HymekBoy

There's nothing nicer than a peep into a chap's fiddle yard

Oh yes those drop sided door open wagons, had a couple of those. Some clever engineering there. And everything seemed to work so well, on what must have been the filthiest track in the land!

Great layout, love the heavy industry and scenic work!

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.

Impressed! You almost have a brand new locomotive.

I also have an old Lima Prairie lurking somewhere, that last saw operation on the South Wales Main Line in..um... Portugal in about 1985. Anyway, it ran like a cheetah, only slowing once it got to pensionable age and retired to the back of the shed. I can see I might have to get it out and have a tinker, the only real issue I had was the general overscale nature.

Hats off to you for selecting this era, fascinating and a lot of research, I'm sure!

Looks great, wrong gauge and location for me, but I want one.

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.

It won't stop a small boy trying to replicate it on the carpet, even on the sharpest curves

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.