railroadbill

Well, it was a sunny day for photos... collectable, vintage and Triang. Lower left, original Triang Minic ships, cruiser HMS Superb, frigates are Torquay and Vigilant, minesweepers are 2x Repton and 2x Picton. In front of those, tug Turmoil, 2 harbour tugs, Isle of Sark (Channel Islands ferry) and Verne lightship. Battleship Vanguard and carrier Bulwark are second series Hong Kong made. At the top back, the carded ones are lightships and pilot boats, plus customs and rescue launches from the revived Triang range that Oxford sold. The original liners would probably be the best to have, I've got several of the second series ones. I had an original SS Nieuw Amsterdam liner which disintegrated in a very bad case of mazak rot, but the rest have survived ok.

Well, here's my "running backwards" motor bogie. The insulated wheels are to the right and the brown lead from their pickups goes to the left hand, (looking forwards), brush with the insulated sleeve. Not sure about the red wires, they go to lights but the soldering looks more of an afterthought.

Just spotted your thread. Just a thought but you could try one of these, a Hornby Railroad power bogie. This one has frames for a 121 but I've also used class 43 ones, they also are used in class 73 etc. it's just the bogie frame moulding that's different, the mechanism is the same one. This one is going to repower an old Lima DMU. It would certainly fit into a van body. Shorter wheel base but not too much shorter than this 40mm wheelbase van. You'd just have to clip the side frames off. They are moulded in one piece with the under chassis which keeps the axles in place. They do need wiring from the pickups (on all wheels) to the motor. I bought mine from Lendons of Cardiff, very good and helpful service, they carry lots of Hornby spares, I've had 4 wheel and 6 wheel power bogies from them. These are a reasonable price as well. Good luck with the project, I remember Kitmaster did a powered van to propel their plastic loco kits around (in early 1960s). No idea how sucessful it was though.

Great, thanks! Looked up Scalecraft and they are indeed the kits I was thinking of. They did quite a range, there was a Cessna floatplane that I had, also a Lotus racing car, plus the MTB. Their advantage was that they gave you a good chance of assembling a working model in a reasonable time, even if the performance wasn't great. From what I can find, Scalecraft were based in Twickenham, started in 1950s and were taken over by Airfix in late 1970s, some of their kits may have been issued by Airfix. From box end illustration of Lotus F1 car kit on Brighton Toy Museum site.

Spot on, brings the operational nightmare back! 👍 I had an MTB, not Triang, made from a clip together kit in rather flexible plastic, I think. Had an electric motor that fitted inside right at the back so the motor shaft was the propellor shaft. They also did racing cars, think Woolworths sold them but don't know the make.

Thanks for the info about the freighter, Captain Slough. I had a Triang trawler and a tug as a child, (sorry, junior modeller), both boats clockwork which shared the same hull design, long gone. I also came across a Triang lifeboat in a museum, also clockwork, which looked very good but haven't come across another one since. I vaguely remember problems with clockwork boat range, at least with batteries you had a fair chance of your vessel making it to the other side of the pond! (Unless the prop got covered with weed). Every park seemed to have a model boating lake once, more difficult to find now but I'm lucky to have one not too far away for my occasional model boat sideline. I guess triang, original Hornby, Sutcliffe etc. boats would be another potential collection.....

From 'Tri-ang Railways in Canada and the USA' . Site states it is ok to show content from their website as long as they are quoted as the reference source. The freighter is in the middle. Lots of accessories but I'm not sure if they are all Triang. Looks like the station waiting room (got that) is just in front of the freighter's bow. Also the power pylons (which you can still buy now, R.530). From 'Tri-ang Railways in Canada and the USA' . Link is https://tri-ang.weebly.com/. as posted above by GoingUnderground.

Found with my (cheap but tatty) one that it tends to spark at the wheel treads when running, has knurled wheels, may be pulling too high a current or perhaps the short wheelbase bogie is rocking from side to side while running. Needs stripping down and lots of TLC I suspect. That's an interesting site, couple of good layout pics, there's a freighter in a harbour scene that presumably is one of the Triang clockwork ship/boats, that I hadn't seen before.

This thread reminds me that I've got this one, bit battered but it does run. Despite knurled wheels and deep flanges, it made its way around my code 100 Peco track layout. For some reason it's wired to run in the opposite way to other locos. One front fairing is missing but I believe 3-d printed ones are available. My plan was to paint it up like this A70 class. (Seen in Melbourne in 2010). OK, the A70 is a co-co but it would just have been a representation... would be my only piece of pseudo-Australian stock, although I could run an RDC (not in the right livery and Ahern rather than Triang).

This has made me spend too much time on the internet, but here's some more on this....it does lead on to complicated stories from these references! As the war ended, the UK Fedden mission, the US Operation Lusty, Russian and French missions searched for advanced German equipment like jet aircraft and research facilities. (Eric "Winkle" Brown's excellent book "Wings on my sleeve" has a lot on finding and testing German aircraft at the end of the war). This all further led to Operation Paperclip (US) Operation Osoaviakhim (Russia) and similar British and French operations which were to "aquire" German scientists and engineers who'd worked on nuclear weapons, rockets, and advanced aviation such as turbojet engines and swept wings. This is by no means an exhaustive list, there were a lot of other technologies involved. This led to the US and Russia having thousands of top German engineers and scientists working for them. (The British and French not so very much). This all came from agreements about German post war reparations at the Yalta conference. (If you google Operation Epsilon or Farm Hall there's a lot about the British program to learn about German nuclear weapon development). So when we see both the Sabre and MIG 15 have wings swept back at 38 degrees it's due to design inputs from similar designers and data... Messerschmitt P.1112. Woldemar Voight, (head of the Me design staff) who worked on the Me 262, also worked on this also never built tail-less design. He ended up working for Chance Vought in the States. One of his first designs was the F7U Cutlass which has a lot of similarity to the P.1112 design.

That cockpit detail is really good, plus ace finish as well. Very matt. Interesting article, one thing mentioned was that the SAAB 29 Tunnan fighter also used German swept wing research, obtained from Switzerland whence some German engineers had fled....

Your dad would have had an interesting flight! I rather like Shackletons, when I was young we went on holiday to Cornwall at a time when these were still flying and I remember them lumbering along the coast. My intention is to hang the model over one end of the loft layout, as a memory of that. Went to the Morayvia aircraft museum near Lossiemouth pre Covid with a friend who had moved to Scotland, very good museum and they had quite a few models including Shackletons on display so this was influenced by that visit as well. Many years ago I went to a talk by someone who had flown them and he said the worse part was the risk of going high-tone deaf due to the noise level....

Looks very good, also the swept back wings and tail of this proposed design don't look that diferent from the later KDA-1 (Q-2A) FIREBEE drone model you're building so maybe the aerodynamic research was captured and applied later by the US? Could mean the "Ta 183" would have flown ok as the drone worked....

Avro Shackleton MR Mk3 Phase 3 1:72nd scale from the later Revell kit. This was a lockdown project although I'd started it before that! Kept getting held up by issues like "what colour were they really?" - (I found some photos I'd taken of a preserved Shackleton at Duxford outside in sunshine where it looked pale blue from one angle and dark grey the other side...). Sprayed with Tamiya XF-54 in the end, Flory washes then mostly removed which brought out panel lines and rivets, and Citadel "purity seal" matt vanish from aerosol as final finish. The red-white-red propeller tips were a fiddle, I also lost an aileron which turned up in the garage workbench, but all holdups now out the way! Now finished at last, and by posting these pics I won't be tempted to do anything else to it!

If it had a couple of rows of cabin windows, dark blue flashes and "transatlantic hypersonic airlines" lettering it would be perfect to be rescued by thunderbird 2 after the inevitable mishap.... Actually it is a very sci fi design!

Thanks Rich, that looks like it! You turned the handle to unlatch the door I think. There was a good play value with Hornby, (the water tower you could fill with water being one!) Regards Bill

My memory fails me!

That's the key to it. :-) This is where it started for me as the 2 locos are what my dad bought when I was 4 or something like that except we had the green tender loco and black tank. Not so much goods stock but the brake van looks familiar, think the doors opened? We didn't have quite so much track either.... It all got replaced by Hornby dublo 3 rail. Thanks for video, very nostalgic!!

Red is Tamiya XF-7 which seems a reasonable enough match. Far as I've got so far due to a knee problem which now seems ok at present. carl19's MHs look really good, as does Neils WRX MT. I'm going to have to look for those....

One more Inpact model. 1:48th scale Avro Triplane. Revving up for take off! This was made around 1966 when the kit was released....must have boxed the model up ok a long time ago because it's survived various moves over the years. There have been various interesting models on this thread that have been built years ago so here's another oldie. (Er, 57 years (gulp!) so the plastic, glue etc. has lasted well).

Got an unmade Airfix 1:48th Fury in the loft...(perhaps they are the same mouldings!! Probably not.) Fairey Flycatcher would be an unusual model. H'mm... Bit of web surfing and found a reference on Scalemates site that Lindberg issued the Flycatcher and Fury in the same box as late as 2017, so those moulds have done very well if the kits are almost current (in the US).

There were 6 in the series, the Martin Handasyde, Avro triplane and biplane, Bristol Boxkite, Bleriot and Deperdussin. All released in 1966. They also had a 1930's range, and did a Gloster Gladiator, Fairey Flycatcher, Bristol Bulldog and Hawker Fury. They appear to have been released in 1968 according to Scalemates website. All these were in 1:48th scale. Nice kits in their day.

1:48th scale Inpact Martin-Handasyde 1911 monoplane. These first came out (there were 6 early aircraft) in 1966, around the time of the "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines" film, which I was obsessed by at the time. They were later made by Pyro in the US and Lindberg. I originally made this when it first came out, and it somehow survived in a bag though mainly in pieces. Thought I'd restore it, needed new struts and one of the engine cylinder blocks was missing as moulded another out of Milliput in a Blue Stuff mould. The copper pipes were repainted using a very old tin of Humbrol enamel. Rigging was EZ-line which works ok for me in 1:48th scale but I found fiddly in 1:72nd. I repainted the fuselage to represent varnished natural wood but otherwise I wanted to keep it as it had originally been made, restoration rather than rebuild! There we are, a part of pre WW1 aviation.

Just like to add my thanks for you posting this. I had intended to go to the exhibition, even found out how to pay the ULEZ charge, but couldn't in the end, so your excellent video was very interesting. Think you captured the feel of the exhibition as well as the very good layouts. 19 minutes well spent!

Interesting YouTube clip. I vaguely remember seeing these demonstrated on a demo track at an exhibition in what must have been early 1980s according to the dates given when they were made. The loco I remember was a Bulleid pacific which would have had reasonable room inside for the mechanism. I believe they had an oscillating cylinder and gear drive. It was in unpainted brass like the v2 so maybe they were all like that? It must have made some impression on me, think it was pretty expensive. However, the brass body looked well proportioned and detailed from what I remember. The V2 looks really good and just crys out for a decent chassis! The YouTube vid looks like it was filmed at Ally Pally as there's a glimpse of the organ. I did think he was pushing his luck later in the vid running it round the kitchen table!! Looking forward to seeing your finished (electric) v2.