Morphaniel Posted October 23, 2011 Share Posted October 23, 2011 My father is downsizing and has decided he will never have time or space to build the model railway he talked of since marrying my mum and putting his stuff into boxes... There was a brief period when his collection came out into daylight again when myself and my brother were children and since it provided the initial spark for my own railway modelling adventures I decided to look through the boxes for anything that I would like as a keepsake. Most of the collection got pretty messed up by us as children but there is a near mint Triang Britannia (R259) and a near mint Triang Princess (R53). Either would do as a keepsake but neither will really run well on my Code 75 DCC layout so I was wondering if there were or are any replacement chassis kits or chassis upgrade experience that might bring either chassis up to date to the point where an upgraded, working keepsake could be achieved. Replacement chassis of original vintage are easy to obtain but the locos run well as they are. So if a real upgraded chassis isn't possible I will just clean them up and put them on show in the railway room. I imagine genuine upgrade kits, if they existed, are out of production but if anyone knew of one it would give me something to look for on eBay and elsewhere... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stewartingram Posted October 23, 2011 Share Posted October 23, 2011 I've said it before on here a few times so I am repeating myself a bit! I'm from the "old school" of "Adaptive Engineering" (ok then, a bodger). I have for many years been building a collection for my ultimate layout which is now well under way, though stalled awaiting point motors. My interest is East Anglia late steam/early diesel, I basically will use any source of model if it is suitable. Hence (sorry for the ramble) I have in my collection various Triang chassis under original (though modified) bodies or powering bodyline kits. My track is handbuilt code 75, "basically" to Peco standards though "actually" with finer clearances. ALL my Triang wheels work on it. As a former repair agent for the range I became familiar with the construction of the models. It is easy to adjust the back-to-back with a screwdiver levering against the non-insulated wheels, too much and you squeeze it back with your fingers. Dimension? depends on the standard you use, as mine is a tad finer I'm not quoting a figure but measure the present RTR for a starting point. Trust me it works! I would add that I have a policy of adding extra pickups to as many wheels as possible to aid slow running, aided by an old design of PWM controller from a Wireless World design from the '70s. I'm quite happy with an old Triang chassis from a Jinty, X04 motor, 20:1 gears, on fine code 75 track, and going so slowly you can watch a Triang coupling hook rise gently over the bar on the adjacent vehicle. (Mind you I use Sprat & Winkle now but thats another story...) Don't go modifying things yet, try my way, at least i's reversible! Stewart Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les Bird Posted October 23, 2011 Share Posted October 23, 2011 If your Triang locos are very old, you may find that the flanges will catch on the rail fastenings. It's fairly straightforward to replace the Triang wheels with Romford/ Markits wheels. You will need to use brass bushes in the exisitng axle holes to reduce the diameter from 9/64ths of an inch to 1/8th. Don't forget that you will need a bush for the gear wheel too. As the wheels are narrower, some fibre washers may be needed to take up the slack between the wheel backs and the chassis sides. I have two old Triang chassis rewheeled with Hornby Dublo wheels and one with Romford wheels. The XO4 motors will soldier on for years. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stewartingram Posted October 23, 2011 Share Posted October 23, 2011 Thats a good point about the flanges hitting the chairs on the inside of the rails, I'd forgotten about that. My homebuilt track is soldered copperclad - nothing on the inside of the rail to impede progress. However my previous layout used code 100 Peco, with moulded chairs, no problem there with the extra rail depth though. Stewart Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted October 23, 2011 Share Posted October 23, 2011 If your Triang locos are very old, you may find that the flanges will catch on the rail fastenings. It's fairly straightforward to replace the Triang wheels with Romford/ Markits wheels. You will need to use brass bushes in the exisitng axle holes to reduce the diameter from 9/64ths of an inch to 1/8th. Don't forget that you will need a bush for the gear wheel too. As the wheels are narrower, some fibre washers may be needed to take up the slack between the wheel backs and the chassis sides. I have two old Triang chassis rewheeled with Hornby Dublo wheels and one with Romford wheels. The XO4 motors will soldier on for years. Markits now do axles that fit Triang / Hornby chassis without the need to use bushes Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Il Grifone Posted October 23, 2011 Share Posted October 23, 2011 You may need to 'mark' the driving axle with a centrepunch to provide a key for the gear. Some bushes are a tight enough fit (use two - one either side of the gear) or 'superglue may work. Wills used to do an etched chassis for the 0-6-0 and GEM did one for the 4-4-0. These turn up from time to time. The current price of Markits wheels may make the project expensive. I'm in the process of fitting a Tri-ang 'Britannia' with wheels* from an HD 2-6-4T. The slightly smaller size will help with the overheight of the Tri-ang model. (Before collectors protest it's a spare chassis!). eBay will provide any necessary spares sooner or later. * Mine is three rail but two rail wheels are available. Note the Tri-ang 'Princess' seems to have been copied from the pre-war Trix Twin one, which was claimed to be H0 (and was bodged to fit a German class 01 chassis). As a result, she is rather undersize for 00 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morphaniel Posted October 25, 2011 Author Share Posted October 25, 2011 Thanks all - useful food for thought. Having looked through Dad's collection the Britannia stood out as being a step up from the older models and I'd found some Triang collectors' web sites where the Princess size issues were mentioned so I have the Britannia to link back to my childhood. I won't rush to upgrade... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ruffnut Thorston Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 Have you considered the later Hornby Railways Britannia Chassis? I think that the Body was basically the same up to the later 1980s, if not a tad later (I would have to check.) These had finer wheelsets, as the Hornby track of the time was basically Code 100. Just a thought.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Il Grifone Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 The later Hornby 'Britannia was tender drive I believe, though I doubt there was much difference in the body apart from being painted rather than self coloured plastic. Later ones had larger wheels*, along with the 'Princess'. Correct for the 'Princess' (if you ignore her being undersize), but overscale for the 'Britannia' - why I'm fitting HD wheels to mine - the HD wheels are also correctly profiled for a BR standard. Detailing will be limited (she is after all a collector's item). I'm undecided whether to remove the moulded handrails or not. It's quite a tedious job to do neatly. The horrible Tri-ang couplings will definitely go however. * Possibly all 'Britannias' had these wheels? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cornish Triang Paul Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 The R068 Brit of 75 - 79 has the same chassis as the early ones but with modern wheels but is also tender powered so you will have to upgrade both. I have an early gloss version of the above which i will eventually be changing chassis for a loco powered earlyer version as track is not an issue with me but i do prefer loco powered rather than tender powered. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreenDiesel Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 I inherited some Dublo and Triang locos from my Dad & have since bought some myself. I run a mixture of brand new Hornby & Bachmann locos on my track as well as Dublo & Triang. To get around this, I have used code 100 Peco track. I've even used a fair bit of Dublo track which is probably code 120 or something similar. The modern locos can run on anything whereas many (or most) of my older ones demand the coarser track due to their large-flanged wheels. I would think that a Triang loco would not run on Code 75 track -- their wheels would bounce and click along the chairs on the sleepers. I even have one Triang loco that can't cope with Code 100 track -- it needs the coarser Dublo track. Would it be possible to replace some of your track or create a layout with coarser track? Rob Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Il Grifone Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 I read an article somewhere (possibly on the TTRCA website, as it was intended for running Trix Twin trains - now there's coarse!) explaining how to make code 124 track by replacing the code 100 rail in Peco Streamline with code 124 rail (intended for gauge 0 fine scale!) also from Peco. The early Tri-ang back to back is not as bad as Trix (13.8mm as opposed to around 12.5mm*) but the flanges are nearly as deep. * I've never been able to work out what the correct measurement is - if you set the wheels to miss the crossing nose they fall in the gap at the point blades and vice versa - strangely however they seem to stay on the rails whatever. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morphaniel Posted October 28, 2011 Author Share Posted October 28, 2011 Thanks again. The Code 100 option is ruled out because I am trying to get the 'finescale look' without doing all the hard work and am very happy with Code 75! I was wondering when the Brit moulding became superceded - my example must be from the early 60's but it looks pretty good and I was disappointed there isn't a Railroad version to compare. Using the tender drive version is certainly worth considering, especially as on my layout it would be limited to slow motion, light engine. Trouble is, replacing the chassis and tender just to get it running on my little layout doesn't leave much of the keepsake - a bit like rebuilding Flying Scotsman (again) and wondering how much of the original is left Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted October 29, 2011 Share Posted October 29, 2011 Could you not just buy a much newer chassis to use on it when you want to run it and keep the old chassis to have it in original condition when needed Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morphaniel Posted October 30, 2011 Author Share Posted October 30, 2011 Could you not just buy a much newer chassis to use on it when you want to run it and keep the old chassis to have it in original condition when needed Fair point! I hadn't thought of that - probably because my own models are modern high detail ones where you don't want to be removing bodies from chassis very often. The Triang Brit certainly isn't going to suffer much from chassis switching... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian r w Posted December 2, 2011 Share Posted December 2, 2011 If your Triang locos are very old, you may find that the flanges will catch on the rail fastenings. It's fairly straightforward to replace the Triang wheels with Romford/ Markits wheels. You will need to use brass bushes in the exisitng axle holes to reduce the diameter from 9/64ths of an inch to 1/8th. Don't forget that you will need a bush for the gear wheel too. As the wheels are narrower, some fibre washers may be needed to take up the slack between the wheel backs and the chassis sides. I have two old Triang chassis rewheeled with Hornby Dublo wheels and one with Romford wheels. The XO4 motors will soldier on for years. markits do an axle to fit triang chassis &take romford wheels without the need to bush it is also knurled to take the original gear wheel also listed are plain axles Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian r w Posted December 2, 2011 Share Posted December 2, 2011 see above information dont nohow it got there i must have done something ! ! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Brit70053 Posted January 14, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 14, 2012 Hi Morphaniel, If I'm not too late, Just a word of caution if you decide to try and re wheel the chassis from Tri-Ang R259 Britannia. The original flanged outer pairs of driven wheels are over size in terms of diameter as well as flange depth. The undersize, flangeless centre drivers allow these to be accommodated on a chassis which is well short of scale length. If you try to fit Markits/ Romford 24mm diameter wheels for instance (Scale diameter 6 feet which is still 2 inches too small I know) you'll find you can't fit them in on an original R259 (S ?) chassis. I found this out years ago when I was forced to re wheel such a chassis after the plastic insulating wheel bushes on my model gave up the ghost. Its still in running order, though with much underscale 23 mm (all flanged) Romford wheels. As has been mentioned in other posts my model is a bit like 'Flying Scotsman' in terms of original parts. Only the (much hacked about) Chassis block and bogie survive from the original, the current body being from the later and nearer scale length, Hornby 'Morning Star' tender driven model, after 3 replacements of the original moulding necessitated by domestic accidents (Dusting etc !) over the years at the parental home. Just to add that strangely, particularly given the compromise in wheel diameter, the loco superstructure sits at exactly the same height above the rails as my kit built (DJH) and more recent Hornby models of this loco class. Good luck if you do try a conversion, the availability of correct diameter axles for Markits/ Romford wheels to fit in an old Tri-Ang chassis would certainly simplify matters. Regards, John Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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