Does any real 'Gronk' have Tri-ang features?

[The Johnster]

Yes that's right, it used whatever current design of Triang, Triang Hornby, or Hornby generic Jinty chassis was in production at the time.  There has been one bodyshell retooling, in 1976.  This chassis is inaccurate for any model it has ever been used with, and TTBOMK is inaccurate for any UK prototype in 4mm scale.  It would be interesting to find if there was such a prototype, as this generic chassis could be used as a basis for modelling it...  But of all the inaccurate representations it has been used with, the 08 is by far the worst!  I mean, getting the frames and the wheels in the wrong places deliberately and then claiming that you make 'authentic scale models' (Triang said this on the boxes) is a bit much!

 

The purpose of this thread was to investigate if there is any mileage to be had out of using older RTR as a basis for current modelling to a tolerable standard.  'Tolerable standard' is a moveable feast dependent on your own individual standards and perceptions, but the Triang 08 is very definitely not such a model...

[kevinlms]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

 

 

The purpose of this thread was to investigate if there is any mileage to be had out of using older RTR as a basis for current modelling to a tolerable standard.  'Tolerable standard' is a moveable feast dependent on your own individual standards and perceptions, but the Triang 08 is very definitely not such a model...

Not exactly, the opening post was a question about whether any prototype 08, looked like the Tri-ang model, especially regarding the grill/radiator. Which to me, asks if the Tri-ang model was a model of a particular variant of the 08. Plenty of info so far on this thread that says, NO!

It was made to suit their existing parts bin.

[The Johnster]

Yes, confusing my threads, I’ve edited that paragraph out now.  I think you are right about the parts bin; I believe the incorrect axle spacing of the original Jinty chassis was to match the equally fictional Black Princess so that the same coupling rod stampings could be used; Lines was a strong advocate of this sort of production cost-effectiveness, and it was one of the factors that enabled Triang to survive where HD went under. 
 

This Jinty spacing continued to be a feature of Triang, Triang Hornby, and Hornby 0-6-0s well into recent times and the Railroad range; Hornby are currently taking pre-orders for Railroad S&DJR Jinties with a chassis directly descended from it, completely retooled several times but still preserving the axle spacing from the original Jinty model. 

[andyman7]

On 16/10/2023 at 03:27, jjb1970 said:

The Triang 08 must be one of the worst models ever. The body does do a reasonable job of representing a generic 08/EE shunter, crude and way off the pace but it's still very obviously a gronk type. however the bit below the body is awful and is one of the few instances where it is a fair comment to use that old modeller favourite - 'it looks nothing like an 08'.

 

It's not a very good model but 'worst model ever'? Does that include Hornby O gauge Royal Scots, Flying Scotsmen and Castles with 4-4-2 wheel arrangements? Or the Hornby Dublo Deltic? The Ever-Ready Tube Train? I would contend that although very coarse, it was at least possible to work out what it was supposed to be!

 

On 16/10/2023 at 10:38, giz said:

From around 1980 it appears to have been re-tooled with a new, more accurate body but still with inside frames:

 

http://www.hornbyguide.com/item_year_details.asp?itemyearid=163

 

The original one then looks to have been used in the Thomas range

 

23 hours ago, BernardTPM said:

Earlier than that. The new model (initially R.156) first mentioned in 1976. The retooled model featured an automatic uncoupling device for a while, but that had gone by 1980. A much better body and the steps up the front were separate metal pressings (very like those on the Brit/9F tender) but again it was hopeless below the running plate. There were some moulded guidelines round the cab and bonnet for Australian liveries. Of course, the 1976 catalogue only showed the pre-production mock-up and I'm not sure if it the new model was actually in the shops before 1977. The old tool version subsequently acquired a face and became Devious Diesel.

As @BernardTPM says the retool was 1976 but the auto-uncoupler mechanism survived until 1983, being used on the R780 blue version introduced in 1981 and on the green Task Force Action Set version.

[The Johnster]

7 hours ago, andyman7 said:

On 16/10/2023 at 03:27, jjb1970 said:

 

 

It's not a very good model but 'worst model ever'? Does that include Hornby O gauge Royal Scots, Flying Scotsmen and Castles with 4-4-2 wheel arrangements? Or the Hornby Dublo Deltic? The Ever-Ready Tube Train? I would contend that although very coarse, it was at least possible to work out what it was supposed to be!

 

If it isn't the worst model ever it's in the top ten, surely.  But this is very subjective and depends, I contend, on where you draw the line between model and toy.  My iPhone defines 'model' in this context as 'a representation, usually in miniature, to show the construction or appearance of something'.  A 'toy' in this context is 'an object, often a small representation of something familiar, for children or others to play with, a plaything'.  That doesn't help much; both can be regarded as represntations.  But a model by those definitions is illustrative or exemplary; it 'shows' the appearance or method of building of the thing it represents.  A toy does not have these conditions to replicate, as long as the child or other playing with it understands that it represents the idea of something it has done it's work.  I'm told that, as a rugrat, I would push one of mummy's knitting needles along the floor making choo-choo noises; in my head it was a train but only because I didn't have anything better to hand, and I doubt if I thought for a second it was actually anything other than a knitting needle that I'd be told to stop playing with at any moment.  It meant, represented, 'train', though.

 

I can only comment on my own delineation of the difference between toys and models, but I would have no hesitation in saying that Hornby 0 gauge stuff was all toys, as was the Ever Ready Tube Train.  The HD Deltic/DP2/whatever it was is clearly intended to be a model, but fails to satisfy the requirements of 'modelness' by not representing appearance or construction in any meaningful way.  The Rovex Black Princess is arguably a toy; again, it is intended to represent a Princess Royal but never claimed to do so accurately, nor did the six inch coaches, but we are in a bit of a grey area here.

 

I would contend that, abeit crudely, Triang in 1956 were starting to provide what were clearly models.  The Jinty, and 3F, suffered from all manner of inaccuracies, but there were goods wagons and Stanier passenger coaches for them to pull that were 'representations in miniature to show the construction or appearance of the thing they were models of.  Compromises were made to make production cheaper and easier, and they sat too high off the rail to match the Black Princess, built to that height for the front bogie to negotiate RTR gradient changes on curve as described in the trackplan books without fouling on the cylinders, but I'd say they were definitely models.

 

Now we come to what were already and obviously to my 4-year old gaze the dogs.  These were the 08 (we didn't call them that then) and the '748' Saddle Tank on the Jinty chassis.  The diesel was obviously wrong; I'd seen diesel shunting engines on Cardiff Docks and while the bodyshell was sort of in the ball park, the chassis was wrong, inexcusably hopelessly irredeemably wrong.  The loco, even to me, looked too tall, and I later discovered that this was deliberate in order to house the spring for the clockwork version.  The same applied to 748, which for some years I assumed to be a rough shot at a Newport (Alexandra Docks & Railway) Company engine I'd seen a photo of somewhere, possibly my early guide, H.C.Casserley's  'Observer's Book of Railway Locomotives'.  I wanted a Jinty for xmas (1958?) but father being father bought 748 because it was ten bob cheaper; it was a good runner, though, and it's chassis ended up under a (very) ersatz early-teen kit-bashed 56xx involving an Airfix kit 61xx and some of the new wonder material, plasticard...

 

I don't think I could manage placings, but the following models would make up my top ten worst RTR models:-

 

. 08.  We've discussed this,

. '748'.  I discovered later that it was allegedly based on the Southern's unique 'S' class, but I'd have to say more outstationed than based...

. Smokey Joe.  I can excuse a lot of starter-set toys such as Nellie orTarmacadam, or odd little 0-4-0s from Lima or Jouef, as nobody is pretending that they are models, they are unrepentant and honest toys.   But Smokey Joe could so easily have been a workable basis for conversion into a Nielson pug for railway or industrial work.  Instead it's insanely oversized in every dimension.

. Black Princess.  Stunted

. HD Duchess. Also stunted, but you'd have to admire the Walchaert's on HD locos.

. HD pseudoDeltic.  Also stunted, cheap and nasty plastic.

. Cheating a bit here, as this is two groups of engines, the HD 0-6-2T and the Wrenn 2-6-4T, because of the spurious false liveries they were turned out in. 

. Wrenn WC in neverwazza Southern malachite.

. Triang 82xxx tank.  Why, in the holy name of George Jackson Churchward, ruin a tolerable model with those stupid little wheels...

. Cheating again, many examples. pancake motor tender drives with the cogs showing.  I mean, come on!!!

 

No doubt many more could and will be added, but that's enough anti-wishlisting for now11

Edited October 17, 2023 by The Johnster

[BernardTPM]

Was the HD Deltic body also made in plastic? The one a friend had had a diecast body. Agreed it was stunted and had many detail errors. I can't help thinking some of the latter may be because it was based on pre-production drawings/artist impressions.

[john new]

36 minutes ago, BernardTPM said:

Was the HD Deltic body also made in plastic? The one a friend had had a diecast body. Agreed it was stunted and had many detail errors. I can't help thinking some of the latter may be because it was based on pre-production drawings/artist impressions.

The H Dublo Deltic was metal. From various items I have read Meccano were shafted as the model was based on pre-production drawings and the real versions as built had massive variations. 

[The Johnster]

Yes, I’ve heard that as well.  Not sure I believe it, even a rough sketch of EE’s intended loco would show something much longer than that, if the concept of a twin-engined diesel-electric didn’t already suggest something quite impressively sized.  Can’t off-hand remember when the model was introduced, but DP1, the blue Deltic prototype, appeared in 1955 and was used on Liverpool trains. so surely Binn’s Rd. knew that the model was ridiculously shortened

[andyman7]

14 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

If it isn't the worst model ever it's in the top ten, surely.  But this is very subjective and depends, I contend, on where you draw the line between model and toy.  My iPhone defines 'model' in this context as 'a representation, usually in miniature, to show the construction or appearance of something'.  A 'toy' in this context is 'an object, often a small representation of something familiar, for children or others to play with, a plaything'.  That doesn't help much; both can be regarded as represntations.  But a model by those definitions is illustrative or exemplary; it 'shows' the appearance or method of building of the thing it represents.  A toy does not have these conditions to replicate, as long as the child or other playing with it understands that it represents the idea of something it has done it's work.  I'm told that, as a rugrat, I would push one of mummy's knitting needles along the floor making choo-choo noises; in my head it was a train but only because I didn't have anything better to hand, and I doubt if I thought for a second it was actually anything other than a knitting needle that I'd be told to stop playing with at any moment.  It meant, represented, 'train', though.

 

I can only comment on my own delineation of the difference between toys and models, but I would have no hesitation in saying that Hornby 0 gauge stuff was all toys, as was the Ever Ready Tube Train.  The HD Deltic/DP2/whatever it was is clearly intended to be a model, but fails to satisfy the requirements of 'modelness' by not representing appearance or construction in any meaningful way.  The Rovex Black Princess is arguably a toy; again, it is intended to represent a Princess Royal but never claimed to do so accurately, nor did the six inch coaches, but we are in a bit of a grey area here.

 

I would contend that, abeit crudely, Triang in 1956 were starting to provide what were clearly models.  The Jinty, and 3F, suffered from all manner of inaccuracies, but there were goods wagons and Stanier passenger coaches for them to pull that were 'representations in miniature to show the construction or appearance of the thing they were models of.  Compromises were made to make production cheaper and easier, and they sat too high off the rail to match the Black Princess, built to that height for the front bogie to negotiate RTR gradient changes on curve as described in the trackplan books without fouling on the cylinders, but I'd say they were definitely models.

 

Now we come to what were already and obviously to my 4-year old gaze the dogs.  These were the 08 (we didn't call them that then) and the '748' Saddle Tank on the Jinty chassis.  The diesel was obviously wrong; I'd seen diesel shunting engines on Cardiff Docks and while the bodyshell was sort of in the ball park, the chassis was wrong, inexcusably hopelessly irredeemably wrong.  The loco, even to me, looked too tall, and I later discovered that this was deliberate in order to house the spring for the clockwork version.  The same applied to 748, which for some years I assumed to be a rough shot at a Newport (Alexandra Docks & Railway) Company engine I'd seen a photo of somewhere, possibly my early guide, H.C.Casserley's  'Observer's Book of Railway Locomotives'.  I wanted a Jinty for xmas (1958?) but father being father bought 748 because it was ten bob cheaper; it was a good runner, though, and it's chassis ended up under a (very) ersatz early-teen kit-bashed 56xx involving an Airfix kit 61xx and some of the new wonder material, plasticard...

 

I don't think I could manage placings, but the following models would make up my top ten worst RTR models:-

 

. 08.  We've discussed this,

. '748'.  I discovered later that it was allegedly based on the Southern's unique 'S' class, but I'd have to say more outstationed than based...

. Smokey Joe.  I can excuse a lot of starter-set toys such as Nellie orTarmacadam, or odd little 0-4-0s from Lima or Jouef, as nobody is pretending that they are models, they are unrepentant and honest toys.   But Smokey Joe could so easily have been a workable basis for conversion into a Nielson pug for railway or industrial work.  Instead it's insanely oversized in every dimension.

. Black Princess.  Stunted

. HD Duchess. Also stunted, but you'd have to admire the Walchaert's on HD locos.

. HD pseudoDeltic.  Also stunted, cheap and nasty plastic.

. Cheating a bit here, as this is two groups of engines, the HD 0-6-2T and the Wrenn 2-6-4T, because of the spurious false liveries they were turned out in. 

. Wrenn WC in neverwazza Southern malachite.

. Triang 82xxx tank.  Why, in the holy name of George Jackson Churchward, ruin a tolerable model with those stupid little wheels...

. Cheating again, many examples. pancake motor tender drives with the cogs showing.  I mean, come on!!!

 

No doubt many more could and will be added, but that's enough anti-wishlisting for now11

As you say, it's subjective, and will also reflect personal interests. Of the above list I probably wouldn't include the Duchess because despite dimensional errors and the small wheels it was a step forward for its time towards a scale model.

Conversely, I'd always include Hornby's Class 29 (introduced in 1978) precisely because to the uninitiated it looks like a reasonable model of a loco yet it is so unforgivably wrong in so many areas that it defies belief. The tools were based on a Class 21 with the headcode boxes of the Class 29 added to the front whilst retaining the end door outlines of the unmodified Class 29. As a Class 21 it would have been inaccurate; as a Class 29 it was hopeless, None of the original releases used any authentic livery and they chose numbers for some locos that were never converted to Class 29s. It was even re-released in China days with a 5 pole motor, with all the tooling errors perpetuated; the livery was OK for the green ones but still wrong for the blue ones. 

[Wickham Green too]

11 hours ago, The Johnster said:

... even a rough sketch of EE’s intended loco would show something much longer than that, ...

But can you imagine a full-length model trying to get round the toy train curves of the day ??!? ...... that was a necessary compromise in the circumstances.

[Nearholmer]

On 15/10/2023 at 17:34, The Johnster said:

The answer, probably, is that it didn't occur to anyone.

It did occur to people, and the German (Austrian?) loco that was tried on the LNER was an example of a design for branchline use as much as anything else. The SR investigated the possibility of fitting engines to the “milk van” power cars made redundant when the single-phase OLE was dismantled. I am fairly certain that the issue at the time wasn’t lack of imagination, it was the low power/weight ratio of diesel engines, and their high cost compared to steam locos.  
 

Low power and high weight are no objection in shunting, in fact high weight is a positive advantage, and low power no disadvantage. Where power is needed is where speed is needed, and for even branchline use the powers on offer in sensible sizes and weights were too low. And, as I say, diesel engines were pricey.

 

Hence in domestic mainline railway use diesel engines found homes first in shunting locos and railcars. It wasn’t until cWW2 that the engine power/weight ratios had risen to the point where the sort of mixed traffic loco you envisage, c500hp, was really feasible within sensible package sizes, which is how the export predecessors to the English Electric Type 1 emerged in the late 1940s. The sorts of whopper diesel locos for main-line use in export markets, and the ones built on the continent in the late 1930s, were a bit different, because they could be big in all dimensions, and they sure were, especially length and weight! Even in the US the challenge was the same, but they had the advantage of a very large loading gauge and even secondary routes fit for quite high axle loadings, as well as huge domestic markets that made the costs of innovation more bearable.

 

The LMS diesel programme was a work of genius, very well structured, right way way through to nationalisation ….. if the war hadn’t happened it would almost certainly have led to far quicker adoption of dieselisation than happened under BR. The technical brain behind it was a chap called Tommy Hornbuckle, a sort of forgotten hero of British railway engineering.

 

 

[The Johnster]

I'd say the pseudo-Deltic was a compromise too far.  Contemporary models with 6-wheel bogies from Triang like the EM1 and Brush Type 2 were fine on such curves, and were not exactly short.  Only a few years later Trix produced a 3.8mm scale Western, similar length to a Deltic, which also managed 13" radius.  To be fair to HD, there weren't many big diesel prototypes around when they produced their pseudo-Deltic, and they didn't initially describe it as a Deltic or give it a number, it was somewhate cumbersomely a 'Diesel-Electric Co-Co locomotive', I don't think it was even ascribed to EE.  Looking at the alternatives suitable for pulling express coaches in 1960, there was the Class 40/Peak family, which would have been really hard to run on 13" radius, and the Warships, which would have gone nicely with the Castles  and could have been done to scale.

 

Given that their other diesels, the 08 and the 20, were both EE products, you might wonder if there was a tie-in of some sort with Newton-le-Willows, even if it was only Frank Hornby going on works visits.  The 'shafted' story is that he was aware that EE had been asked to produce a production Deltic for the ECML, and either EE witheld details or bodyshell details changed during the development and building, but as I say the original blue 'Deltic' DP1 prototype had been around a while and he knew how big that was!  DP2 was in the offing as EE's bid for the upper Type 4 range that experience with the Modernisation Plan Type 4s had created a market for, and may have been confused with the production Deltics in some way; significant that the model intitially appeared in a plain green livery, which seemed to be an EE 'thing' on both DP2 and the 37s.  There's a good bit of wobble room for plain misunderstanding without claims of 'shafting'.

Edited October 18, 2023 by The Johnster

[Grumbleweed]

On 15/10/2023 at 20:21, The Johnster said:

They were neither fish nor fowl, too big to outclass the 08s, too small to match 22s or 37s, too slow for main line work, and too weak in the brakes for any job that was not on level track (and we all know how common this was in their South Wales stomping grounds).

 

Despite their unsuitability for trip work, they proved very effective as heavy industrial locos in private service for the NCB, the steel industry, and others, especially as they were sold off at a knockdown price apparently.  

 

Did the lack of effective braking affect the Class 14s in their role as heavy industrial locos?

[Halvarras]

13 hours ago, andyman7 said:

 

Conversely, I'd always include Hornby's Class 29 (introduced in 1978) precisely because to the uninitiated it looks like a reasonable model of a loco yet it is so unforgivably wrong in so many areas that it defies belief. The tools were based on a Class 21 with the headcode boxes of the Class 29 added to the front whilst retaining the end door outlines of the unmodified Class 29. As a Class 21 it would have been inaccurate; as a Class 29 it was hopeless, None of the original releases used any authentic livery and they chose numbers for some locos that were never converted to Class 29s. It was even re-released in China days with a 5 pole motor, with all the tooling errors perpetuated; the livery was OK for the green ones but still wrong for the blue ones. 

 

The Class "29" was a massive disappointment, following shortly after the Class 25 which at least looked 'right' (in the body and bogies - the bit in between was the biggest issue), to the point where many Hornby bodies have been placed on Bachmann chassis to this day (see the 'emgauge70s' website for some great examples). The Class "29"s best feature was the bogie mouldings which appeared to have come from a different source - even the 'SKF' on the axlebox covers was legible! The Chinese versions were certainly better finished and correctly numbered as 29s, although the blue models' full yellow ends were not really full and the real D6119 was never green as a 29. So I guess that leaves D6130 as the best of the bunch then!

[DCB]

On 17/10/2023 at 23:23, The Johnster said:

 

If it isn't the worst model ever it's in the top ten, surely.  But this is very subjective and depends, I contend, on where you draw the line between model and toy.  My iPhone defines 'model' in this context as 'a representation, usually in miniature, to show the construction or appearance of something'.  A 'toy' in this context is 'an object, often a small representation of something familiar, for children or others to play with, a plaything'.  That doesn't help much; both can be regarded as represntations.  But a model by those definitions is illustrative or exemplary; it 'shows' the appearance or method of building of the thing it represents.  A toy does not have these conditions to replicate, as long as the child or other playing with it understands that it represents the idea of something it has done it's work.  I'm told that, as a rugrat, I would push one of mummy's knitting needles along the floor making choo-choo noises; in my head it was a train but only because I didn't have anything better to hand, and I doubt if I thought for a second it was actually anything other than a knitting needle that I'd be told to stop playing with at any moment.  It meant, represented, 'train', though.

 

The H/D Deltic and Triang Diesel  Shunter pretty much tie for worst representation of a prototype in their respective ranges but there are a whole lot ofTrix and Graham Farish locos  which are even worse even restricting ourselves to  00 or  3.8mm ft Trix scale. and not including Playcraft.
The Diesel  Shunter and SR Saddle tank were designed for the Triang  clockwork chassis which required extra space high up to allow the spring to unwind and and in addition to being boxy bodies they were made substantially taller than "Scale".   The same bodies also fitted the Jinty chassis using an adaptor but the jinty body  did  not fit the clockwork chassis as the spring fouls the inside of the boiler.  Likewise the Triang 2-2-0 T -  clockwork loco has a boxy thing on the boiler to take the spring as it unwinds  and that body also fits the 0-4-0  X04 motor chassis  whereas the  "Polly" body does not fit the clockwork chassis.

[The Johnster]

2 hours ago, Grumbleweed said:

 

Did the lack of effective braking affect the Class 14s in their role as heavy industrial locos?

 

Probably not, or at any rate not too much, as speeds would be much lower and distances travelled in the working day would be less than in BR service, both of which reduce the likelihood of runaways.  Also, main line work has longer gradients, which give the train more time to overcome the loco's efforts to restrain it.

[Rhydgaled]

On 15/10/2023 at 10:32, bécasse said:

You have missed the most obvious difference, the "standard" 350hp shunters had outside frames, that Tri-ang model, being mounted on their "Jinty" chassis had inside ones! What is more remarkable is that I am not convinced that the much later Hornby (and perhaps Bachmann) models match precise prototypes although their "generic" appearance is good.

For many years I think I might well have missed that the chassis was totally wrong - probably because I'm not very familar with the real thing. I was however aware of it (probably from reading rmweb) before starting this thread - I forgot to mention the wrongness of the chassis because it was just the body of mine (a hand-me-down model which presumably once belonged my father or an uncle) that I was examining.

 

On 15/10/2023 at 02:57, kevinlms said:

Here's a photo as to why the extra box is on the side. It's never been removed, even though the clockwork version was discontinued many years ago.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204463120089?hash=item2f9af39ed9:g:erQAAOSwKExlBEMX

Well, I learned something new there! The hole on the side is filled-in on the non-clockwork models though, so the tooling must have been modified slightly to acheive that?

 

On 15/10/2023 at 19:58, F-UnitMad said:

A few Bescot Gronks had side skirts a bit like on that Triang one, except they were stiff canvas or rubber, to help prevent water ingress from Oxley carraige wash.

I hadn't noticed the 'skirt', thanks for pointing that out. I've now found a picture which shows a skirt-fitted 08 next to a normal one - the inside frames seem much less obvious with the skirts as well. I wonder if Tri-ang did that deliberately.

 

On 17/10/2023 at 03:16, kevinlms said:

On 17/10/2023 at 01:19, The Johnster said:

The purpose of this thread was to investigate if there is any mileage to be had out of using older RTR as a basis for current modelling to a tolerable standard.  'Tolerable standard' is a moveable feast dependent on your own individual standards and perceptions, but the Triang 08 is very definitely not such a model...

Not exactly, the opening post was a question about whether any prototype 08, looked like the Tri-ang model, especially regarding the grill/radiator. Which to me, asks if the Tri-ang model was a model of a particular variant of the 08. Plenty of info so far on this thread that says, NO!

It was made to suit their existing parts bin.

You're both right to an extent. I think I must have started taking much more of an interest in shunters when Model Rail announced their class 11/12 project - I'm not even sure if I realised (or cared) that there was more than just the class 08s and 09s before that. Ignoring the shared 0-6-0 chassis, which we all argee is wrong, I was (as kevinlms correctly guessed) wondering whether the Tri-ang model was actually based on one of the more-obscure (ie. not the class 08) types. Even if the body couldn't be pinned down to model of a specific type, I also wondered whether it could be a generic mash-up created using elements (such as the different grill/radiator, the 'clockwork box' and the somewhat Bescot-like 'skirt') which all existed in reality but not all together on the same loco. A significantly-younger and more-naive me once bought a Hornby 61xx thinking the GWR only had two designs of Prairie tank ('small' (with straight-sided tanks) and 'large' (with angled tanks)) - I know better now but probably still have alot to learn). I thought perhaps a Tri-ang model designer could have made a similar mistake and incorporated elements of one loco into a model of something that was supposed to be something else.

[kevinlms]

There is an element of not knowing what the prototype looked like BEFORE receiving a model of one. Certainly in the case of the 'Jinty' 0-6-0T, the first that I had knowingly seen one, was when I saw the one in the catalogue and so the model looked like that in the flesh!

 

Unlike many on this site, who remembered and even worked with daily steam, I lived in an area which changed almost exclusively to electric traction (the old LT&SR - the eastern end at that), when I was very young and so didn't see prototype steam to compare the Hornby models with.

 

So yes, it ought to be forgiven that there was a good reason why many of us thought that many models, were better than they really are! It wasn't until I was in my mid teens (and living in Australia) that I started buying magazines and finding out more about the prototypes.

My late father didn't bring such magazines home - mainly because he had read them (at least the parts that interested him) in the newsagents. A practice that I detest to this day! I give magazines a 30 second browse, before deciding, yay or nay to purchasing.

[The Johnster]

I was introduced to many classes by Triang catalogues as a child, and as the local fare in Cardiff was GW and BR standards, nothing in the catalogues resembled anything I'd ever actually seen until the Triang Britannia came out, 1961?  I'd seen 08s on Cardiff Docks but even then I did not consider that they resembled the models because of the inside frames and miles-off axle spacing.  HD had produced Castles, but I was less familiar with their stuff at first.

 

But at about the same time as I got my first Black Princess set, an Uncle gave me H.C.Casserley's 'Observer's Book of Railway Locomotives'.  Much of the details were over my rugrat/anklebiter head, but there were pictures and my head spent a lot of time between its covers.  Then I went on a family visit to Aunt Nora who lived in Tamworth; I was seven or eight but I saw locos I knew from the catalogues, including Princesses and a Red Duchess on the up 'Caledonian'.  Uncle Bob, Nora's husband, a tall strong steelworker who had no trouble lifting me on to his shoulders, took me to watch the trains, and that Duchess, doing about 90 with 14 on, is plain in my memory from 63 years ago!  For many years I thought I'd been to the famous Field, but I believe that was south of the station and our viewing spot was about half a mile north of it.

 

By that time there were items in the catalogues that I recognised, such as the HD Castle, it's Triang TT cousin, and the TT large prairie.  But Casserley taught me a lot, including wheel arrangements and much else such as the concept of four big companies made up of pre-grouping constituent and absorbed companies and then nationalised into BR, but the infamous, scandalous, and wonderful Uncle Ted, once a restaurant car steward on the Port to Port Express (Barry-North Shields), also instilled the history into me.  I started spotting in 1962, and in 1963 had my first Ian Allan 'Combined', another treasure trove of new information and by now I was noticing driving wheel diameters, power classes, and route availability as well as learning about dmus (I was familiar with the WR's already) and diseasels, electrics, emus and such. 

[sandwich station]

On 16/10/2023 at 13:27, jjb1970 said:

The Triang 08 must be one of the worst models ever. The body does do a reasonable job of representing a generic 08/EE shunter, crude and way off the pace but it's still very obviously a gronk type. however the bit below the body is awful and is one of the few instances where it is a fair comment to use that old modeller favourite - 'it looks nothing like an 08'.

 

Does if it's standing next to a platform. :) 

[Nearholmer]

Something to bear in mind about these “classic period” one-piece, plastic moulded bodies is that somebody had to design them not as models, but as mouldable bits of plastic, which didn’t sag, warp etc too much in the few seconds between coming out of the mould and cooling down, and which were reasonably proof against the rigours of bedroom floor railway building.
 

My reading of the Triang 350hp-ish loco body is that some of the features, deep footplate valance, maybe the horizontal grilles, might have something to do with the realities of plastic moulding, in the same way that the chassis had everything to do with economies of scale within a toy company.

 

As a sort footnote, it’s easy to overlook at this distance in time how advanced the plastic mould designs used by Hornby (real Hornby, not the modern iteration) from the late-50s were. They commissioned work from the most advanced tooling designers and toolmakers in what was still a fairly new field of work, and as a result produced things that were initially a good way ahead of what Triang was doing in a technical sense, although (a) it cost them an absolute mint of money to do it, and (b) everyone was leapfrogging one another at a tremendous rate in this arena. When you look at it, everyone, Triang, Hornby, Kitmaster. Airfix, and of course all of their oversees peers, did an amazing job of learning and exploiting a new technology in a very short time.

[melmoth]

On 15/10/2023 at 11:30, 33C said:

The LMS 0.6.0 (08) D3/7, 7080-7119,diesels had jackshaft drive and seem to match the body style.

 

I seem to remember Pat Hammond writing in one of his volumes on Hornby that the '08' was based on the jackshaft drive shunters. The model obviously didn't have the jackshaft drive, but it would explain why it didn't have outside frames.

[Nearholmer]

TBH, I don’t ‘buy’ that, because, as well as having some strange features, it has several features that are very distinctive to the EE350 two motor locos, notably the generator compartment filter panels, and the inspection cover (?) on the fuel tank. If it’s meant to be one of the jackshaft classes, I’d be interested to know which. The only thing about it that might lead to the belief that it was based on them is the horizontal radiator louvres, which were a feature of the Armstrong Whitworth ones, but nothing else about it resembles them. It’s even less like them than it is like the familiar 08 family.

 

Based on a combination of mould design, and cheese before bedtime, I reckon.

 

 

Edited October 21, 2023 by Nearholmer

[33C]

The Dick Kerr F class for Victoria Railways would sort of explain the "skirt"?

[Wickham Green too]

I don't think anyone's mentioned the English Electric prototypes EE226 & EE227 ( D226/7 ) : inside framed, longer wheelbase than an 08 and horizontal radiator louvres .... introduced in 1956 so might have been based* on the contemporary Triang model ! 😁

 

 

 

 

 

* Very, Very loosely inspired !