GoingUnderground

The loco first appeared in the 1971 catalogue. the last one issued as part of the Lines Bros group. The loco was priced at £8.00 according to a price list that I typed out at the time. I have no idea why I typed it, nor of my source for the information. But I have no reason to believe that it wasn't right as the prices are in £sd and 1971 was the year in which we changed over to "decimal" currency. I don't know where I got the £8.00 from as the catalogue shows "Evening Star" as "Available late 1971! This was way more than any other loco in the Triang Hornby range. The next most expensive was R.855N LNER "Flying Scotsman" at £6.25, followed by R.869S Battle of Britain Class "Winston Churchill, and R.871 Princess Coronation Class 8P "King George VI" (which was also new in 1971 with nickel silver tyres) at £5.75, and R.864 Princess Coronation Class 8P "Coronation" at £5.25. For comparison, the cheapest locos were the R.253 the diesel Dock Shunter, and R.355B 0-4-0 "Nellie" and R.355G 0-4-0 "27". at £2,50. The official 1972 price list has the same locos at the following prices: R.861 "Evening Star" £9.99 R.855N "Flying Scotsman" £7.45 R.869S "Winston Churchill" £6.85 R.871 "King George Vi" £6.85 R,864 "Coronation" £6.15 R.253 Diesel Dock Shunter £2.90 R.353 "Nellie" £2.90 And the official January 1970 price list has them as: R.855 £5.45 R.869S £5.25 R.253 £2.35 R.355R £2.15 R.355G £2.15 So whatever my source for the 1971 prices, they look to have been correct, higher than 1970, lower than 1972

As the bracket is flat and symmetrical, provided you have at least half of it, you could use that as the template to make a new one out of thicker plasticard, which I think you said you were already doing. It might take a bit of time, but just think of the satisfaction you'll get out of putting the loco back into running order by using something that you made. I did have one break decades ago, it was teh loop at one end. I can't remember if it was from my Princess or the 3MT. I recall repairing it by gluing the metal valve gear part to the bracket and sticking the broken bit of the loop to the metal using Plastic Padding. I haven't got the two possible locos with me, but as far as I know the repair is still holding.

It's worth pointing out that the reason why some of the items in the '64 Triang catalogue, especially the Model-land items and Minic buildings, were never made was that there wasn't enough interest in them from retailers/the buying public to justify making them. These are generally identifiable by the price being shown as "Available later" which was Triang's way of saying that the item wasn't in the shops when the catalogue was released and wouldn't be for some time.

Sorry, I don't speak emoji. The illustration in the '64 catalogue of the searchlight signal is different to the one used in both the '59 and 60-61-62 catalogue, but appears to be of the same product. But the earlier illustration shows 2 "boxes" as the base whereas the later one shows just the one box. I don't know if that was a deliberate omission or if the earlier illustration was also showing the lower half of the base containing the bulbs as the second "box". I suspect the latter. The product numbers changed, from "758" for the interchangeable Home & Distant to "1474". The separate Home and Distant searchlight models, "752" and "756" respectively, had been dropped. The numbering change does not indicate a change of product as everything carried through from the 1962 price list had been renumbered. For example, the 16 ton mineral wagon in bauxite red "P.607" in '62 became "1602" in the '64 catalogue. Incidentally, the "P" indicated an injection moulded body introduced in 1960, as opposed to the tinplate bodies previously used. The 3 rail "Twin" track, now called Universal track gained a 1 prefix, , the "701" 7 1/4" straight becoming "1701". There was also a new 2 rail track system introduced in '64. This tended to use the same last 2 digits as the older 3 rail style track, but with a prefix of "15". Thus the 2 rail 7 1/4" straight was "1501" whilst the 3 rail was "1701" as noted above. The 2nd radius curves did not follow this numbering pattern, being "8xx" fir "Twin" and "152x" for 2 rail. Locos got a more radical renumbering in '64 as separate "2 rail" versions were launched, presumably to go with the new 2 rail track. For instance the EM1 "F105" with the suffixes "B" (F105B) for Black or "G" for Green (F105G) turned into 4 different numbers F105B became 1121 with the 2 rail model being 1123, whilst F105G became 1124 and the 2 rail model 1126. I don't know the physical differences between the "Twin" and "2 rail" versions, but suspect that the 2 rail versions dispensed with the separate pick up shoes and relied instead on wipers contacting the back of the wheels. I do have an EM1 with such an arrangement, and did see a second one at the time I bought it with the same wiper pick up arrangement. I wasn't sure if they were both from the same collection and had been modified by the same person, or came ex-works with the wiper pick-ups. They were both unboxed, but it is possible that they were the "2 rail" versions. Apologies for going rather O/T, but the changes made when Courtaulds took over Trix do suggest that they were serious about competing with Triang despite the problem of their scale falling between OO and H0.

Perhaps you shouldn't assume that my photo showed all the coaches - it didn't. I was interested in showing the OP's coaches as they appeared in the catalogue, not the full range of overseas coaches, which ran to over 4 sides, compared to 2 sides for the UK outline coaches. In fact there were more overseas coaches in the Trix '64 catalogue - 22 (twenty-two) including a centre coach for the Dutch EMU and a centre coach for the German DMU, that UK outline ones - 10 (ten). The situation was much the same with locos where overseas outline models outnumbered UK ones. There were 2 continental style signals, one Home, one Distant, but only one UK one which was a searchlight single lens type, but it did come with colour filters so the buyer could choose between Home and Distant. If you look at the OP's photos of the Trix red & blue/grey boxes from that era they do say "Trix offers a large selection of British and Continental locomotives and rolling stock". At 48 pages including the cover, the 1964 Trix catalogue was larger that the Triang 1964 catalogue whose 40 pages included most of the Model-land buildings and all the Minic Motorways range but not the TT range. Both are approx A4 format so I am comparing like with like. I don't have a '64 Dublo catalogue, but by then their parent company Mecccano Ltd's financial position was dire, selling out to Lines Bros in February '64. Trix was more expensive than Triang, and that even applied to the catalogues. The price on the cover of the Trix '64 catalogue was 1/9 (8 3/4p) whereas the Triang one was 1/- (5p).

In the 1960s, British Trix did include various German models in their UK catalogue. The 1964 catalogue devotes quite a few pages to continental outline models, including 4 steam locos, 6 electric locos, a DMU, an EMU, ad well as continental coaches, including 2 4 wheeled ones, and some US outline stock. The continental freight wagons are mixed in with the UK outline ones. It also includes Kibri buildings, and Wiad construction kits. Whether this was an attempt to pad out a rather meagre UK portfolio, or an effort to emulate Triang's Transcontinental offering is open to question. But at the time, 1964, the company was known as British Trix, and was a subsidiary of Courtaulds. I don't know what arrangements were made for merchandising the continental models. They may have been bulk packed and repacked into British TRix boxes in the UK, which would explain the packaging. The two coaches that you have appear to be from the 1964 catalogue. The part numbers quoted are "1970" for the "4 wheeled Passenger Coach" and "1971" for the "Parcel van". The catalogue shows them with what appears to be the usual Peco/Dublo/Trix couplings, implying that they were intended to be part of the standard British Trix range, but that may have been a cosmetic change made purely for the catalogue. The next Trix catalogue that I have is the 67/68 edition, but there was no overseas rolling stock in it. So your models are probably in the correct boxes. I don't know whether they'd be sought after by Trix collectors or not. But as they're in good condition, and in the correct period boxes they might be worth a bit more than you paid for them. Personally I only hack RTR stuff if it's less than perfect and unboxed, as it seems at least to me to be rather a shame to remodel or repaint something that has survived intact for over 55 years.

Paul, You are being somewhat hypercritical as you very often mention Zimo in posts from people about ESU decoders even when no one else has previously mentioned Zimo in the topic, and go to great lengths to extol the virtues of Zimo at the expense of ESU, and have done so for many years, both on here and on other model railway forums. You've done it again here by accusing ESU of having a 'blank cheque' attitude, when ESU publish a schedule of repair costs, https://www.esu.eu/en/support/warranty-repair/reparaturen/servicepauschalen/austauschpauschalen/ Also the OP mentioned Austria, and as we all know Zimo is based in Austria. So it was possible that the OP had ESU with Zimo, or Germany with Austria. I made absolutely no mention of the arrangements that Zimo have with whoever are their agents in the UK. I only referred to what appears on the Zimo Austrian website: https://www.zimo.at/web2010/sales/kundendienst_EN.htm where they talk about passing on customs clearance costs to the sender for items sent from outside the EU. Zimo also say on their website that: "The repair process via the specialist dealer usually saves the shipping costs, but is often not the fastest option, as the transport in both directions is often carried out in collective packages. When sending directly to ZIMO, the fastest possible return of the product is guaranteed; however, the sender bears the shipping costs in both directions himself. This also applies to warranty cases (as these are mostly foreign shipments)." Of course, if local repair or sending via a local agent is possible, then naturally I'm very pleased for the owners of Zimo kit that they can avail themselves of such a service.

I tried a solder repair donkey's years ago on a Trix bogie without realising it was suffering from Zinc pest/rot. It was a hopeless failure. Whether that was down to the rot or my technique I don't know, probably both. If you do try it remember to use lead free solder as it is lead as an impurity in the zinc alloy that causes zinc pest. I don't know if the lead in such solder could cause rot where it touches the zinc alloy, but it is probably better not to find out. The cut 'n'shut idea is good, but you'd be binning an awful lot of the donor model just to get an extra window bay. The other thing is that those Corgi models aren't 1:72, they're 1:64 even though the wheels run on "OO" track. Put next to anything in 4mm scale like the Original Omnibus Feltham and they'll look wildly oversize. I have a couple of the Corgi 1/64 models myself. If you want an E1 and being 4mm scale is important then search around for the Tower Trams kit, but you probably already know that. One of my "To Do" jobs is the reverse of what you want to do and cut down a Tower Trams E1 to make the 3 window Class M tram.

I don't see how you can regard it as a black mark against ESU, especially as Zimo have a very similar notice on their website about items sent for repair from outside the EU. A black mark against SWD possibly, but the cost of running a repair collation service for items out of warranty could be disproportionately high and SWD are not a large company making huge profits. But they will still accept items within the 24 month warranty period. It could also introduce a delay if service agents waited until there were several items to return before sending them off to Germany or Austria or wherever for repair. It is just one of the realities of leaving the EU that we can't close our eyes to any longer. We're now a 3rd party country and must expect to be treated as such. So back to the OP, how old is the decoder? If it was bought from new less than 24 months ago then send it to SouthWest Digital as a warrant claim, they are very likely to ask to see the original sales invoice to confirm that it is within the warranty period.

The company was Rovex Limited, trading as Rovex Models & Hobbies up to 1976 when there was a reorganisation with the DCM group which split the activities of Rovex Ltd into different divisions, but still under the umbrella of the Rovex Limited company, when the model railways "Hornby Railways" came under the Hornby Hobbies division. This was the position until Dunbee-Combex-Marx failed in 1980. The various cradles for the different can type motors are all shown in the relevant service sheets..

Except that SW Digital, the official UK distributor for ESU have the following notices on their website: "Please note: No ESU Repairs carried out in the UK ALL out of warranty items to be replaced or repaired will have to be returned directly to ESU Germany by yourselves." And ESU say on their website: "Important note for END CUSTOMERS from all countries outside the EU who return faulty items back to ESU GERMANY: Please return faulty items directly to your model railway retailer who is responsible for the claims management and transaction to GERMANY. If you don´t have a retailer, please note that we reserve the right to charge you with additional costs for shipping and handling. We ask for your kind understanding." and "If you would like us to repair an item for you against charge, please check our different rates of service charges before you send it in. Don´t forget to explicitly state on the covering letter that you will accept any arising service charges."

You might have more success if you returned ESU decoders to ESU in Germany, and Zimo decoders to Zimo in Austria.

I can assure you from personal hands-on experience that Windows 286 and 386 were definitely several years before Windows 3. From late 1987 we were using 286 based portable clamshell design machines at work, I think they may have been Honeywell badged Zenith machines. I left that job in 1989 so I am absolutely 100% certain about the dates. It was after changing jobs that I went to a presentation in Birmingham in 1990 about then then newly launched Windows 3.

The first X.03 was produced up to 1954 and had an Alnico magnet. It was replaced by the X.04 in 1954 which was essentially the same motor but an Alcomax magnet The X.04 was the standard Triang stand alone motor used in OO/H0 steam outline locos including all models using the 0-4-0 chassis for over 20 years until around 1976. Apart from some produced in first half of the 1950s, and the Steeple Cab loco R.252/254, all Triang diesel and electric outline locos used motor bogies. In 1976, Rovex tried to reduce the cost of the motor and redesigned the motor to use parts from the motor used in Scalextric cars, (larger volumes = lower unit cost). This redesigned motor was called the X.03 But they will not have been produced in anything like the same numbers as the X.04 as they were used for a much shorter period at a time when sales of model railways were much lower than the late 1950s and early 1960s. Also, looking at the relevant service sheets the new 03 seems to have been used almost interchangeably with can motors except that there were differences in the worm and worm gear depending on which motor was used, see the relevant service sheets for more details. So swapping motors may not be quite as straightforward as it might seem. So if you have a Triang stand alone motor it could be a 1950s X.03 or a 1970s X.03 but is much more likely to be an X.04 as there will be far more of them around. Some steam locos used the XT.60 motor, which was also used in the TT range (the "T" in XT is the giveaway), where space didn't permit the fitting of an X.04, whilst the original Triang "Rocket" used the X.500.

Do you mean X.03 or X.04? There's no reason why they couldn't be 3D printed, after all Rovex did use cradles for the can motors that replaced the X.04 motors in the R.355 0-4-0s when the 0-4-0s still used the 1959 chassis design. The only issue might be that the cradle would need to be designed to match the dimensions of whichever motor was to replace the X.04. So a generic cradle to suit all possible alternative motors would not be possible. Have a look at Hornby Service sheets 82 and 82A to see examples of such cradles or brackets on the Hornby Collectors website https://www.hornbyguide.com/service_sheet_menu.asp.

I'm delighted to say that I have absolutely no idea what "woke" or wokeism" might mean. And don't bother explaining it to me as I don't want to know. There are lots of acronyms that have multiple uses and you need the context to know which applies. MS could be Microsoft or Multiple Sclerosis, it all depends on the context, but never, ever Marks & Spencer because that's always been "M&S" or "MnS" or "Marks". MP could mean Member of Parliament or Metropolitan Police. H&M means the frock shop Hennes & Mauritz to women and also clothing to some men as I'm told that they also sell menswear, but use H&M on RMWeb and the vast majority will know that it refers to Hammant & Morgan, especially those of us of a certain age. Context, context, context.

I think the expression at the time was that "You never got fired for buying IBM" or something very similar.

The story that was given in the documentary "Triumph of the Nerds, the rise of accidental empires" some years ago was that when IBM tried to contact Kildall, he was unavailable and the IBM folks ended up talking to his wife, Dorothy who was also on the board of DR having been one of its co-founders. She couldn't give IBM an answer until she'd spoken to her husband. I can't remember what Kildall was supposed to be doing, or how long it took for him to get back to IBM, but they didn't wait and went back to Gates and Allen at Microsoft. IF I remember correctly QDOS was an acronym for Quick & Dirty Operating System.

And the air is already full of the stuff and the proof is that under certain conditions it partly condenses forming clouds. You know, those big white fluffy or sometimes very dark grey things that float around in the sky above our heads, or occasionally at ground level, which we call fog. And guess what one of the things that all the 7.9 billon humans exhale in their breath is - that's right - water vapour, along with CO2, same as all the other animals that breathe oxygen via lungs. And if global warming continues there's going to be even more water vapour in the air as the warmer the air the more water vapour it can hold. That's why cloudbursts and the resultant localised flooding and landslips and mudslides are becoming more common. But guess what you use to make green hydrogen - WATER. So in a green hydrogen economy you end up with a closed loop system where the only energy input is light falling on photovoltaic cells to produce the electricity to electrolyse water into its component elements, oxygen and hydrogen. And producing hydrogen is a way to store electricity to cope with periods when there's less wind, or when the sun goes out, i.e. at night. And when hydrogen is combined with oxygen from the air in a fuel cell you get the energy in the form of electricity back and the only other product is water, which was the feed stock to make the hydrogen in the first place. But back On Topic, what will heritage steam railways do? I would have thought that the amount of CO2 not to mention the particulates pollution produced by them would not be enough to worry about. But the question is how do you grant exemptions to such undertakings without opening the door to letting others burn coal? And more to the point what will be the price of the coal itself if the volume needed for heritage steam is so small that it is not enough to keep a mine working at its optimum capacity and hence lowest cost to operate? Coal could become very expensive making heritage steam impossible financially.

It's already been tried by the Swiss, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric-steam_locomotive

That's because you cannot debate a belief. As I was told once in my teens by a lady in her 80s, "Let's not talk politics, sport or religion, they're founded on beliefs and you can't change people's beliefs using argument or logic, only fall out with them." Even if you do change someone's belief, whatever replaces it is likely to attract them even harder. They do say that the convert is the most ardent disciple.

And how does that work? No, can't see it myself, and I used to travel through Holborn daily on my way to Chancery Lane for many years back in the 1970s. So I'd love to hear your solution. Even if you set off towards West Ruislip from Holborn, or from Chancery Lane towards Epping and sat in your seat at the train at West Ruislip or Epping until it started back towards Central London you'd still have to pass through your departure station before reaching the other station which invalidates the challenge. You might be able to manage it on the Metropolitan Line between Moor Park and Northwood if there was a Fast City train from Moor Park to Aldgate that used the fast lines bypassing Northwood on its way to Aldgate. At Aldgate you'd stay in your seat and it returned via the slow lines between Wembley Park and Moor Park to Northwood. Transit time would be around 90 minutes I think, if there was a train diagrammed like this. There are no platforms on the fast lines between Moor Park and Harrow so the station after Moor Park on them is Harrow, not Northwood so it's not cheating. Nowadays the maps in the Met Line carriages show the fast lines as a separate line so that folks don't get confused - More dumbing down - It never confused me when I started using the Met aged 9. EDIT But the best one of all on the Underground must be Leicester Square to Covent Garden. By the time you get down the escalator at Leicester Square, wait for a train, get on, get off at Covent Garden, wait for the lift and get back to street level, you could have walked it quicker.

The co-operation between MS and IBM goes right back to IBM's first personal computer. They needed an OS for it and asked MS to build them one as IBM didn't think there was a huge market for a personal computer and were trying to develop it on the cheap. But MS didn't have an OS as they were all about programs and applications and advised IBM to contact Digital Research (DR) who did have an OS. IBM went to DR, which Ithin kwas a larger company than MS at the time, but DR couldn't give them an answer within IBM's timeframe. So IBM went back to MS who didn't turn down an opportunity like that twice and went and found someone to write the OS, which is reputed to have been based on another OS knocking around at the time, sorry, can't remember which one. IBM took delivery of DOS and said thank you very much, but thinking that the market for the OS would be quite small left the rights to develop DOS with MS. Microsoft got lucky, the IBM PC took off, clones started appearing, again because IBM hadn't locked everything up in patents, the clone makers used MS-DOS and the rest is history. As an aside, it always makes me laugh when I see folks referring to Microsoft as M$ when App£e extracts far more profit from the buyers of its products than does Microsoft. Microsoft has become the whipping boy of the IT industry and folks just turn a blind eye to other major IT companies who are at least as exploitative as Microsoft, if not more so.

As I recollect, AntiVax really came to prominence thanks to the claims of a certain Dr Andrew Wakefield. This is entirely home-grown as Wakefield is English and was a consultant in the NHS at the time when he published his paper in the Lancet claiming that a bowel problem and hence autism was caused by the combined Measles, Mumps and Rubella (German Measles) MMR jab. At that point he was within the normal scientific methodology - you do research, publish a paper, and others in the same field try to replicate your findings. If they can replicate your findings and come to the same conclusion then the theory enters into the scientific mainstream. That is how all of science advances - a theory is put forward, is tested by others, ideally by experiment, and if it passes the tests then it becomes scientific fact until such time as someone comes up a better theory that more closely fits the known circumstances and that too is subject to the scientific method that I first learned at the tender age if 13 - Decide what toy want to prove or investigate - set up and carry out an experiment to gather data - look at the data /results and see if it fits proves or disproves your theory - draw your conclusions. Others could not replicate Wakefield's findings nor find any other evidence to prove his theory. At that point normally the proponent of the theory often looks at their work and its results again and/or does more research with a new batch of specimens (I'm being very generalist here) or engages with others to review their original work and findings. or withdraws their theory. Despite others not being able to replicate his findings, Wakefield still pushed his theory. It then transpired that he stood to make a lot of money selling the 3 jabs individually. At that point his credibility collapsed. The GMC (the governing body for all doctors in the UK) investigated and his licence to practice medicine in the UK was subsequently withdrawn (struck off the medical register). The Wakefield saga boosted the AntiVax campaign far more than anything else. It caused such a decline inthe number of children receiving the MMR jab that herd immunity against these 3 viral illnesses broke down and measles outbreaks now happen in the UK amongst the unvaccinated. Is that local enough for you? The current myth doing the rounds in the UK is that Invermectin (a treatment for parasitic infections in humans) is a wonder cure for Covid. It may have some therapeutic effect on Covid, but it also has major side effects. As Covid is so new, science is looking at a huge range of drugs already proven safe for humans to see if they may have a clinical effect on Covid. Invermectin could have some benefit in theory, but it needs to be subject to the scientific method to see if the effect is great enough and whether the side effects outweigh the benefits. These things take time to set up and evaluate. And I can see no reason why the English, the Scots, the Welsh, or those on either side of the border in Ireland, should be immune from acting like a mob and trying to invade Westminster, Hollyrood, the Senedd, Stormont, or the Daill if they felt strongly enough and were egged on by a demented twice bankrupt nutter who just happened to be the head of state at the time. To think otherwise is sheer ..................................... I won't say more but leave others to fill in the blank. But there are plenty of examples of riots, and protests in this country, Extinction Rebellion being the most active currently. Before that was the Poll Tax and the Miners Strike which produced their own battles with the police.

When the IRA exploded a bomb in March 1973 outside the Old Bailey in London, I passed the end of Old Bailey in a taxi literally only minutes before. The taxi was held up briefly in the middle of the the intersection with Newgate Street and I remember looking out of the taxi windows down Old Bailey and seeing the police trying to clear people away. I thought at the time that their actions must have been connected with a criminal trial in progress at the time. The traffic cleared and the taxi moved on towards Holborn Viaduct. I didn't hear the explosion, but was told about it when I arrived at our office near Chancery Lane 10 minutes later. Conspiracy theories have probably always been around. The difference nowadays is that folks believe what the see or hear or read on the internet no matter how credible the source might or might not be, and the internet makes them far, far, far more widely accessible without the counter argument to put them into their true light. It's not helped by "balanced" media reporting giving these unusual views airtime and hence publicity and in doing so undeserved credibility. And it made worse by certain sectors of the media putting their political agendas ahead of truth and honesty and giving priority to these "stories". Finally, it is far harder to prove a negative as by definition there is no evidence to support the negative. Thus the conspiracy theorists can say anything and when asked for evidence turn round and say that evidence is not available as it is being suppressed by the perpetrators of the conspiracy. And I don't agree that the US is worse than the UK and the UK is intrinsically less likely to fall victim to outlandish conspiracy theories. We fell victim to our own home grown conspiracy theories. The US is just further down the road than we are, but we're not that far behind them. As long as politicians "spin" and people can easily see through the "spin", or openly lie without being called out by the media, or the media itself promotes conspiracy theories and lies as the truth, it will only get worse and the end point is a world where everyone distrusts everyone else.