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HymekBoy

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  1. HymekBoy
    I had long been curious about N Gauge, ever since seeing a long rake of Peco ‘Wonderful Wagons’ in a model/toy shop (Hubble & Freeman) in Maidstone, Kent, in what must have been about 1974. They looked rather good at the time.
     
    Less good looking were the locomotives. It is all about ‘looking right’ and whilst I can overlook a lot, I cannot abide something that just ‘looks wrong’!
     
    (Hornby) Minitrix were particular culprits. I could not have run their Class 27. It would have given me a headache just to look at it. Likewise with the front ends of their Class 47, it was just wrong, no need to count the rivets. They probably both ran like sewing machines, but I could not abide the horror. And then there was the Warship, which looked like a Halloween leftover.
     

    Apologies to the legions of fans of this model but it makes me feel slightly queasy
     
    And then there was Lima with their extra tall Class 31. My boat still wasn’t floating.
     
    There was another player in the market, Graham Farish, and whilst they had produced a few horrors of their own, by around about the mid-1980’s there were a few respectable little models beginning to creep into the British N-Gauge market, as my imported Railway Modellers were regularly informing me.
     
    The steam locomotives still jarred. It was mostly the steamroller front bogies. But the diesel locomotives were showing signs of realism. It was still early days, and I’d had no hands-on experience of N-Gauge, but the accumulation of a wife and subsequent baby had evicted me from the guest bedroom, which was now full of all manner of baby paraphernalia, my OO gauge stock forlornly perched on the highest shelf.
     
    I began thinking about what I might manage in N-Gauge, no specific plans, just a need to drive trains in a smaller space, and N-Gauge was coming of age. And so I prevailed upon Hattons to send me Class 20 No. 20142 in BR Rail Blue, with a few Minitrix/Peco wagons, and a bit of track.
     

    This, on the other hand, was good enough to lure me into N-Gauge.
     
    I was a bit sceptical, after 20 years in OO gauge this was a step into the unknown, but my first running session on that carpet in Portugal, shunting some wagons back and forth with the Class 20, convinced me that N-Gauge had become a viable alternative, albeit a tiny one. The locomotive ran as quietly and smoothly as any I had known, and whilst it didn’t look perfect, it certainly ticked all my ‘looks’ boxes. Particularly if I turned a blind eye to the coupler.
     
    BR Blue was not a natural choice for me. I had grown up with it and become a bit bored with it after the 1970’s, when it was on everything in sight. And I never quite got to like the shade of blue, Pullman blue or Electric blue seemed nicer. Perhaps if everything had been Electric blue I’d have been bored with that too. I tolerated British Rail Blue because I had to. And I selected it for the N-Gauge stock because the steam engines of the green period weren’t yet up to scratch.
     
    So 1987 unfolded, and a new gauge was making an appearance amongst the bibs, nappies, Superteds (other soft toys are available) and assorted push chairs and high chairs.
     
    And just as I was contemplating boarding something down, we were advised we were on the move.
    Next stop the railway modelling mecca known as Bulgaria. Oh.
  2. HymekBoy
    So was this Portuguese interlude to be the death of all pretence at being a modeller? I had few hopes, it seemed like a modelling desert for one weaned on diesel hydraulics.
    The Small Prairie and I arrived in Lisbon in 1984, in a world without internet or video, where we listened to the BBC World Service through the crackles if we wanted to catch up on events. The Prairie went on the shelf and stayed there.
     
    The Portuguese Railway scene was reasonably interesting. I would daily take the Cascais Line EMU with its Budd stainless coaches, a gorgeous little route along the sea. At Lisbon, once a week, I would take the ‘Rapido’ to Oporto, and transfer there to an English Electric Class 1400 with 3 coaches for the rambling journey to Viana do Castelo. This was all very pleasant, but not the sort of stuff to be modelled by me.
     

    A CP (Comboios de Portugal) Class 1400, from English Electric and based upon the Class 20
     
    Not far from the office, however, was a tiny little cigarette shop called the ‘Tabacaria Britannica’. It sold Embassy Regals and the like, but down there on a tiny magazine rack in the corner was to be found ‘Railway Modeller’, and occasionally ‘Continental Modeller’! Progress! I would grab the former and often grab the latter too, and with plenty of down time on trains I would devour them from cover to cover. I remember one LNWR layout had me truly salivating.
     

    You would never have imagined that this unassuming little tobacco shop harboured a stash of Railway Modellers
     
    It was from these pages that I also discovered ‘Hatton’s’ and ‘The Engine Shed’ and eventually their mail ordering skills.
     
    More was to come in a small shop around the corner, where I discovered Lima Mk 1 Coaches in Chocolate/Cream and Green, and with a sudden rush of blood I bought all four in the shop. I am not sure what sort of Portuguese people had an interest in BR Mk 1 coaches but I was glad that they did, my Small Prairie had a train, but sadly no track.
    It was then that I realised colleague Ken (real name Ken, no relation to Barbie) had an interest in model railways, and had constructed a double track oval in his garage, on the pretence that his kids would enjoy it. Ken liked Spanish trains for some obscure reason, and had a selection of very varied Spanish stock from Electrotren and Ibertren. It wasn’t quite my scene, but he would let me drive his trains!
     
    And so we formed the Cascais Model Railway Club, membership two. There may well have been other Cascais Model Railway Clubs, but I only joined this one. Ken also happened to have a Tri-ang Hornby Class 21/29 No. D6103 in BR Green with small yellow panels which was purchased for a couple of beers. The Class 21/29 was about as far from the Prairie as one could get but frankly I didn’t care. I had the makings of a train set model railway. And a childhood which included Bristol Temple Meads and Glasgow Queen Street could get away with such things.
     

    Well worth a couple of beers. It had a lop-sided look and couldn't handle the check rail on points, but it served me well
     
    My sad lack of permanent way was soon remedied with a trial order to Hatton’s. It was not the click-click ordering of today, more the pen to paper/envelope/stamp and wait a couple of weeks, but in due course my first consignment arrived. Both Hatton’s and The Engine Shed were to be commended for a superb service, no order ever failed.
     
    My orders mushroomed. Being a bachelor with a bit of disposable income I made my own order form and photocopied it, and would often have 2 or 3 orders in hand at any one time.
     
    At this time Airfix and GMR had mostly come and gone and Mainline were at their peak. The models were fabulous in comparison with my older stock lurking in mum and dad’s roof, but the mechanisms were about as weedy as you could get, tiny little pancake motors that would disgrace a Christmas Cracker. These poor motors were subjected to the heaviest freights until one by one, they died.
     
    Portugal was indeed a place of modelling renaissance.
  3. HymekBoy
    I will draw a discreet veil over the next 8-10 years of this modeller’s life. They are those years in which trains are customarily shelved while we get our teeth into other matters, such as exams, education, girlfriends, parties and assorted beverages.
     
    Perhaps I should re-phrase that.
     
    My long-serving, bruised and battered train set, which had still never seen a board to call its own, was boxed up (for those few items that still had boxes). It had put in a momentous innings over 10 years or more and was now being given an expenses-paid holiday in the roof. The Princess Victoria, Dock Shunter and all the other rag-tag motive power on my roster were set aside for the future, mostly still working after a fashion.
     

    Gratuitous image from my Instamatic - D24 and another Peak sandwich a Bubble Car and a herd of Brutes at Cardiff Central, mid-70's
     
    We moved again, back to Bath, and I subsequently moved to Newcastle upon Tyne for university.
     
    My railway memories of this era are few and far between. First encounters with a few European Railways, the rise of the Inter City 125, repeatedly travelling on a proper cross-country train from Temple Meads to Newcastle Central and return (usually Mk 1’s behind a Peak), the Deltics at Newcastle, the arrival of the Tyne and Wear Metro, revisiting my old hunting grounds in Glasgow (for shipyard work), catching a distant glimpse of the iconic Class 76’s (I believe this addiction to Woodhead electrics may have been started by the Tri-ang “Electra” looming out of some early catalogue), seeing the occasional steam special… the rest of the time was spent pursuing career paths and more often dreaming up ways to impress the other sex.
     

    I never quite loved these, but they were impressive. Indeed they still are, I travelled behind them this week, some 40 years after they were introduced. Admittedly they have been re-engined, and no longer scream, but they have put in a very good shift. Bath Spa in 1985, taken with an Olympus Trip.
     
    I embarked upon a career, and can clearly remember being in Hull when I happened upon a model shop window. Things had changed. New and different models, new manufacturers beginning to appear. I looked in that window for a long time, then walked away, little knowing that the seed had been re-sown.
     
    It germinated in Beattie’s, in Lewisham, several months later when I left the shop with a Lima Small Prairie No. 5574 in BR black, my first locomotive for about 10 years. It was by no means a classic, I think I envisaged simply displaying it somewhere. I had no experience of Lima at all, they had appeared during my absence.
     

    And so started Phase 2 of modelling, with this simple, somewhat over-high, yet rugged little locomotive
     
    Before matters could develop, however, the Prairie and I moved to Portugal for three years.
  4. HymekBoy
    I settled into life and school life in Kent with relative ease, adjusting my Glasgow accent accordingly upon seeing the utter incomprehension of my contemporaries.
    The train set was still a ramshackle affair, but it still worked, and still gradually grew, not wildly as funds didn’t permit, but steadily, still not boarded down, just a pile of stuff on the carpet.
     
    I had always had a hankering for a Class 37. These to me epitomise the diesel era on British Railways, they were everything a diesel should be. There was something about diesels with bonnets, Deltics, Peaks, 40’s etc. and indeed their Stateside contemporaries, the F7’s, E8’s etc.
     
    In due course it arrived, the rather magnificent Tri-ang Hornby R751 Rail Blue D6830 Class 37. Everybody needed a Class 37 in those days, and I’d coveted one ever since I’d seen my friend Adrian’s green one many years before. Even the model produced a guttural growl, which I think in retrospect may have been due to some dodgy gear meshing, but run it did and soon it was taking over the crack expresses of the early 1970’s. I wasn’t too worried about heating the passengers in those days, so any freight locomotive could be used at will.
     

    The long-coveted Class 37...with dummy centre wheels on the driving bogie
     
    Like the Hymek, the Class 37 was easy to dismantle…unlatch the body side clips, lift off body, slide screwdriver under spring clip on chassis and out it all came. I must have performed this operation 100 times in the interests of keeping to the timetable… and removing carpet fluff.
     
    I had also accumulated a Graham Farish OO Gauge Pullman Coach from somewhere, this being a cut above my battered and random coaching stock.
     
    I soon fell in with 2 schoolfriends, Mac and Tippy, who had also fostered railways on their bedroom floors, and it wasn’t long before 3 railways were combined into one monster that took up an entire lounge. This wasn’t about the running, we barely managed to make anything run consistently that day, I think the staff were on strike. Striking realism, for the real railway was doing the same.
     
    At least the real railway didn’t have to put up with huge dogs knocking over the stock in their enthusiasm to ensure the passengers reached their destination.
     
    Tippy was rather unusual, in that he wasn’t a Tri-ang Hornby lad, he was a Trix lad. I had never really come across Trix in the flesh, but it was rather good. To my 12 or 13 year old eyes, his E3001 was a magnificent piece of work, and it ran particularly well for many years. The AC electrics were almost the apex of rail travel in those days, powerful yet quiet and seemingly effortless, and the original electric blue livery was particularly attractive.
     

    The much admired E3001 from Trix, well-engineered and heavy for its time
     
    Tippy was also a Peco track lad, and between us we had a huge variety of different trackage. Tri-ang Standard, some Series 3, a lot of Super 4, Peco and now the new Triang-Hornby System 6 track had arrived. Thankfully there were adapter tracks to the finer System 6 and Peco track available.
     
    Writing this has made me curious to find out whatever happened to Series 5 track. It seems it was never released, but that the new outside radius Super 4 curves were to be the start of the Series 5 track system. So there, I never knew that.
     
    Our combined layout, whilst huge and multi-sidinged (new word there, OED), was never an exercise in efficient rail travel, there was simply too much variety in stock, couplings and track systems, some of the track was beginning to show its age, with dirt and loose fishplates being particularly prevalent. It did however, establish a common bond between 3 individuals.
     
    A teacher at school happened to hear about this, and mentioned that a local house, Restoration House, next to the school, housed a railway in the cellar, and it was not long before 3 boys went a-knocking. Restoration House was not for the faint of heart, it was big, and inspired Charles Dickens in Great Expectations. No mean house.
    It was Dickensian, from the moment a very old man opened the door, but downstairs was a vast model railway, in the midst of construction, looping around the pillars and arches of the cellars. I have very dim memories of the occasion, but the carriage sidings alone must have held a hundred coaches, and all with full corridor connections. I also recall quite a continental flavour to much of the stock, Wagon-Lit cars etc.
     

    Restoration House, home to a secret model railway. I never did know what became of it.
     
    And not a dock shunter in sight.
  5. HymekBoy
    I was distinctly underwhelmed, when as an 11 year old, I first encountered British Rail Southern Region, sitting in what must have been an EPB or HAP unit at Victoria.
    These were not the exciting railways I had come to expect after a childhood on the Western and Scottish Regions, and they were a far cry from the ‘Royal Scot’, that had just brought the family all the way from Glasgow to Euston. Not the steam engines, the named train.
     
    I found myself staring at a sea of rail blue multiple units. They were by no means pretty. Were they stylish? Well, no. Distinctive? No. For a young railway enthusiast these EMU's did nothing to quicken the pulse, and I have a theory that we might find railway enthusiasm is not as strong in the home counties as elsewhere (per capita) due to the daily lack of inspiration for those in their impressionable years.
     
    Only a theory, mind, I’m sure there will be many who disagree.
     
    We were heading for Maidstone, Kent, and for some reason we were on the stopper. The journey seemed interminable, but I did manage to see a hundred identical EMUs. I hadn’t ventured into the number-taking fraternity at this point, but it wasn’t far off.
     
    In later years I came to appreciate these EMU's more, in a perverse sort of way. In the same way I have a perverse admiration for buses I never had when younger. That EMU’s are engineering excellence is without doubt, they are unpretentious items that transport huge quantities of passengers back and forth ceaselessly.
     
    So here’s a question. Does the humble 4-EPB or 4-SUB unit have a claim to be the best train ever to run on British rails? Scoff you might, but how many others have performed intensively for 45-50 years in such huge numbers?
     
    They didn’t particularly float my boat in those days, though the Classes 33, 71, 73 and 74 lifted the monotony.
    And yet nowadays I do have this craving for a Bachmann 2-EPB. And it won't go away!
     
    And it was on the Medway valley line, on the customary 2-HAP from Strood to Maidstone Barracks (via Cuxton, Halling, Snodland, New Hythe, Aylesford) that schoolfriends and I first noticed the numbers on the front of these units.
     

    Maidstone Barracks, from the Middleton Press Book, one of 3 stations in Maidstone, and one I arrived at for many a year
     
    And we first realised that we could travel the entire journey sitting in the luggage rack, but I shall draw a veil over this.
  6. HymekBoy
    Meanwhile, back on the late 1960’s model ra….. train set there had been a few developments. I had steadily accumulated Super 4 track to the extent I could lay out a decent double track oval on the floor, with several sidings, a couple of makeshift stations, one on each side of the oval, buffers, semaphore signals and a signal box.
     
    Two trains could be run simultaneously, thanks to the Duette, and despite dad’s warnings, double headers were not unknown. Rolling stock remained very random, but enough to provide passenger and freight options and it had settled down into a fairly presentable train set, though still stored in a cardboard box and set up on the bedroom carpet at will.
    There had been developments on the locomotive roster too. My first modern diesel had arrived, a Tri-ang Hornby Hymek D7063, in Rail Blue, an instant favourite and one that I disassembled and reassembled countless times once I had worked out the cunning spring clip on the chassis.
     

    I have always loved Hymeks, perhaps because they are the first diesels I clearly remember. I had a blue one just like this, though in retrospect green with a small warning panel was the better livery.
     
    Entirely out of keeping with this modern railway, but ideal for shunting my bogie bolster or well wagons, or indeed my ‘Freightliner’ container wagon, was the Tri-ang Hornby maroon LMS 3F Jinty No. 7606.
     

    Not the most realistic livery I suspect, a very glossy maroon, but this was a good one, complete with flangeless centre wheels and Magnadhesion. I've likes Jinties ever since.
     
    A more senior modeller may have had distinct misgivings about running a Blue Hymek on Pullman stock with an LMS tank locomotive on a container train, and I was aware that I was breaking modelling law and my chances of getting to heaven would be minimal, but I had a very comprehensive modeller’s licence, and anyway, I didn’t give a monkeys, it was all about running trains, and running them fast.
     
    My chances of getting to heaven took another blow when I turned up for the Sunday School nativity play dressed as a pirate, but Mum should have asked what sort of fancy dress party it was!
     
    This randomness of stock has never entirely left me, and is a theme I wish to develop later, when I was a grown-up who should have been far more sensible.
     
    So there we have it, aged about ten and living in Scotland, I was running 2 x Princess Pacifics, a Blue Pullman, a Hymek, a Britannia, an LMS Jinty, a DMU, a dock shunter and a Hall. Well, to be frank, half of them were usually being overhauled, but I still made some of them work. Coaching stock remained motley, as did wagons. It may have been a random railway, but I worked those locomotives hard for years.
     
    Ill-advisedly, I had also discovered Humbrol enamels through the usual Airfix kits (could be a blog in its own right) and I had started experimenting with liveries. The DMU suddenly appeared with a small yellow warning panel, in a fetching and very glossy shade of mustard. And let’s draw a veil over my attempts to repaint the ‘Albert Hall’.
    And then, in early 1970, Dad announced we were going to go and live in Kent.
     
    The railway was once again on the move.
  7. HymekBoy
    The model railway… no, let’s be honest…. the train set gained momentum upon the great move north to Glasgow. Being a boy of my age, diesels had become top of the agenda, as they were on British Railways. My dock shunter, admirable as it may have been, was no longer used on the crack expresses of the day, and had been relegated to …um… dock shunting.
     
    But first there was time for another steam engine, and one that I saved up for with my 6d, and later 9d… and later 1/- pocket money (wish I had pay rises like that these days). Tri-ang Hornby R759 No. 4983 ‘Albert Hall’, my first 4-6-0, appeared, and for a boy from the Western Region, my first proper WR locomotive.
     

     
    Just like the above..... it was green and an immediate success. Some years later it was my first attempt at a loco repaint.. and I will draw a hasty veil over the brush-painted results.
     
    I had a friend called Pong, obviously not his real name, his parents had more sense, but that’s what everybody called him. Now Pong had an enormous amount of track, Super 4 track to be precise, the track of boys of the sixties, chunky and strong. His colossal amount of track made for a large double oval main line, with a breakaway branch-line that soared over the main line on a set of inclined piers, and looped back around to re-join the main line. I’m sure it had been bought as a set, but I am unsure which set. It was very impressive.
     
    Less impressive was his loco stud, amounting to a black Tri-ang Hornby M7 Tank Locomotive. What was a Glaswegian boy doing with an M7? It wasn't as if he'd ever been to the lush rolling countryside of the LSWR. But that was irrelevant, it was a train. This M7 was fine for the branch line, where it floundered up the gradient with a coach in tow, the main line was crying out for a boy with a big engine policy.
     
    And I was that boy! ‘Albert Hall’, ‘Britannia’, ‘Princess Victoria’ and the Blue Pullman were unleashed and soon set the main line alight, and between us we had cobbled together quite a substantial railway, even if his cleaning lady, Mrs MacSporran, did repeatedly walk into it and destroy it. I never did forgive her for trampling my Airfix HMS Nelson during one of our frequent naval battles.
     
    I never did mention controllers, but soon after my original controller suffered meltdown, the Bath Pram and Toy Shop coughed up an H&M Duette. What a beast that was and is! I still have it today, celebrating 50 years of age and still useable. How many of today’s controllers will be in use in 2066? In fact, how much of today’s anything will be in use in 2066?
     

    A masterpiece of the sixties.
     
    We also developed an interesting sideline, collecting British Rail leaflets. Every now and then we would pass by our sleepy little station on the Milngavie line and raid it for leaflets – Awaydays, Merrymakers, Timetables, Excursions… these became sizeable collections, and I'm sure the station staff wondered why they were disappearing so rapidly. We had so many we used to swap them to gain new ones. I do wish I still had them, they were an interesting window on to the railway of the age. I notice extensive collections of just such leaflets online.
     
    It was this drive for more and more leaflets that fuelled our first expeditions into Glasgow, while Mum innocently assumed I was playing football somewhere.
  8. HymekBoy
    And suddenly the trains were blue, this was getting very confusing. Not as you might imagine because of the transition to Rail Blue, which wasn’t so sudden and had barely kicked off, but because a small boy had moved to Glasgow.
     
    It wasn’t long after disembarking from the Cambrian Airways DC-3 at Glasgow Airport (my first ever flight, so exciting that my baby brother threw up over my lunch), that it became apparent this was not Bath. It wasn’t the accent, 7 year olds pick that up in a matter of hours, it wasn’t the architecture, 7 year olds don’t notice that sort of thing, but two things stood out in particular.
     

     
    The first was football, which every boy played all day. And the other was the trains. They were a different colour.
     
    At least the Blue Trains were, blue as you might have guessed. Now the Blue Pullman was blue, but it was special. Here every train was blue, at least on the Milngavie line.
    The Blue Trains of Glasgow had some small fame at the time, and rightly so. They were among the best looking electric multiple units on the rails, particularly in their original blue livery, with no yellow ends, black or sometimes white roofs and wrap-around front windows. These were the essence of modernity for a boy from the Western Region. And the station signs were blue too!
     

     
    My first journey left a lasting impression. Electric sliding doors, quietness, acceleration, comfort and a fabulous view through the cab at either end (in original configuration), this felt like a modern railway. We were whisked into Glasgow on Headcode 65 (if I’m not mistaken) affording a view over the docks on the way, arriving in Queen Street Low Level.
     
    Queen Street Upper Level was even more interesting for a small boy in a big city. The locomotives were mostly green, though by now the odd very exotic Rail Blue was creeping in. They were, in the main, later known as Classes 21/29 and were flat-nosed, sad-eyed beasts. Their cousins (Class 22) on the WR hadn’t really registered with me for some reason, but here they were ticking over in the terminus.
     
    Additionally there were a few DMU’s, by now at the bottom of the railway enthusiasm food chain for being far too commonplace. And those Swindon Glasgow-Edinburgh (Class 126) units were certainly not ‘lookers’ no matter what Swindon might have thought, unlike the Trans-Pennine units.
     
    All very exotic but we couldn’t hang around, Dad had to claim the keys to the house. And I had to unpack my motley train set and run a few expresses. Oh for a Blue Train...
  9. HymekBoy
    Back on the Tri-ang, Midland and Scottish, No. 46205 ‘Princess Victoria’ was still rostered for the crack expresses of the carpet, and indeed the freights too, while No. 46201 ‘Princess Elizabeth’ generally posed on a siding. ‘Princess Victoria’, being a versatile Pacific, also handled all the shunting.
     
    All changed, however, with the arrival one birthday or Christmas of R253 Dock Authority No. 3, the red Tri-ang 0-4-0 Diesel Dock Shunter, with its realistic scale 140mph top speed, ideal for shunting the tight curves of the docks.
     
    In retrospect this was a magnificent model, aimed squarely at the junior market. It was robust, powerful, almost unbreakable and performed heroically. Any self-respecting dock system would have craved this Shinkansen of the shunting world. Well preserved examples are fetching about £55 these days.
     
    I have noticed that average model rolling stock can generally be re-sold at about the price they were purchased at, even decades later, they will hold their value if not significantly interfered with.
     
    From sources unknown I also received a decent Mk 1 coach in crimson/cream and a bogie brick wagon, the one with ‘BRICK’ emblazoned on the side. I’m not sure it was prototypical but it certainly augmented the heavy Lego freights teetering around the track.
     
    As a slight aside, enthusiasm was fed by occasional trips to Weston-super-Mare, usually by the ‘Cardiff Queen’ or ‘Bristol Queen’ from across the channel, and after the delights of the pier, what better than to visit the prominent premises on the promenade known as the ‘MODEL RAILWAY’. I know nothing of the history or demise of this place, but in the mid-60’s this was a large and very substantial OO gauge scenic model railway, by far the biggest I had ever seen. I remember little of the detail, save that the star attraction was the Blue Pullman. Somewhere I have a postcard of the place, but it would take me a month to find it. A cursory glance at Google doesn't seem to shed any light.
     
    Another pastime of mine was known as ‘taking the model apart and putting it together again’. I knew where dad kept the screwdriver, knew how to release the bodywork, unlock the springs, clean the motor, attend to the brushes and more or less put it all back together. Occasionally I would blame the 240v plug in the wall for a late running express. It was about this time that I attended my first Electrocution Lesson.
     
    By now Tri-ang and Hornby had entered into wedlock, though I’m not sure it was out of love, more of a forced marriage. For the next seven years (until 1972) they would be known as Tri-ang Hornby, and were the dominant force by far in British railway modelling.
     
    It was Christmas of 1966, I believe, when, quite out of character, Granny miraculously produced a Tri-ang Hornby R259S No. 70000 ‘Britannia’, complete with Magnadhesion and Synchrosmoke from her handbag. Both the recipient and the locomotive were chuffed, until the latter ran out of smoke oil.
     
    I’m not convinced either Magnadhesion or Synchrosmoke worked very well, the former was probably the more useful. My experience with Synchrosmoke was that it produced a namby-pamby waft of barely visible steam, however anything more substantial and the A&E departments would have been overflowing with burnt boys. The ‘Britannia’ immediately took over the prestige expresses of the day and put in a good shift.
     
    And then, early in 1967, Dad casually announced we were going to live in Glasgow.
  10. HymekBoy
    The notion that Father Christmas had clearly bought a job lot of OO gauge odds and ends from a local jumble sale at the North Pole never really occurred to a small boy that Christmas in 1965. I was far too agog at the contents on Christmas morning, sometime around 4am.
     
    My campaign for an ‘electric train set’ had borne fruit; the box was packed with random semi-boxed stuff. I was officially the world’s most excited boy
    Starting with the locomotives, these were:-
    · One Tri-ang ‘Princess Victoria’ 4-6-2 – BR lined black, almost new
    · One Tri-ang ‘Princess Elizabeth’ 4-6-2 – BR unlined black, had seen much better days
     
    And the multiple units:-
    · One Tri-ang Blue Pullman 4 car unit – Nanking Blue, no yellow ends (they hadn’t been invented)
    · One Tri-ang DMU 2 car unit – BR Green, again no yellow ends
     
    Clearly Tri-ang was big business at the North Pole that year. But looking back it was all remarkably good quality and good looking, robust enough for the likes of a small boy, yet ran very well. Every time I take a locomotive out of a box these days I’m sure I’m going to break something, but this old Tri-ang stuff would fall off the table and be as good as new.
     
    In addition:-
    · 3 Tri-ang short (6 inch) bogie coaches – those early ones where the roof warped, 2 in Crimson and Cream and one in Green (R21)
    · Some random open wagons, or trucks as they were called (thanks to the Rev. Awdry I suspect)
    · A Tri-ang Transcontinental Observation Car (R445). Curiously I crossed Canada this year, sitting in an almost identical design of coach.
     
    And then there was the track. Tri-ang Standard Track, which was raised on a grey trackbed, not dissimilar to the Kato Unitrack of today, in OO gauge of course, with about 3 sets of points, and enough for a decent oval and some sidings. Again very robust, well designed and fit for purpose.
    Additionally there were a few items of Tri-ang Series 3 track, with the widely spaced sleepers, that would end up on the end of sidings.
     
    For infrastructure there was one Tri-ang Station set – island platform, ticket office, two of those small toilet buildings, and a signal box. My passengers were spoiled for toilets. All very magnificent, and I did prefer the old single side tapered platform ends to the double side tapered platform ends that seem to have ruled to this day.
     
    Note to manufacturers – make a realistic platform, just shelve that M&GN 2-4-0 for 20 minutes and give us a platform!
     
    Add one extremely dangerous smoking controller and a small boy was in business
     
    But why no Hornby I hear you cry. I suppose that at the time this little lot was collected Hornby Dublo were getting their act together and metamorphosing from 3 rail to 2 rail systems. Hornby would arrive in the fullness of time. But lest we forget it was Tri-ang that were setting the pace in the early 60’s, and eventually saved the Hornby brand.
     
    From now on there was invariably track on the bedroom carpet.
  11. HymekBoy
    Having browsed through some magnificent railways on this site I thought it was time to explore why, after half a century, I don't have one. Well, certainly not a magnificent one, there have been many attempts over the decades.
     
    My formative years in the early 1960's were spent in Bath, and in order to get me out of the way while Mum did the cooking, Dad would put me in his old Citroen (Light 15) and take me down to Bathampton Station. I do recall the car had seat belts, though I don't recall anybody ever wearing one. Bathampton may have been a sleepy little place, but there was nothing sleepy about the station, it was on the Bristol to London Line and the junction for the Westbury Line, endless excitement for a 4 year old boy.
     
    My enduring memories are of the up Bristolian hammering it through the station behind a Warship. I knew it was a Warship because I had a postcard of the Bristolian which was pored over until very grubby... I still have it somewhere amidst 5000 other postcards. And what other locomotive looked like a Warship? The trains were going close to flat out by the time they reached Bathampton and Dad made extra sure to keep me well back, threatening that the train would suck me away. Good sound advice, pity about the seat belts
     
    The highlight, however, was the stunning Blue Pullman. There was nothing like it at the time, to my mind it was the best train of all. For a start it was blue! And it was a Pullman, and it used to slam through Bathampton station so fast my eyes almost popped out of my head.
     
    I also recall the Somerset and Dorset very hazily, and in particular Midford Viaduct, but this is a very dim memory of a curving viaduct across a valley.
     
    Early train travel involved various trips from Bath over to Cardiff and Barry to see grandparents, and occasionally behind steam locomotives. This involved a visit to Bristol Temple Meads, surely the biggest station on the planet, and the Severn Tunnel (close the windows to avoid smuts and time it), followed by the hyperactive South Wales Main Line to Cardiff General. Why on earth did they rename it?
     
    All of which sowed the seeds of a lifelong railway interest in a small boy. An interest that became a craze when Dad suddenly appeared with his childhood collection of Hornby clockwork locomotives, some random rolling stock and a decent circle of track.
  12. HymekBoy
    And so we found ourselves on the Blue Train into Glasgow Queen Street, parents relaxing in the knowledge we were playing football not too far away. The focus of our attention was the gathering of British Rail leaflets, which had become a short-lived craze. Mum surreptitiously threw them all out months later, but it was good while it lasted.
     
    Rail Blue was now gaining a foothold on the locomotives, the Class 21/29, 26 and 27 locomotives commonplace at Queen Street were down to about 50% green at this time.
    And why stop at Queen Street? There we were in the centre of Glasgow, aged about 9 years old, what boy could resist a visit to Glasgow Central? And on the way take in the delights of the Clyde Model Dockyard and Argyle Models, the 2 model shops on every local boy’s radar.
     
    The Clyde Model Dockyard was founded in 1789, which may have given it the longest history of any such business. Sadly it closed in the early 1970’s.
    The only other modelmakers with that sort of history would have probably been the shipyards, perhaps Scott's at Greenock (1711-1993) may have given them a run for their money. Builders models of ships are an ancient art. But who knows for sure.... ?
     
    There is something very satisfying in simply staring through a well-stocked model shop window and doing a little window shopping. And whether that be in the 1960’s or 2016 I tend to conclude that I want it all.
     

     
    Sadly I had missed the era of the four great Glasgow Termini, Central, St Enoch, Buchanan Street and Queen Street by little more than a whisker. St Enoch and Buchanan Street had gone in 1966, I have always wished I could have visited St Enoch in particular, the station that is, not the patron saint of Glasgow. But instead we had Glasgow Central, a grand station in every respect, both then and now.
     
    Back in those days we never had ‘train stations’, we only had ‘railway stations’. I have noticed the term ‘train station’ has crept in, particularly in the last 10 years. I have nothing particularly against the term, but for me they are ‘railway stations’.
     
    Central was exciting, a huge station full of locomotive exotica. I particularly liked the distinctive wooden departure boards, so unlike anything I had seen. The West Coast Main Line had not yet been electrified to Glasgow and the big expresses of the day were mainly in the hands of the monstrous English Electric Type 4’s known later as the Class 40’s. And pride of place went to the ‘Royal Scot’, the pre-eminent named train to the South, just as I had pored over in my ‘Locospotters Annual’.
     

    That Annual (1964). Still to be found on my laden shelves after 50 years of travel, and one of my early inspirations. Slightly water-damaged when the secret police hotel room I used for storage in Bulgaria was flooded by a burst radiator.
     
    Of course there was no TOPS numbering system at the time, but I pause to observe that TOPS was just what we railway enthusiasts needed, a simple way to identify locomotives that didn’t involve manufacturer’s names, transmission equipment, the Type of a locomotive, electrical gear etc. My applause to the inventor of TOPS!
     
    Central also hosted Blue Trains, a variety of DMU’s, varied other locomotive classes and a huge selection of British Rail leaflets and timetables. We returned home laden from the 'local station’, smuggling bagfuls of leaflets into our bedrooms.
  13. HymekBoy
    So there I was, on the cusp of teen age, with about as mixed up a train set as a boy could have. The only commonality was gauge (OO of course, in those days).
    As to location, it was doubtless set on an island somewhere north of France, but that was as far as it went, with a possible leaning towards the west of that particular island.
    As to era, that was clearly 1st January 1923 to 1st January 1970, the well-known Big Four Rail Blue Epoch.
     
    The lads from school and I had finally succumbed to train-spotting, or rather HAP-spotting, and occasional EPB-spotting. Indeed, if we played our cards right at Strood we might spot the ‘Marinex Gravel’, a Class 33 hauling hopper wagons full of sea-dredged gravel, passing through at about 5pm.
     

    Evidence - I had run out of HAPs!
     
    Eventually the 2-HAP units no longer quenched the thirst for numbers, and so the concept of ‘Expedition Awaydays’ was introduced, to initial parental trepidation. This involved several boys leaping on a train for London, and hitting every station on the Circle Line, and one or two outside it.
     
    Essentially it went like this:-
    Leap on train at Maidstone East or Rochester and arrive at Victoria having had head out of train window for the entire journey. Clean eyes. Take all numbers at Victoria, and hasten to Paddington. Now Paddington was exciting! The Westerns were still noisily in command, backed up mostly by Class 47’s. We took an excursion from Paddington to Acton Main Line to see the Westerns at speed, roaring through the station. I still have a photo, but there is so much camera shake from the excitement that it’s barely recognisable, no way am I going to show it here. Well OK, just this once, taken with my Instamatic 33.
     

    By this time the Westerns were getting so filthy that even sophisticated photographers were affected. This was 1974 I think.
     
    Back to Paddington and we would try Marylebone, invariably disappointing with a DMU or two, we cut it (and Broad Steet) out of later Expeditions. Next came the big three, Euston, St Pancras and Kings Cross. We probably favoured the former due to the AC Electrics dominating most trains, Classes 81 to 86 (the Class 87 was about to appear) with the occasional Class 40, and happy hours were spent loitering on our favourite platform. Our second excursion was always to Willesden Junction to see some electrics at speed, there was something exotic about the AC electrics.
     
    St Pancras was the cavernous affair it still is, and much darker, though not terribly busy. It was here that we would eat our British Rail cheese sandwiches and drink our British Rail tea on an item of British Rail Universal Trolley Equipment (BRUTE), at the end of the platform. I recall Brutes being everywhere... suspect there are not enough on models of the era. Not many restaurants could boast a view like a Brute! Peak Classes 44, 45, 46 ruling the roost. I had a soft spot for these huge beasts, they looked so good! Kings Cross was Deltic heaven, usually supported by Class 31 and 47.
     
    We invariably visited Liverpool Street and initially the very run-down Broad Street. Liverpool Street provided a few locomotives, Class 40, 31 and 47 in the main, long before the AC electrics gained a toe-hold.
     
    We normally skipped Fenchurch Street, Cannon Street, London Bridge and Blackfriars/Holborn Viaduct. Time was tight, and our last flourish of the day would be an hour on the end of Waterloo, followed by an hour at Clapham Junction, during the rush hour. We would get more numbers here than during the rest of the day put together, often the numbers would appear faster than we could record them. Admittedly they were EMU numbers, CEPs and VEPs and BIGs and SUBs etc, but they all counted.
    And so we’d head for home, with a heavy haul of numbers.
     
    And everything we saw and spotted was rail blue, on every one of these expeditions.
     
    We did about 5 of these Awayday Expeditions, but times were changing, and a new phenomenon was beginning to appear on the horizon. Girls. A lot more difficult to collect than train numbers, I soon realised. The trappings of teenage were beginning to encroach.
     

    Last night I laid them all out on the carpet, and after gloating for a moment, I realised how many I had collected over the years, without really trying, may have missed a couple too. Obviously some are historical facsimiles, I'm not that old.
  14. HymekBoy
    While ‘Princess Victoria’ hurtled along, making the exploits of ‘Mallard’ look decidedly sluggish and fully justifying the ample toilet facilities on the Tri-ang station, the real railway was once again in a period of transition. This was evident from my much-thumbed 'Locospotters Annual 1964' and 'Trains Annual 1965'. They are still within arms reach now... not sure if that's a good thing after 50 years.
     
    This was evident from the Infants’ School that I attended, from which could be seen, at a distance, the main line into Bath Spa. The occasional eye was cast in that direction from the rough and tumble of the playground, where everybody seemed to be sporting that red stuff on our knees that was put on cuts and scrapes.
     
    Steam was in retreat. Small yellow warning panels were beginning to appear. I rather liked them, they didn’t detract from the looks in the way the later full yellow ends did. I felt that the small yellow panels often added to the looks, and went very well with BR Green. A green Hymek with a small panel looked just right to me, and it was these and green DMUs that I would see with the most frequency from the playground. A yellow end on a Blue Pullman never really worked for me.
     
    The forays to grandparents in South Wales were mostly by train, though I do recall going at 90mph on the newly opened M4 with dad, with not a car (or a seatbelt) in sight. DMU’s were the mode of travel for the most part, and it was always preferable to sit directly behind the cab. We stopped and reversed at Temple Meads, visiting exotica such as Patchway and Pilning en route.
     
    Neither of these boosted the excitement quite like Severn Tunnel Junction did. What a huge place that was, crammed full of locomotives and wagons of all descriptions. It was a full scale fiddle yard, very long and mostly parallel to the main line, like a classic American yard, and it was here that I first saw 'Falcon'.
     
    The locomotive scene in South Wales was very different to that of Bath. Diesel Electrics were more common, in particular what would later be known as Classes 37 and 47. There was far more heavy freight in South Wales and the lack of a dedicated hydraulic freight locomotive had opened the door to these fascinating interlopers.
     
    I was always fascinated by the pink tinting on a Class 47’s windscreen, wondering why it glinted in that odd colour. This was obviously due to tinted glass of some sort. No doubt somebody has replicated it on a two tone green 47 but I’ve never seen it modelled. That glass wasn't replaced and now I assume its a thing of the past.
     
    I had a grandmother in Cardiff and another in Barry. Barry had everything a small boy could wish for, beaches a-plenty, docks that could be walked around, an airport, a huge funfair and more railway track than you could shake a stick at. It was well past its prime (1913, when it was the world’s biggest coal exporting port, handling 4000 ships), but it still boasted many coal tips on the docks (aka staithes/hoists in other parts of the country), some of which were still used. Barry smelt of coal, and the entire considerable acreage of the docks were covered in it.
     
    The coal wagons were shoved up an incline to the tip, usually by a shunter at this time, whereupon the entire wagon was grabbed and upended over a loading chute on to a ship, then dumped back on the track, on the return rail. And a small boy could wander freely across the many railway lines and watch events.
     
    One of my other passions is ships, indeed it’s been a career. Paddle Steamers in particular have resonated with me from a series of excursions on the Bristol Channel and the Clyde, and I have dim memories of Barry Pier station, now no longer, with a waiting green 3 car DMU (or 6 cars if busy) to whisk the voyagers back up the line to Cardiff and the Valleys.
     
    The phpt shows Barry in 1929, and is well known on the internet. It's from before my time, but much of what can be seen was still there in the 1960's.
     
    I have tried counting the P.O wagons, best estimate I can up with is about 2,000.
     
    Now that's a train set, model that. And while you're at it, Cadoxton sidings are around the corner
     

  15. HymekBoy

    Ducks in a row...

    By HymekBoy,

    There comes a time when conditions are such that railways begin to boom, and so it was in the mid-1980’s with my own railway.
     
    a) I had the space, a decent apartm… flat to myself with an appealing but very empty guest room.
    b) I had some so-called ‘disposable income’ jingling in my pocket, and I disposed of it.
    c) My girlfriend was in Britain studying. I had few to distract me.
    d) I had a supply of much pored-over Railway Modellers from the Tabacaria Britannica, with their seductive tiny print full page adverts.
     
    It was either (1) drink myself into a stupor every night or (2) embark upon a small railway project.
    As you might have guessed I chose mainly (2) with the odd excursion into (1). The Small Prairie staring at me so balefully every time I arrived back home needed proper company, the Class 21/29 didn’t quite cut the mustard.
     
    And soon the parcels began to arrive. I always felt sorry for the postman, as almost every week he would lug a box of goodies up to the 6th floor to find I was once again at work.
    Under these circumstances, the following arrived in Portugal:-
     

    i) Mainline 43XX No. 5328 BR Black – the first to arrive, I was in business. This locomotive survives to this day, having replaced the chassis.
    ii) Mainline 66XX No. 6652 BR Black – hard worked but terribly noisy!
    iii) Airfix Castle No. 4079 Pendennis Castle BR Green – I always loved the Castles, and this was an excellent performer, despite the ghastly tender drive and traction tyres. I would prefer a locomotive to haul 3 coaches and slip, than to haul 10 coaches without slippage. Once it starts to slip turn down the power and coax the train up to speed, as on the prototypes.
    iv) Mainline Dean Goods No. 2538 BR Black – a poor performer but I had to have one.
    As you might discern, a theme is developing. BR era for sure. Western for sure. South Wales in all likelihood with that 66XX. And that was the philosophy, until I happened upon W&H Models in London during a holiday. A great model shop sadly gone, and this was in the window:
    v) Dapol Pug No. 51241 BR Black – well that doesn’t fit in, but I found myself unable to resist it. The story of my life…. I commend Dapol for having the courage to produce it, and it was a great little performer, probably still is, though not tested for over a decade. It’s beginning to look like a little known outcrop of the L&YR somewhere near Newport.
    vi) Mainline Manor No. 7827 Lydham Manor – make that the little known Newport on the Cambrian. This locomotive, though gorgeous, became the donor locomotive to keep the 43XX on the rails.
    vii) Hornby Pug No. 56025 Smokey Joe – this is what happens when a Korean girlfriend goes into a model shop without supervision! The Caledonian Cambrian. The fastest locomotive since Princess Victoria.  
    I shall return with more, but you can begin to see my problem. I have no discipline when it comes to location, or era or even gauge, as we shall see.
     

    The day job
     

    The evening job. This grainy old photograph on the Portuguese Western Region is all I have uncovered so far - there must be more
     
    Trackwise I had accumulated a largish stack of Peco, enough to cover an entire guest bedroom floor, say 15' x 12', with a double track main line, 4 platform station (platforms of local wood), a long branch line to terminus and an extensive shed and sidings area. No board. Straight on the carpet. From a distance of several miles it looked just like the Cambrian.
     
    But anyway, I had a shed full of motive power, and it wasn’t long before the Cambrian Coast Express took to the rails, for the first time in Portugal. Or had somebody else already reached that milestone?
  16. HymekBoy
    Throughout 1984, ‘85 and ‘86 the Portuguese Caledonian Cambrian Taff Vale Railway was worked heavily. Being a long roundy-roundy layout the locomotives worked in real time, hence a journey from Cardiff to Swindon (around the guest bedroom) would take over an hour – although all the intervening stations looked remarkably similar.
     
    The locomotives accumulated a lot of running hours pulling heavy trains (I liked to load my wagons where possible, running up to 25 wagons on a train) and those puny Mainline mechanisms were soon on their last legs. I recorded the running hours of all the locomotives for some arcane reason, and some had put in a few months effort.
     
    Fresh locomotives were brought in to keep services going, not necessarily in order to fill gaps in the roster, but because I liked stuff.

    i) Mainline Warship D823 Hermes BR Maroon – Hydraulic power arrives
    ii) Mainline Warship D824 Highflyer BR Green – the 2 Warships took over the main expresses adding a touch of Devon to the geographical equation. Good looking in their day, they were let down by the Christmas cracker mechanisms.
    iii) Airfix 14XX No. 1466 BR Green – ideal for that long windy branch line. It came with self-dissolving Alka-Seltzer nylon gears which sadly gave up after a couple of years, but it looked the part.
    iv) Dapol Castle No. 4090 Dorchester Castle BR Green – with a late pattern tender. Plenty of express engines being drafted in.
    v) Airfix 4F No. 44454 BR Black – the freight engine scene of the 1980's was a little lacking compared with now, hence the need to bring in some Midland power, though to my eye it looked slightly overscale.
    vi) Airfix Large Prairie No. 6167 BR Black – Airfix Railways had left the model railway business in 1981, but by this stage, 1985, there was still quite a lot of stock available, often with a little discount. They had some niche models, and I had some niches.
    vii) Replica B1 N0. 61026 Ourebi BR Black – some serious regional straying going on here, yet another endorsement and 3 penalty points on my modeller’s licence. If I had to find a justification it would perhaps have been a failed engine on the ‘Ports to Ports Express’ (did they ever pull it?). Replica have always been around, and produce(d) some quality models.  

    Who could resist this occasional interloper? My lack of location discipline means that there will always be interlopers on dubious pretexts
     
    Hmm, as an aside, the ‘Ports to Ports Express’ – now that would be a thing to model:-

    “It links Newcastle and Hull by through coaches, and Sunderland. West Hartlepool, and Middlesbrough by connexions, with Newport, Cardiff, Barry, and Swansea. Intermediately the train serves Sheffield, Nottingham, Leicester, Banbury, and Cheltenham. Between Newcastle and Swansea it is a complete restaurant car train, composed on alternate days of L.N.E.R. and Great Western stock”  

    I’m getting distracted.  

    A future project, perhaps. The Ports to Ports Express must have been a lively train in its day
     
    There were a few other locomotives, but these were the locomotives putting in the shifts of the day.
     
    Passenger stock – a nice long rake of the expensive Mainline Colletts, a variety of Mk 1’s from Lima, Mainline and Replica, a B-set, Autocoach, and a Farish (Grafar as they called themselves) OO Pullman Car that came from I know not where. Not excessive but enough to fill the carriage sidings.
     
    Freight stock – a wide variety of BR grey and bauxite, and far too many private owner wagons for a nationalised railway, but 7 plank private owner wagons are a particular weakness of mine, particularly Welsh ones. They were almost all out of era, but I cunningly hid them from the Portuguese branch of Rivet Counters International.
     
    And then, in the charming and romantic setting of Heathrow Terminal 1, I blurted out some vague sketchy notions of marriage to the girlfriend, who took it all too literally. Within a year the deed was done, Child Mk. 1 was on its way, and the railway, after its long, busy moment in the sun, was back in its boxes on the shelf.
    Some have remained in those boxes to this day.
  17. HymekBoy
    I suppose we’re all a lot more conscious of the notion of ‘collectibles’ these days, or at least the notion of not ruining the packaging just in case we have to sell it on at some stage. This notion hadn’t yet surfaced in the mind of a 5 year old boy in 1964, sitting in the middle of a circle of Hornby O Gauge track.
    Trains are for playing with, and scale speed wasn’t on the agenda.
     
    I still believe in this philosophy, and no matter how I represent the hobby to my wife in terms of model engineering *cough*, aesthetic attributes, artistic leanings, historical research… I think she’s seen through the façade, and suspects I like playing with trains.
     
    Back in the 1960’s however, my collection of collectibles was getting a battering. They had already been battered by the previous generation and once again they were standing up to a small boy and whizzing around the track. There were two 0-4-0 tank locomotives, in Great Western and BR Lined Black (clearly a late purchase from somewhere) and a 4-4-2T in GWR Shirtbutton livery, a couple of tinplate coaches and several assorted wagons, all of which provided hours of absorbing fun.
     
    These locomotives were always wound up to the full, then using the double pushrod controls emerging from of the cab they would be unleashed to hurtle around the track, often throwing themselves off in the race to arrive at the station. The collectibles were becoming less collectable. Being a model passenger in those days was a high risk occupation.
     
    Robust they certainly were, but I did manage to destroy the driving wheels on the 4-4-2T. Thankfully Portsmouth Naval Dockyard had a Hornby driving wheel workshop, and it is these Cold War driving wheels that she wears to this day.
     
    As time wore on, I became vaguely aware of something known as electric trains. I suspect the ‘Blue Peter Train Set’ may have had a hand in this, quite a decent double oval of track pioneered by Christopher Trace and amended over the years. This was exciting television, small boy television.
     
    It was during a visit to the Bath Pram and Toy Shop that I came face to face with electric trains.
    Many months later, after a long and arduous campaign of pestering, and probably at Christmas of 1964, Father Christmas finally delivered what Mum and Dad had abjectly failed to do.
     
    A large scruffy brown cardboard box had appeared in the house, obviously from the North Pole.
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