GoingUnderground

I have, about 5 years ago, and downloaded it when it was Windows only. But I could never use it as it never picked up the locos, points or routes from my ECoS. I never got to the bottom of whether it was something about my ECoS or the Windows devices on which I had installed it. So I reluctantly abandoned it in favour of remote control of the ECoS using a VNC Client on those same Windows devices.

And when the match wagon bodies changed from tinplate to plastic in 1961, Tony Matthewman says that Trix used the same body as the 3 plank wagon, which was available in red/light brown (P.601), and light grey (P.602) so the colour of the Breakdown Crane truck bodies could be either colour. His illustrations of the evolution of the Breakdown Crane set shows a 1961 example with the truck bodies in the red/light brown plastic. The breakdown crane set (1610) introduced in 1964 used a different match truck, the "low sided gondola wagon - 1698" in the 1964 catalogue.

The TTR logo is the Trix logo, so it is undoubtedly from the Breakdown Crane Truck set 615 as shown on the Brighton Toy Museum's website as per Nearholmer's link. However the Toy Museum's comment about it appearing in a catalogue dating to about 1963 gives the idea that it dates to that period. This is incorrect as a new design of crane body and jib, both made of plastic, was introduced in 1963. According to Tony Matthewman the breakdown crane set was first introduced into the TTR range in 1939, and the truck bodies changed to plastic in 1961 but still with the original metal crane body and jib. The illustration on the Toy Museum website could be from the 1959 or 1960 catalogues as the same picture appears to have been used in both editions. The 1964 catalogue shows the new plastic breakdown crane.

Formula 152 as it had 4 pickup strips, 2 on each side of the slot. I don't know the details, but it sounds like one contact strip was the common return and each of the cars used one of the other strips, a variation of the Trix Twin railway track design.

Brighton Toy Museum implies that the name came from the Le Mans 24 hour endurance race, https://www.brightontoymuseum.co.uk/index/Category:Circuit_24. Using 24V AC would explain why a 1963 Meccano sales leaflet said "Circuit 24 racing cars can be operated only by Circuit 24 Power Units and Accelerators, which your local dealer can supply." I can't recall ever seeing Circuit 24 on sale, and Scalextrix was also largely unknown to me. But then I was in to railways and when my brother and I got slot cars they were Triang's Minic Motorways. I wonder why Meccano went for Circuit 24, or had they already approached Wrenn for their Formula 152 system https://www.wrenn152.com/ and been turned down?

Meccano bought "Circuit 24" in from the French manufacturer Etienne Jouet from mid-1962 onwards with a view to acquiring the rights to manufacture it in the UK, which some reports suggest would have happened in 1964. It must have been a good system as "Circuit 24" is said to be as synonymous with slot cars in France as Scalextrix is in the UK.

Maerklin did more than just survive, they've thrived despite competition in the last 80+ years from Trix, Fleischmann, Roco, Jouef, Rivarossi, Brawa, Liliput, Piko, Electrotren, Lima, Tillig, etc, and still hold around 50% of the market in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. They are still a significant player in most of continental Europe, and have a following in the US. They did hit a rocky patch financially in the late 2000s and did for a while enter administration, but have since reorganised and recovered. As I said before, I don't want to knock the Dublo or British Trix systems. They gave a great deal of pleasure to many kids, and I always enjoy watching them at shows (remember them?). All 3 systems had their strengths and weaknesses. Triang's strengths seemed to lie in the areas that mattered most - price, range, being 2 rail, and widely available in many High Streets, whilst their weaknesses were in areas that at the time mattered least - accuracy of the models and adherence to scale. Again, thanks to all who have contributed to this discussion.

Compared to Trix, Dublo probably was a "Rolls Royce" product when it launched in 1938. But, in my opinion, they took too far long to exploit plastics which were the coming material, expand their range of locos, and modernise their 3 rail track to something that looked more realistic. But as a kid in the 1950s and 60s myself, I never saw Dublo as a Rolls Royce product. The locos were OK, but the Triang ones looked "crisper" to me. The Dublo track and tinplate coaches and wagons always looked awful when compared to Triang's, and the yellow/cream of the buildings looked wrong. Money was still tight in the 1950s and early 60s, and price mattered even to middle class families, something that Dublo never seemed to fully appreciate.. Introducing the 2 rail system must have put the brakes on sales of 3 rail to newcomers to the hobby as many, if not most, potential buyers going in to the toy shop to buy Dublo and being asked if they wanted 2 or 3 rail must have thought "Why buy 3 rail when 2 rail is the latest thing?" If Dublo had gone stud contact and the new stud track was backwards compatible with the old, and skate contact conversion kits sold for pre-existing locos, that wouldn't have happened and would have kept existing Dublo 3 rail owners tied to Dublo. Did some 2 rail Dublo owners dump the 2 rail track and go for the easier to use and more robust Triang track?

Thanks for the information. I wasn't thinking of interoperability, only of the appearance, and in that sense Maerklin did have an impact on the UK. The German version of Wikipedia says that the rails are slightly closer together on Maerklin 3 rail track systems and the wheel flanges on the rolling stock are slightly larger than on 2 rail equivalents which fits with your experience of using Maerklin track.

We've talked about track, and here is the evolution of the Maerklin track, from the German version of Wikipedia. Left to Right: M-Track (old) which is virtually indistinguishable from 1938 Dublo 3 rail track to my eyes. M-Track (1952-56) M-Track (1956-2000) K-Track C-Track Looking at the K-Track it is better looking than the current Hornby track as it doesn't have the two strips either side of each rail holding the end sleeper to the adjoining one to accommodate the rail joiner. If Meccano had produced stud contact 3 rail track like that back in 1960 instead of their 2 rail track then I'm sure that they would have fared much better in their fight for market share with Triang especially if they sold kit to convert existing locos to skate pickup. C-Track looks like a retrograde step, but it is supposed to be better than K-Track for DCC.

It sounds like Maerklin had seen what had happened to Hornby Dublo and was trying to avoid creating a 2 rail DC system in parallel to its very successful 3 rail AC one by using the Hamo name when competing with Roco, Fleischmann and German Trix in the 2 rail 12V DC market. I've just looked at the German version of Wikipedia, and on the Maerklin page this is what it has to say about Hamo. "The brand name "Hamo" came from an independent company from Nuremberg which was bought by Märklin in 1963. In 1966, Märklin presented the first two rail DC locomotive models with wheelsets and current collection for DC operation under the name HAMO. The modification of the models was as low as technically possible, which facilitates a conversion into an AC locomotive, but has helped the models to a bad reputation with DC railway operators – in particular, (too) few wheels are often used for current collection. In the mid-1990s, a separate HAMO digital system was introduced among the two rail DC systems, which had more speeds and was therefore even more powerful than the AC digital system (Motorola format). Since the acquisition of Trix in 1997, however, the brand name HAMO is no longer used, the HAMO "DC digital system" (which was also a pulsed alternating current system, but with a different data format and which was standardized as DCC) was no longer further developed and the HAMO components were then sold very cheaply after the decision to stop selling the HAMO range." Translated from https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Märklin This reference to the Hamo "DC digital system" also answers my puzzlement over references that I've seen elsewhere to DCC being based on a digital control system developed by Maerklin.

To clarify, I was not aware of the relationship between Hamo and Maerklin prior to Bernard's comment earlier in this topic. Maerklin played no direct part in the UK outline during the time that Trix, Dublo and Triang were competing (up to 1964) as they had no 2 rail models, and no UK outline models. The Warship, which was nominally an H0 model, might have been testing the water but it didn't arrive until the later part of the 1960s (the Triang Hornby era) by which time Dublo was gone except for the stocks bought by Hattons and the like, and British Trix was really struggling.

Thank you. I've seen references to Hamo, but had no idea of their relationship with Maerklin. I was under the impression that they were a 3rd party company making magnets/parts to convert the motors to DC. and that they only added 2 rail DC with the acquisition of Trix in 1997.

I, probably mistakenly, thought that DB didn't go ahead with the services to Germany because they wanted to call at stations en-route in continental Europe, which on the journey back to the UK would mean chucking everyone out at Lille for baggage screening and UK Passport checks just like Eurostar have to do with certain of their services.

With 3 decoders not working I'd start looking very, very carefully at how I had ensured that both motor brushes were totally insulated from the rails. If you've hard wired them then make sure that you have wired them up correctly. If you've used an interface board, make sure that all your connections are sound, that they go to the right places on the motor and pick-ups, and that there are no stray filaments of wire or solder whiskers bridging the solder pads on the interface board. Also check that you've inserted the decoder correctly.

Depends on your definition of a "white elephant". When it comes to hauling very heavy freight loads over steep gradients and through unventilated tunnels, electric locos are the best solution. One only has to think of the MSL/GCR Woodhead route for a parallel here in the UK. I'd also like to put my hand up for another fallen flag, the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway on Vancouver Island.

If we can stretch to including north of the 49th Parallel, mine is the Canadian Pacific with their Royal Hudson, and the late British Columbia Railway with their GF6C locos. Sadly the GF6Cs were withdrawn some time ago, and I think the only loco left is on static display at Prince George., BC.

I disagree. I think that Hornby have seriously embraced DCC, but seeing how crowded the top end of the market is, have aimed much of their their DCC kit and decoders at a particular segment of the DCC buying public, specifically those who don't want to spend a lot and just want it to work out of the box with as little "fiddling, fettling and tweaking" as possible. I wouldn't be surprised if there are a fair number of modellers who apart from setting the address, have never changed CVs despite having fully spec'd decoders in their locos.

When any electrical appliance stats to give off burning insulation smells that is bad news as it probably means that insulation is melting because of extreme heating, and when it gets to smoking it will be terminal as electrical appliances, other than smoke units, aren't meant to do that, battery powered or not. I'm still using a Black & Decker mains powered drill from the early 1980s. B&D used to have a network of service centres where you could get them repaired or buy spares - very useful. The bearings are going but it still works well enough. But nowadays getting stuff like that repaired is almost impossible. They're frequently made in China and the UK agents/importers/"manufacturers" seem totally uninterested in offering any sort of repair service, possibly because disassembly and then reassembly isn't possible because of the sorts of fixings used to hold it together. Also the labour charges for the time needed to repair things plus the availability ( or lack therof) and cost of any spares invariably makes it cheaper to buy a new one. Out of curiosity, I had a look at the Bosch website as we have several Bosch battery powered tools, and it doesn't seem to have any support pages offering any sort of repair process. So like almost all of today's electrical appliances, when it gives up the ghost, as yours plainly has, all you can do is dig out the information on how to recycle electrical equipment and follow that.

The yellow/cream for platforms goes back to Hornby O gauge tinplate days, and to that extent their use on the Dublo range looks like continuing the status quo but applying it to the new OO gauge products. It looked OK on the O gauge tinplate station, probably because much of the O gauge range was toy-like (nothing wrong with that as that is what much of it was intended to be) and also as the O gauge station building walls were different tones to the platform and the roof was a different colour altogether. The same applied to the O gauge footbridge. Somewhere I have a Dublo station building with some platform. It might, once I finish all my other projects so don't hold your breath, be worth spraying it white with a green roof and grey platform with white edging just to see how it would have looked in "full Art Deco" style.

So what's the objection to getting it there by road? But if as you say it is only UIC gauge in theory then they'll have to wait until the HS2 rolling stock is done and dusted. There may even be a chicken and egg situation, unable to test the new rolling stock without first testing the infrastructure, but unable to test the infrastructure as there is no suitable rolling stock. I don't know if there are any of the Eurostar Class 373 sets left in running order either here or on the Continent. as they were the only high speed sets ever built to UK loading gauge.

Not too much of a problem in France where TGV rolling stock has been around for decades and is readily available, subject to operating requirements for testing new LGV lines. In the UK there are the Class 395 Javelin units but aren't their top speeds a bit below that designed top speed for HS2? The e320 Eurostar Velaro Class 374 units might do, but I would imagine that Eurostar might have something to say about that, or rent in French or German high speed sets for testing.

Probably cheaper just to buy one colour of green paint and use it as much as possible (which also may have saved downtime on cleaning up the spray kit to make it ready for another colour), just as Triang tended to use just one colour of plastic for everything that used very similar shades. The green on the roof of the one shown in your link is pretty close to the colour of tiles that were used on a block of white "Art Deco" flats that I used to pass as a kid on the way to school. I always thought they looked rather smart. The existence of the green roofed examples makes me wonder if Meccano intended to paint the signal box white in "Art Deco" style but for some reason that plan was abandoned.

The product description in that link "Molotow Belton Premium Spray Paints were developed with advice from the world's most famous street artists." makes it sound that they're great for graffiti work with excellent adherence to stone, brick, and concrete, not to mention equipment cabinets, etc.. So that must make them ideal for repainting the Dublo buildings. Molotow Belton is not a brand that I've ever heard of, but then I'm not familiar with the art world. Daler Rowney and Cumberland Derwent are my limit. Outside of the celebrated Holden-designed 1930s station buildings of "brick with a concrete lid" for London Transport, such as Sudbury Town I always think of Art Deco buildings as being white/whitewashed, with contrasting metal window frames in green or black, with the flat roof being hidden behind a white balustrade, and presumably roofing felt green/grey/black. One well televised example often used as a location setting for "Poirot" is "High & Over" in Amersham, https://amershammuseum.org/history/on-the-hill/high-over/. Others are the Hoover factory in Perivale, London, and the Firestone Tyre building in Brentford. The Dublo buildings are what I would call 1930s or Art Deco style, forgive me if I'm wrong but I'm a bit of a philistine when it comes to art and architcture. That might be why I think they look better when Triang changed the colour. Has anyone ever tried repainting the Dublo stations in white with the roof in green or grey and the platforms in "asphalt or stone" grey? I think they would look much more stylish, and possibly more realistic and of their time.

I've not knowingly come across references to them being considered for AC conversion, or conversion into anything else come to that. But they did seem to have some sort of role in the work that BR was undertaking on AC traction at the time. To quote from the updated/second edition of Ken Benest's "Metropolitan Electric Locos": "Nos 2. (Oliver Cromwell), 7. (Edmund Burke), 16. (Oliver Goldsmith) and 18. (Michael Faraday) left Neasden for Mitre Bridge Electric Car Sheds on the London Midland Region of British Railways at Willesden. It is understood that they were taken over for experimental work by the Electrical Engineer's section for work connected with a.c. traction and were moved to Rugby motive power depot on 1st March 1965. It is believed that they were cut up there in July 1966." It also says that the motors and roller bearing armatures on the 8 Metrovics scrapped by LT shortly after they were withdrawn in January 1962 were sent to the Southern Region. The same thing may have happened to the Rugby 4, always assuming there was some joined up thinking going on in BR at the time. So we have another 4 DC locos, the Rugby 4, mentioned as being involved in an unspecified way in BR a.c. traction experiments.