D51

In the topic on the Hughes Brothers 4F kit, bertiedog posted a photograph of the contents of the kit which included a Rowell motor. This is the only type of Rowell motor I have seen. It was probably made by Zenith or Taycol and uses a standard magnet of the time. The frame is not the same as Romford. Frank

The KMR kit was available in two forms, one with and one without outside cylinders. Otherwise both kits were the same. KMR did not manufacture any other model railway products. At the same time two other firms made similar cast mazac kits, Castle Arts Products ('Gaiety') and Rowell. Castle made a GWR Pannier Tank and a clone of the Hornby Dublo tank locomotive. Rowell made a clone of the Hornby Dublo Duchess. Castle also made their locos in completed form including their own mechanisms in 2-rail, 3-rail outside and 3-rail centre versions. Later Acro made a GWR tank locomotive kit. These products probably arose because of government restrictions on the production of metal toys at this time. This did not apply to "metal models" which had a much smaller demand of course. Frank

I don't think this body is diecast. All the parts of bare metal in the photo seem to be brass. I suggest a pre-war model. The chassis photo doesn't show any obvious pickups so can't tell if it is centre-third or two-rail. Frank

Here is an unmade kit sold by Hattons some time ago. Frank

I have not tried this conversion myself, but Markits supply rolling stock wheels, all types, on 2mm diameter axles of lengths 24mm (plain?), 24.5mm (pin-point for Lima), 25.5mm (pin-point for modern Hornby) and 26mm (normal length pin-point). Alan Gibson can also supply wheels on 24.5mm or 26mm axles. All these are for 16.5mm gauge. Frank

I'm not too sure what you mean by saying they are HO scale. Does it say HO on the box? As I said before, the signals were made in two sizes, 3.75" and 2" high. What is the height of these signals? Is the same product just marketed as HO for export? Frank

Markits have only the one type of double-slidebar crosshead. It comes with other small parts as well (not used) and is for slidebars 3.35 mm apart, which is less than the distance you quoted but fitted my model when it was assembled. I seem to remember that my kit as originally supplied had wire slidebars but I replaced them with nickel strip. The Markits code is M4CRHDDSns and the price several years ago was £7.85 per pair. Not cheap! But a beautifully machined component. Frank

The crossheads on my Fowler dock tank (post 769) are Markits products. Beautifully made, machined from nickel-silver. Frank

There have been a couple of examples on this forum recently of the K's LMS Dock Tank which makes up into a lovely model. Here is my own example, fitted with Romford wheels, Mashima motor and High Level gearbox. The weight makes it a fine performer! Frank

The Trix 66XX was introduced by Dufay in October 1959 as model F103. This was for 3-rail only, fitted with convertible wheels. At the same time Southgate Hobbyshop sold a 2-rail version, made specially for them by Dufay. These models were in lined black. In February 1960 a lined green version was introduced as F103G and the black one was renumbered F103B. Later in 1960 the models were sold to retailers as 2-rail versions like the Southgate ones. In 1963 the model was substantially altered by the new manufacturers British Trix Ltd with new body casting incorporating a weight, new chassis fixing method on 2-rail models and no pickup shoes for the outer rails. The model numbers were changed to the new British Trix format thus 1100 Black, scale wheels, 3-rail 1101 Black, convertible wheels, 3-rail 1102 Black, scale wheels, 2-rail 1104 Green, scale wheels, 3-rail 1105 Green, convertible wheels, 3-rail 1106 Green scale wheels, 2-rail The model was discontinued in 1964. Incidentally the Ruston shunter was introduced in 1958 by Ewart Holdings as most of its parts were supplied by German Trix. The Britannia and Class V were introduced in March 1959 by Dufay. Frank

This photograph is the KMR kit as supplied, for £3 13s. 4d., intended for screwdriver assembly. It was! It assembled into a non-motorised model for 3-rail track. As the instructions say, a motor was supplied as an extra. This was the motor shown in Garry's photograph of 17th October. Note that no pickup was supplied at all and of course the motor would have required soldering. The possibility of the finished model actually running was somewhat reduced by the fact that the centres of the coupling rods and milled brass chassis were a couple of millimetres out! The gears were supplied with the kit for some reason and, in my case, were not those in this photograph but had coarser teeth as in Garry's photo. Frank

Garry, This is indeed a Romford motor bogie, available in 2-rail, centre-3rd or outside 3rd versions. Frank

Looking back through this forum I found "From Ebay an old Jinty, a very interesting find" from Bertiedog in 2011. The motor in Bertiedog's Jinty of 1930s vintage was identified by him as a Taycol, who also made motors for other suppliers. It is very similar to the horseshoe type shown here. Frank

I think the motor with the machined horseshoe shaped magnet is a pre-war Romford. There is a drawing of a similar motor, attributed to Romford, with machined horseshoe, twisted brush arms, and square rear bearing mount in "The Craft of Modelling Railways" by Beal, published in 1937. Frank

I was mistaken saying "Forum Search". It is (as Jonathan said above) "Forum Index". Click on this and the button is highlighted. Enter "Nucro Acro" and then the search engine will give you 8 previous entries for Nucro and Acro. Enter "Nucro" on its own and you will get 41 previous entries. Your copies of advertisements for Nucro are included in the entry for "Acro / Nucro / Teaness". (Teaness was T & S). If you still can't get the RMweb search engine to work, simply enter "Teaness models" (in inverted commas) into Google and that will bring up your adverts. Frank

At the top of this page is a Search Box. Enter "Nucro" or "Acro" . Click on "This Topic" and a drop-down list appears. Click on "Forum Search" and a long list of topics concerning Nucro or whatever appears including your copies of magazine adverts for Nucro. Frank

This looks like the K's kit W10 - SR (ex SECR) Tarpaulin Wagon. It didn't come with the wire for the rail either! £1.73 in 1979, the last year it was produced by K's in cast metal. Frank

As well as Lima, the Tri-ang 'Big-Big' train also used the Dublo/Peco design, as did the Novo trains which were made from the same tools after Rovex sold them to Russia, and also a Hong Kong copy called "Mighty Red Rocket". Although all these makes included the uncoupling arm on the coupling, I don't think any of them made uncoupling rails!

Both of these photos of the 3-rail tank locomotive (Hornby never referred to it as an N2) show the front coupling fitted to all such tank locomotives with metal couplings. It incorporated a spring which acted only one way, to keep the coupling closed. Meccano presumably thought this was necessary because of the overhang of the coupling from the leading axle but as David has already said, the long-wheelbase wagons worked perfectly well. The sprung coupling caused all sorts of problems with the hook being too far closed. It seems to be an expensive component to produce, needing plated metal bracket, spring, spring support and modified coupling to be assembled; all for the cheapest loco in the range. I have an early block magnet tank loco and both couplings are stamped with the RD number only, away from the rivet. When the plastic couplings were introduced this cumbersome arrangement was discontinued and a standard coupling used; it worked much better! Frank

The upper photo here shows, from left to right, the pre-war Dublo coupling, the post-war Dublo coupling with RD No. 848012 marked away from the rivet (and powdering Mazak wheels), the post-war Dublo coupling with PAT. No. 605283 and RD No. 848012 (and rusting sintered iron wheels), and the Trix coupling with no markings. There is also a post-war Dublo coupling with the RD No. marked towards the rivet, this being the first Dublo post-war version. The lower photo shows the packaging for the Peco coupling when first introduced. The cardboard box accounts for the selling price of 2/9d!

I agree but the "Scotsman" loco was fitted with it as standard. The patent however was different. The British Trix version was 678257, 1952.

In Hornby-Dublo, the couplings were stamped "Pat No 605283" from mid-1949 around the same time as the Alnico magnet was introduced. They had been stamped with the Regd Number 848012 from 1947 to 1949. 605283 is the patent attributed to Pritchard. In Trix, the couplings were not stamped before 1954. In 1950 to 1954, the printed ends of the 4-wheel rolling stock were marked "TTR Brit. Pat. 465168 Pat. Pendg. Made in England". In 1950 to 1954, the bogie wagons were marked "TTR British Patents 451644 471304 Made in England" In Trix, from 1954 the couplings were stamped "605283", this being required by the agreement to allow Trix to use the design. (451644 refers to the pre-war coupling, 1937 !!) (465168 refers to two trains running on same track, 1937) (471304 refers to an uncoupling device, never used by Trix, 1937 !!) (605283 refers to the postwar coupling from Pritchard) The Peco couplings were not stamped.

The ERG catalogue which I mentioned in an earlier post is the loose-leaf E Rankine Gray version. In this, additional pages were added periodically, for a fee of 1/6d a year. The page B20 referred to is not in another of my copies of this catalogue, so could have been added later. The ERG catalogue you refer to, where the coupling is listed on page 16, is a much later catalogue which is not loose-leaf, hence just a page reference not a chapter and page reference. The later catalogue was compiled by Jock Stewart. The first announcement of the Peco coupling that I can find in the "Meccano Magazine" is in August 1951, and in June 1952 the price is given as 2/9d, the same as quoted by ERG. I suppose there was retail price maintenance in those days! The Peco coupling is also advertised in the book "A Study of the Model Railway" which was published in 1950. Incidentally the Trix coupling is useful as it also links up with the pre-war Dublo flat loop coupling, so a Trix wagon is a ready made coupling adaptor! This only works of course with the old Wrenn track as it is not so easy to change the Trix steam-roller wheels! Before the coupling, Peco had patented the Insulaxles and was making track parts. According to one story Pritchard was making hair grips during the war.

Your understanding of a rectifier is not correct. Do not open up the transformer / controller. Accept what Pete has said. If using common return, and most people do, a separate transformer is required for each controller. The Gaugemaster transformer / controllers with two track outputs have separate transformer windings for each controller, so they are similar to 2 transformers and 2 controllers.

Most of Fordyce's queries can be answered from Michael Foster's superb book on Hornby-Dublo Trains, which has four full pages devoted to the post-war couplings. The date of introduction of the Peco coupling (above) is surprising as a full page description and diagrams of the production version are given in the second edition of the ERG (Bournemouth) Ltd. catalogue of 1949, the price being 2/9d. per set, a lot of money in those days! As far as Meccano are concerned the tooling of the new coupling dated back to August 1946, or just before, and it was used on the demonstration layout at the British Industries Fair in May 1947. Peco retained rights to the coupling for models and Meccano secured the rights for toys, paying a royalty to Peco for each coupling. Trix introduced a similar coupling in 1948 and this resulted in litigation which Peco/Meccano won and Trix had to pay royalties to Peco. There are several patent numbering variations on these early post-war couplings and these are often described in the Hornby Railway Collector. Regd No. 848012 and Pat No. 605283 are common, earlier ones only quoting the Regd number. Frank