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Triang Class 35 Enhancements


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Hi all,

 

My first post :)

 

I recently purchased a Triang Class 35 and have found myself wanting to tinker with it. Does anyone have any suggestions for where I might find bits such as steps, horns, pipes, rails etc to enhance the rather basic look of the thing?

 

Cheers all!

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You could look in the Craftsman and A1 ranges. I know that Craftsman may not be currently available but there are still places with stocks if you shop around.

I did up one for fun, and included a Craftsman roof grille and fan, separate wire handrails, turned brass horns from Markits, and twin motor bogies of the pre-ringfield type. 

There are also etched stainless steel numerals available from one of the ranges  - I have some at home but cannot check right now as to manufacturer. Most likely they are Modelmaster, Fox or A1 but I can try to find them when I get home later if you are interested in those.

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Remember too that the roof grille should be off-centre. The Tri-ang loco is really quite nice and begging for a bit of detailing. SRman; did you cut and shut two chassis' for the motor mounts and how does it run? I guess you didn't DCC it; I can only imagine the current draw

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I did cut and shut two chassis and wired the two motors together so that it has 8-wheel pick up and drive. I used a TCS T1 decoder which can cope with the current draw - it has a 2 amp peak loading. 

It is not as quiet or as smooth as the Heljan Hymeks but it's not bad at all and will run surprisingly smoothly down to a crawl, and hauls anything and everything I have put behind it so far.

 

Using a TCS decoder also means that if it did blow up within the warranty period, they would replace it for free. It also has the 9-pin JST connector between the wiring harness and the decoder itself, so it can be swapped out easily without having to desolder all the wiring in the locomotive! To date, the T1 has proved to be a good choice.

Since I was having fun with it, I got brave and finished it in a fictional, might-have-been maroon livery.

The Craftsman grill has a roof panel acting as a template to drill the off-centre hole for the new fan and grille.

I have posted this pic before in another thread but it does show what I have done.

 

23-09-12MaroonHymekinServiceonDCC-croppe

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The main problem with this model (like most Tri-ang products) is the ride height, which has the buffers set about 2mm too high. It should be fairly straight forward to modify the bogie mountings to correct this, but I'm not sure about bogie clearances.

 

It's quite a good model apart from this (I have several...) and well worth some detailing.

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Track down a copy of the November 1983 Railway Modeller - there's a very good and very detailed article by Monty Wells on how to detail a Hornby Hymek. He started with one of the early ones with underscale bogies, repowered it using a Mainline Warship and made replacement bogie sides. 

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Love the picture! So far it has been taken down to it's components (bar the motor) and I have cut the basic horns off and drilled some exhaust holes.

I need to find some replacement grills, horns, wipes and side lights. Undecided on hand rails as these seem very fiddly...

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Guest spet0114

Track down a copy of the November 1983 Railway Modeller - there's a very good and very detailed article by Monty Wells on how to detail a Hornby Hymek. He started with one of the early ones with underscale bogies, repowered it using a Mainline Warship and made replacement bogie sides. 

From memory, he starts with a phrase along the lines of "it's difficult to see how it [the Tri-ang model] could me made to look anything like the prototype".  Then again, he always came over as a bit of a perfectionist! :)

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In my opinion, the Triang Hymek was an excellent model for its time - it first appeared in the shops in 1966. There are a few shortcomings, but even with those, it will sit beside my Heljan Hymeks without standing out as being drastically different or noticeably inaccurate.

Newer versions from Hornby have improved things like the horns and handrails. Those with 5-pole motors should not be too bad as runners, but mine surprised me with the smooth running of the original style cast bogies and motors.

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Just for fun, and t illustrate what I said in the previous post, here are my two Heljan Hymeks posed with the Triang one. While one can pick which is the Triang one (notwithstanding the fact it is in a strange livery!), it doesn't really stand out in comparison, and that, to me, marks it as still being a good model.

Hymeks%20in%20Triplicate%20-%201_zpsyekd

Hymeks%20in%20Triplicate%20-%202_zpsv4b6

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