Rare occurance of impure mazak in a Triang loco....

[Il Grifone]

Last year I got my Triang R52S Jinty out of the cupboard it had been in since around 1985, to find the body split in half and the chassis crumbling away. Motor and smoke bits seem ok but the rest is scrap. It's all rather a shame as it was my second ever loco, received as a Christmas present in 1972 and much played with.

 

Replacements can still be obtained quite cheaply from eBay etc., though the smoke unit chassis is harder to find then the earlier one.

 

The rear view mirror of my daughter's Mk II Mondeo was found on the floor a few years ago, due to failure of the mazak 'stalk'. I'm not sure whether this was due to faulty metal or the presence of an air bubble in the casting at the point of failure, but the two could be linked. (The 'temporary' sucker-type replacement out lived the car - we never did fit the proper replacement - reminds me - where did I put it?)

[Il Grifone]

Apparently some of the post war casting failures are due to a shortage of magnesium, which causes dimensional instabilty, especially if subjected to cold temperatures (below 13.8 degrees).

 

http://www.ttrca.co.uk/Gazette.htm

 

(There's an short article in one of them - I'll try and find which one - but they all have interesting information on Trix.)

 

I suspect vibration too, as the driving wheels always seem to be affected - there's also an article on replacing them - using wheels from the  'Cadet' 0-4-0T. (There are plenty of these about, the problem is a different axle diameter.)

[Il Grifone]

The article on 'Metal Fatigue' is in no. 22 (page 10) and the one on the wheels in no. 39.

 

I found this site about Trix Express (A knowledge of Dutch and German is helpful otherwise one is in the tender (and not very accurate) hands of Google Translate)

 

http://home.online.nl/trixexpress/hoofdmap/website.html

 

There are some early editions of the Trix Express version of the TTR Gazette.