregnum... But some years after I'd done it (and used it every time I took Engine Wood somewhere!), someone told me that the bogie centres were too close...

 

As for the Heljan Hymek, yes I agree with you, but a couple of people on this forum have pointed out what they think are faults with it - not that I am bothered...

 

[Steamport Southport]

5 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Obviously a lot of love out there for the HD tinplate-sided mk1s.  The liveries were faultless, but they are still horribly undetailed and underscale to my taste, sorry, majority view recieved wisdom...

 

Another one to add to the rubbish pile, the Triang Hornby 37.  Wrong bogies (off the 31), silly little pinhead buffers, raised line edges for the swp, window pillars that made Triang and Lima mk1 coach sides look scale, and those hideous marker lights; ugh!  Their 47 wasn't much better.  Beyond redemption. 

 

For many years I thought that the saddle tank was an attempt at a Newport (Alexandra Dock & Railway) loco, probably from the 3-digit number which I took to be for a GW absorbed loco.  But, yes, more carp.  Had one as an anklebiter, and it was one of the smoothest runners I've ever had, ironically!

 

I would disagree with that.

 

Remember the articles by Monty Wells and other modellers?

 

Far more interesting than opening a box!

 

 

Jason

[Not Jeremy]

Well yes, they are, (Triang Hymek bogie centres) but do/did any of us notice when operating playing with it?  You made a very lovely job of that Hymek Tim, it easily passes muster today, in my opinion.

 

I think the old Triang blue pullman had style too, and has only fairly recently been eclipsed on all fronts.

 

I bet nobody would do this to a Bachmann model though...

 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Not Jeremy
bogies

[Captain Kernow]

I remember my Triang Blue Pullman, what a great model that was at the time.

 

I also remember seeing the real thing, in Nanking Blue livery, speeding through Sydney Gardens in Bath when I was small. Apart from the dramatic appearance with such a striking livery, the one thing that stood out for me at the time was the fact that it had another engine at the back!

 

Nostalgia and affection for the old Triang model was probably why I bought the Bachmann one, when it came out years later. I didn't do anything with it, however, just sat in the Nutkin store and eventually got sent to Hattons...

 

[Captain Kernow]

The transition from 'train set' modelling to 'serious modeller' is probably different for most of us. We are all individuals and like to do things in our own way. But the path that I followed is probably not so different from many others and was certainly heavily influenced by those around me with the same interests.

 

I transitioned from Triang Super 4 track, in a conventional 'train set' setting to what I will call 'OO finescale', using SMP bullhead track and Romford wheels via an interim phase with Peco Code 100 track.

 

Back in 1973, when I was still in the train set phase, Triang Hornby brought out an 8750 pannier tank. The body was compromised, being based on their Jinty chassis and the cab side sheets were moulded way too thick, but to all intents and purposes, it certainly looked like what it was supposed to be and would form the basis for a half-decent scale model, provided you were prepared to put the work in.

 

Following the example of someone else who had titivated their pannier to a high standard, I eventually did the same to mine, carving plastic from the body, fitting separate handrails, Romford wheels, brake gear and individually-applied separate grills to the rear cab windows, fashioned from 5 amp fuse wire.

 

Unfortunately at the time, I didn't realise that the body still sat too high, or that the buffers were wrong, but it became my first 'scale' loco for my first 'serious' 4mm project, being joined a few months later by 4406 - a K's model.

 

I still have both locos, although the pannier is not used any more, given that we now have superior offerings from Mainline and Bachmann. The 44XX was rebuilt with a new chassis and Portescap motor in the 1980s and is still operational. Who knows whether it will be joined by a Rapido example...?

 

[Not Jeremy]

Ah yes, "Kingsbay", the Peco iteration as I recall.

 

Did you ever photograph it? I seem to recall that we all thought better of the model than you did!

 

Simon

[Neil]

What a splendid topic, such a change from those banging on about the need for 'a model to current standards' when they are perfectly good models of the particular engine, carriage or wagon already out there. I think there are two assessments to be made of 'any good'.

 

The first would be, can the model be scrubbed up so that it can cut it alongside what we would recognise as current good stuff? Here I think that several of the old Hornby Dublo  plastic bodied wagons fit the bill; I've done banana vans, gunpowder vans and a fruit D and I think that they all stand up well. From the Triang stable come the Cowans Sheldon hand crane and VIX ferry van. There may be others but these are the ones that I've tackled.

 

 

The second is, do they say railway to me? At the recent exhibition organised by the Corris Railway, in Machynlleth, there was a Dublo layout but what set it apart from the norm was that all the rolling stock was printed tinplate, no plastic, and the locos (three rail) had the glossy finish rather than the more matt finish of what I take to be later models. Anyway it looked superb and while in no way finescale or detailed, it screamed railway; I think because all the liveries matched the early British Railways era and the individual models all looked to be part of a set.

 

If we were to take an art parallel then we'd be looking at photo real and impressionist paintings and asking ourselves, do we recognise what they portray?

[Not Jeremy]

I agree, they look terrific Neil.

 

For myself, I have a real soft spot for the Wrenn rail blue version of the ex fish SPV parcels van, and equally the all blue Thompson BG from Bachman is deeply satisfying to my eyes.

 

Here they are, either side of a more recent Hornby offering on "Marshcastle", hauled by one of those hideously inaccurate Class 25 abominations(!)

 

 

And here's the Thompson in the parcels and motorail bay of the erstwhile "Rowley New Street"

 

 

Reading a lot of stuff these days, I do slightly get the feeling that a relentless pursuit of accuracy is bulldozing imagination and creativity into oblivion.

 

Not that I don't have "scale tendencies" of my own, of course.....

[The Johnster]

3 hours ago, Not Jeremy said:

The Triang Hymek is very believable, it's one of this pair.

 

 

Suitably "breathed on" by CK and with better wheels by Brian Clarke, who was the original owner. All these years later it  still runs beautifully and looks very "Hymek-ish".

 

That said, I think the Heljan Hymek is pretty much unimpeachable, a really lovely model.

 

Shows what can be done.  There are differences but you have to look a bit to see them, and if you didn't know which one was the better one, it would only be the cast mazak bogies that gave the old stager away.

[Captain Kernow]

3 hours ago, Captain Kernow said:

Back in 1973,                      Triang Hornby brought out an 8750 pannier tank. The body was compromised, being based on their Jinty chassis and the cab side sheets were moulded way too thick, but to all intents and purposes, it certainly looked like what it was supposed to be and would form the basis for a half-decent scale model, provided you were prepared to put the work in.

 

Following the example of someone else who had titivated their pannier to a high standard, I eventually did the same to mine

I thought I would get my old Triang Hornby pannier out and take a few photos.

 

This is what you got from Triang Hornby, back in 1973:

 

After a couple of months of work and a repaint, this was the result, it is unchanged from when I finished work on it in 1976. Here it is, posed on 'Bethesda Sidings':

 

 

 

 

I sometimes get interested in upgrading it further, but I probably won't, as I don't really have any GWR stock to run it with, it will need major work to the chassis to lower the ride height (probably a new chassis) and more work on the body to thin the cab side sheets to an acceptable thickness. To be honest, if I really wanted another 8750, it would now make more sense to start with a Bachmann one...

 

But back in the mid-1970s, locos the quality of even a bog standard out-of-the-box Bachmann pannier were a far off dream and only attainable by skilled kit or scratchbuilders.

 

 

[Not Jeremy]

This is sort of not quite in the right thread, but related.

 

My very first model train was the Playcraft clockwork "Bishopsgate" set, which thinking about it would have been purchased for me sixty years ago - sheesh!

 

It grew a bit with limited purchases from Woolworths, including the NBL diesel, the beautiful can motor from which I still have, (and hope to use in a new model in due course)

 

Later I graduated to Triang with "Winston Churchill" and a large oval of track, and so it went.

 

I have always liked the shape of the Playcraft shunter, and some years ago I cobbled together a sort of "modern" version, by combining an old body, the chassis from the Bachmann train set 0-6-0 and the cylinder and connecting rod assemblies from a dead Mainline 4MT.

 

The result is quite pleasing to my eyes, vaguely "USA Tank" ish.

 

 

In true "train set" style I could not get all the valve gear attached, but it doesn't really notice.

 

 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Not Jeremy
not

[Captain Kernow]

I really like that, just as I very much like your 0-4-0 industrial shunter, a bit Hunslet-ish (like the one at Norton Hill, I suppose).

 

[The Johnster]

HD/Wrenn/Dapol GPVs suffer in the same way as the similar heritage Fruit D; luckily for me there are better dimensioned Parksides with better chassis to replace them with at tolerable cost levels.  I have a Hornby Insulfish not-yet-an-SPV, and while it gets an occasional outing it just isn't a favourite for no reason I can put my finger on...

 

The impressionist side of models is interesting (well, I think it is anyway).  Why is it that some perfectly scale scratchbuilt museum-quality pieces, even weathered and dirtied not in museum condition presentation, just don't 'feel' like what they are models of, and some hopelessly crude coarse scale items do, and everything in between!  The HD 8F comes to mind, but my Hornby (second generation, not design-clever) 42xx is another.  It sort of plods about the place in exactly the same way as a real 42xx.  OTOH I've never seen a model of a 47 that really convinces me that I'm looking at a 47, only small, and I can't for the life of me put my finger on why; it just seems to be an odd shape for manufacturers to pin down, or perhaps real 47s move differently with all that dipping and swaying about like a windjammer rounding the Horn...

 

Realistic movement is a big ask, of course.  Real railway engines and stock are heavy, sprung, and ride on smooth rails with a palpable feeling of momentum and unstoppability even at quite low speeds (those of us who have witnessed even minor mishaps have had this impression very strongly reinforced; the forces unleased are monstrous, and terrifyingly unpredictable).  They dip forward under braking and rear backward under strong accelleration, lean out on curves, and bounce about all over the place, and while this may not be obvious to an observer unless he is looking head-on through binoculars or a telephoto lens, it all feeds in to the impression the scene makes on us.  Heavily loaded wagons exert a force related to 25tons per axle, which is enough to visibly depress the sleepers into the subsoil as they pass over them (my observations of loaded Port Talbot-Llanwern iron ore tipplers suggest that 25tons per axle may have been exceeded by a smidgeon on occasion; the earth shook!  You want a dead weight that feels and acts like dead weight, iron ore is your man; the damage caused by a 30mph derailment at the eastern thoat of Cardiff Central station, and the distance the train travelled before exhuasting it's momentum, were remarkable).  Even if this sort of motion could be scaled down, it would still look wrong as it would be far too fast, jerky, and 'undampened' by the sheer momentum of a real train.  My 42xx isn't bad at it, and the HD 8F is magnificent, but how would you go about recreating that predictably and controllably in an RTR model.  Fully compensated chassis would be a move in the right direction but I cannot see it becoming a mainstream RTR feature owing to the production costs. 

 

One of the attractions of the dark side is that 7mm models, especially metal ones, have this momentum to a degree that no 4mm can, never mind the smaller scales.  It should look as if it would hurt you if it ran into you, and does!

[Neil]

7 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

....  OTOH I've never seen a model of a 47 that really convinces me that I'm looking at a 47, only small, and I can't for the life of me put my finger on why; it just seems to be an odd shape for manufacturers to pin down, ....

 

I think I might know why. From some angles 47s look to be beefy and muscular, from others, long and lean. I can't imagine it's an easy shape to capture and maybe these conflicting impressions don't scale very well. For my money the Lima model best captures the look of 47, particularly if it's been sympathetically tweaked.

 

 

[Neil]

42 minutes ago, Captain Kernow said:

I thought I would get my old Triang Hornby pannier out and take a few photos.

 

This is what you got from Triang Hornby, back in 1973:

 

After a couple of months of work and a repaint, this was the result, it is unchanged from when I finished work on it in 1976. Here it is, posed on 'Bethesda Sidings':

 

 

 

 

I sometimes get interested in upgrading it further, but I probably won't, as I don't really have any GWR stock to run it with, it will need major work to the chassis to lower the ride height (probably a new chassis) and more work on the body to thin the cab side sheets to an acceptable thickness. To be honest, if I really wanted another 8750, it would now make more sense to start with a Bachmann one...

 

But back in the mid-1970s, locos the quality of even a bog standard out-of-the-box Bachmann pannier were a far off dream and only attainable by skilled kit or scratchbuilders.

 

 

 

-That's very nice CK, it reminds me of one that appeared in the Constructor, which had been re-shod with Dublo 8F wheels and an upgraded body similar to yours. A huge improvement on the Gaiety body on a Wrenn R1 chassis I had as a lad.