GoingUnderground

I remember the toy army cannons made by Brittains that fired matchsticks or bits of cocktail sticks out of the barrels. And the counters in ludo and tiddleywinks sets were nice choke hazards for younger children if left lying around. It's H&S and legal/financial/commercial. The claims, justified or not, cost time and money to defend and if lost force up the cost of product indemnity insurance. The bad publicity of a clam damages the company's reputation. So businesses do whatever they can, at minimal expense, to reduce the likelihood of a claim being successful. That means withdrawing many products that could cause an injury. There must be lots of products from the past that would never be put on sale today because of the H&S issues. The judges should have thrown out many of the cases that set the ball rolling, like the ones from folks complaining that they got burnt by a hot cup of coffee dispensed from a vending machine selling "hot drinks". I'm surprised that no one has tried suing kettle or cooker makers for getting scalded or burnt because the steam coming out of the kettle spout was hot, or because they took the tray with the just cooked Sunday roast in it out of the oven with their bare hands.

Lots of very interesting examples of how, by mixing and matching, and moulding in different colour plastic, Triang produced lots of different models from a limited number of parts. The Transcontinental mail coach is a nice example. It started life back in 1956 Standard Track days as part of the Transcontinental range in red/maroon in the R.119 set. That was joined in 1959 by the R.319 set for Series 3 Track. It was reissued for Super 4 track in both red R.400, and blue, R.401 sets in 1962-64. It turned into the Battle Space Command Car set R.725 in 1967-1970. Then it came back to life between 1974 and 1977 moulded in blue with the top half pale grey, again as R.401, to become an unconvincing BR Royal Mail travelling Post Office, giving it an end to end 21 year life. Richard Lines said that sales of Battle Space were good for the first two years, but after that they were hard to move, and gave the impression that he regretted producing the range (Source: the Axiom Triang Hornby video), probably because of the resultant financial hit of writing down the slow-moving stock.

That doesn't invalitate my contention that plastic came before glass. The original statement by Ruffnut was that the sequence was glass then plastic. This was based on the discovery of a quantity of glass funnels with some other items acquired from a former service agent, which in the absence of information to the contrary, were then assumed to predate the plastic funnels as follows:. "Well, it is possible that I am mistaken in the chronology... The service sheet is from May 1961. Seuthe smoke unit fitted locos were officially available from January 1961. I would expect manufacturing of the Seuthe type chassis locos to have started in December 1959. My reasoning is that a glass pipette is a dangerous thing to have as a part of a toy. Therefore I would think that it was quickly replaced by the plastic funnel. But stock already at dealers would possibly not be recalled, and so the glass pipettes would still be out there? I seem to recall that there is no mention of the glass pipettes in Pat Hammonds books? Our books aren’t to hand just now. I was quite surprised to find a quantity of the glass pipettes in the parts we inherited from a retired Tri-ang Service Dealer. I hadn’t known of them before then." However, personal experience of RMWebbers supports my view based on my own personal experience of buying a Princess Elizabeth with smoke in May 1961 that the glass funnels were very unlikely to have been used before the plastic ones, but were introduced sometime around the changeover from Seuthe to Synkrosmoke/Synchrosmoke units. The changeover date between plastic and glass funnels may well not have happened at exactly same time as the change to Synkrosmoke/Synchrosmoke, that probably depended on the stock level of plastic funnels when production of locos with Synkrosmoke started unless glass was felt to be necessary for the Synkro units. Or glass could have been a temporary measure sometime in 64 or65 whilst the funnel tool was repaired. Having a Triang Railways branded loco with a glass funnel is perfectly possible as those would have been produced from some time in 1964 through to around May 65 when the Triang Hornby branding was introduced. Again the change-over date won't be exact as it all depends on when Triang Hornby branded boxes were first used which may well vary between box sizes as existing Triang railways box stocks seem, judging from comments by Pat Hammond of Triang Hornby era locos being found in correctly labelled Triang Railways boxes, to have been used up first. It seems clear that at some point after the introduction of Synkrosmoke/Synchrosmoke that the plastic funnels were reintroduced. The reasons for the change back to plastic, the timing of the change, and whether glass was for a time still used in parallel for certain models and for how long such parallel production might have happened are open questions. All contributions gratefully received. And I would like to thank Ruffnut for the invaluable input into this debate over what is a very, very minor detail of the history of Rovex products.

The above comment that Seuthe smoke units used a glass funnel does not appear to be correct. Triang locos with the Seuthe smoke unit were supplied with a plastic funnel, as shown in the above service sheet. This is borne out by my own personal experience of buying a New R.52S Princess loco factory fitted with a Seuthe smoke unit in May 1961. The loco may well have been made before the above service sheet was published. The loco was equipped with a Seuthe unit and had a black plastic funnel of the type shown in the service sheet. Posts from other members in this topic https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/159163-triang-Hornby-smoke-element/page/2/ who bought/received locos equipped with the Triang designed Synchrosmoke unit from 1964 and later confirmed that the glass funnels were supplied with their locos.

Well, that proves to my satisfaction that: a) I'm not going gaga and losing my memory just yet (though some/most/all * of you may think otherwise); b) the Synchrosmoke locos did have glass funnels supplied to refill the Synchrosmoke units; and, c) the plastic funnels came before the glass ones. * Please edit/delete as applicable. The dedicated model shops and service agents would probably have had a stock of glass funnels as they would be easy to break by accident, so it doesn't surprise me that there will have been some on hand, probably with a stock of synchrosmoke elements, as if you broke the funnel and couldn't easily refill the smoke unit, then the chances of the element burning out until you got a replacement funnel must have been quite high. The model shops and service agents may well have had a fair number of requests for a new funnel followed shortly afterwards by one for a new element. My first loco was also the 3MT in 1959. It was in the R3.D set, also bought from Marshalls. We went to buy a passenger set, but they'd sold out, so we came away with the R3.D rather than leave empty handed.

Rooting around for some bits and pieces last night I came across a copy of the English language version of the Seuthe product leaflet for 1961/62. According to the leaflet: "No. 101 Box of 6 Capsules Smoke Liquid of the odors Pine, Eau de Cologne, Lavender and Citron". There didn't seem to be any choice, you got whatever was in the box apaprently. The box was priced at 7/6 (37.5p) whilst individual capsules were 1/3 (6.25p) from this particular retailer, Continental Models of 4 Castle Street, Clitheroe, Lancs. Whether Triang used just one of the Seuthe aromas or brewed their own, or what you got depended on what went in the box with your loco is probably now lost in the mists of time. Incidentally the Seuthe leaflet shows a German late 1950s style over-track signal tower/cabin fitted with an electrically powered automatic smoke oil refill pump. You just drove the loco through the tower and the smoke oil was replenished, as the leaflet says "Pump automatically refills smoke liquid into locos while passing.". Or you could buy the cabin and refill pump separately. It wouldn't have worked with Triang locos as the Seuthe unit always had to be clear of the loco body and chimney to avoid melting the plastic. If it was possible to use automatic filling with plastic bodied locos then I'm sure that the guys in Margate would probably have produced a UK variant of the Seuthe model. But I can believe that it would have worked well with Maerklin locos of the period as they would have had metal bodies so keeping the smoke unit clear of the body and chimney wouldn't have been an issue.

64 or 65 would probably mean that the Jinty had Synchrosmoke, which fits with my admittedly vague recollection that the glass funnels were supplied with locos fitted with Synchrosmoke. Without a synchrosmoke loco in front of me, I have a vague memory of the opening in the top plate of a Synchrosmoke unit through which the smoke was emitted, and the smoke oil went in, being of a smaller diameter than the top of a Seuthe smoke unit, which might have made it harder to locate the end of the plastic funnel correctly in to the opening. A thin walled glass tube could have a smaller external diameter than a plastic tube with the same interior diameter, making it slightly easier to locate the slimmer glass one into the Synchrosmoke opening. But I fully accept that I may be wrong. And proving the point one way or another will be difficult. The problem is that the funnels, whether glass or plastic, are inclined to get separated from the locos with which they were supplied, and when the loco gets boxed up for sale on ebay or the like, the funnel is unlikely to be reunited with its loco, especially if the boxing up was done in a hurry, or by a relative of the loco's owner who may not know that the loco had smoke and that there should be a funnel with the loco. There was a slight problem with the plastic funnels in that the smoke pipe in the Seuthe units got hot, no surprise there, and could soften the end of the plastic funnel if it was inserted into the chimney immediately after the loco came to a halt and touched the smoke pipe. My funnel has a small indentation in one side where this happened.

My Princess Elizabeth would have been bought literally 60 years ago, almost to the day. Marshalls was a traditional toy shop selling all kinds of toys, so didn't have had a large stock. The model railway items were kept on shelves at the back of the shop in the space below the stairs up from the shop floor to the flat above. Sometimes I went in there wanting to buy one of the more obscure items from the Triang Railways range only to be told "Sorry we don't stock it as there's no demand for it". All this suggests to me that my Princess would have been from the first run of locos with smoke and may have been made before the May '61 Service Sheet was published. I agree that a glass funnel would have been a very strange item to include, but it's easy to say that with hindsight. Glass items were included in some kids toys. I had a chemistry set that had a bunsen burner and a small glass flask, and I think that the various chemicals might have been in glass test tubes. Bayko with its steel rods sticking up rigidly from the hard plastic base could have done serious damage if a child tripped and fell face first onto the rods. The track cleaning fluid supplied with the R.344 Track cleaning car was a chemical like Thawpit (carbon tetrachloride) which is nowadays regarded as carcinogenic. What was acceptable then isn't acceptable now. And I do have memories of a glass funnel like the one in your photo. But I cannot be absolutely certain that it came with a loco as it was all nearly a lifetime ago. If the glass funnels came with locos it wouldn't have been with the Seuthe units as the size of the end of the glass funnel would have made it difficult to make sure that the end of the funnel was correctly located into the top of the Seuthe unit, whereas the end of the plastic funnel would have fitted better. I'm afraid that almost all of my and my brother's Triang Railways gear from the 1960s are currently in deep storage so I can't dig them out to check if there is a glass funnel in the box with one of his steam locos.

Powerbase is a different take on the Triang Magnadhesion system which used magnets mounted between the wheels to attract the steel rails of 1960s Triang track and increase the grip of the relatively light Triang locos. That was the cheapest solution as there were no extra components. You bought the locos and the track and it just worked, and still does to this day. Magnets don't attract nickel silver which is why the powerbase system needs the steel plates under the track to take the place of Triang's steel rails. You could try adding extra ballast weight to the locos to increase their weight and thus the friction between wheel and rail.

The telephone number 25550 running number "little brother", R.455 came in two versions, (ignoring the original red "Polly" R.355R), one with the silver version of the "Lord of the Isles" dome and one without. There is said to be a third version with the brass dome from the "Lord of the Isles" fitted in error, but these are rare to put it mildly, and probably easy to fake if you have a silver-domed one and the brass dome off a donor "Lord". As an industrial loco the red colour scheme was less bizarre than "Lord Westwood", no one seems to have objected too much to "Polly" over the years, but the silver dome??? It's cute and gives the loco even more of a personality, but was a bit out of place on such a small loco. But the 0-4-0T shares a lot with "Sir Dinadan", arguably being a Drummond/Urie C14, without the outside cylinders and valve gear, stretched to fit on the R.252/254 0-4-0 steeplecab chassis. There's yet another potential project, doing a "cut'n'shut" on an R.255/355/455 body and chassis to bring it closer to the C14 original, like the trial loco "Katy" that Hornby produced. (I must resist - I must resist, I must resist..............)

Apologies Ruffnut, as you are the "go-to" authority on most things Triang, but are you sure about the first funnel being glass? I do have memories of there being a glass funnel, but of it coming with a later loco, possibly with one of my brother's locos , the B12, "Winston Churchill" or "Flying Scotsman". The funnel that came with my Princess Elizabeth was definitely black plastic, and it was our first loco with smoke as my brother is 7 years younger than I. Also your 1961 service sheet shows the plastic funnel and "gelatine like" smoke oil capsule as I remembered it, whereas the glass funnel and plastic smoke oil sachet in your picture came later, IIRC. I can recall going with my parents to the toy shop, Marshalls, in our High Street to buy the loco, it was my birthday present, and the thing that I remember most is the proprietor saying to me "Princess Elizabeth, with smoke!" which surprised me as I only had the 1959 5th edition catalogue and didn't know in 1961 that Triang steam locos now had smoke. Sadly Marshalls is long gone, but 60 years later I still have my Princess Elizabeth, with some of the black paint round the funnel missing where it was dissolved in the following years by the smoke oil as it raced round the tail-chaser layout in our loft with the Pullmans in tow, and my EM2 "Electra" with a rake of maroon coaches following on the other side of the layout.

Nice loco, at least to my very untutored eye, and a quality repaint. It would look good next to my black Schools 30910 "Merchant Taylors" originally 30909 St Paul's. But I must resist the temptation. The last thing that I need is yet another project. I have enough part way through sitting around waiting to be finished as it is!

Looking through the Triang/Hornby Railways catalogues from 1957 to 1980, it is clear that there was a shift of emphasis around the end of the 1960s. The early catalogues show very few pictures of children, it's all about showing the range to its best advantage Then around the time of the Dunbee-Combex-Marx acquisition of Rovex the emphasis changed more towards the models as "toys". Not too surprising as my memories of Marx toys are of cheap and nasty looking tinplate marked "Empire Made" (meaning Hong Kong). There are far more pictures of kids in the 1970s catalogues and the models are more garish and highly coloured, lots of use of primary colours. Whether that was the DCM influence or just a coincidence is open to speculation, but it is obvious that Rovex and its new masters still saw children as their main target market, a market where price mattered more than realism. So, to my way of thinking "Sir Dinadan" in 1976, fitted in with that thinking. As has already been said in this thread, the team at Rovex probably were trying to tread a delicate path between recruiting kids into the hobby and keeping their original customer base who were now adults, with potentially deeper pockets than schookids, who had moved on to want more realistic models happy, and meeting whatever targets DCM had set for them. Unfortunately "Sir Dinadan" just wasn't good enough for the adults, but from the comments on here it kept the kids happy. Would Rovex have spotted the trend away from toys and towards scale models for adults sooner if Lines Bros hadn't gone bust and DCM acquired Rovex? Possibly, or possibly not, as it was at heart a toy company and toys are intended for kids, and it can be hard to leave what you know. But I think they might have, and the indications are Richard Lines's comments about the origins of "Evening Star" where he said that he wanted a more realistic model.

It's very well known, or at least it is to me, that Triang made compromises when producing a loco to keep the cost down, which included using parts from other locos and stretching or shrinking dimensions to make things fit. But we need to remember that back in the 1950s and early to mid 1960s their target market was rugged toy electric trains for children like me that were moderately affordable, not detailed and consequently delicate and pricey scale models for adults who knew what the locos modelled were supposed to look like. Pat Hammond reckons that much of the success of the Transcontinental range in the UK was down to the bright colours used. It may be that the colour used for Sir Dinadan was chosen in the belief that it would help sales, or it may simply have been an error. But thank you to everyone for enlightening me.

Thank you. Living in NW London at the time, the only trains that I had seen for many years apart from very occasionally a very dirty object steaming away in Harrow-on-the-Hill platforms 1 or 2 in the first part of the '60s all were painted red or brown or maroon or were unpainted aluminium and had London Transport or Underground in gold or red lettering on their sides. So I wouldn't have known whether it looked like a King Arthur or not. In some ways it is surprising to me when Triang got the EM2 so right in 1961, and did a pretty good job on the L1, B12 and Evening Star so I'm told. But from what you say, it sounds like "Sir Dinadan" was a desperation "We need a new loco fast. What can we use from the bits that we've got on hand?" design.

Forgive me for asking, but why does this model seem to be so despised and disliked by so many? It came out just as I was getting into cars and women, if you'll pardon the expression, and was no longer an active modeller. So I don't know the story behind its "disgrace".

I'm afraid that I've long forgotten the smell of the Seuthe smoke from the early 1960s, but I do recall that it wasn't an unpleasant odour. The funnels supplied with the Triang locos equipped with the Seuthe smoke units were black plastic, or at least the one that came with my Princess Elizabeth was. One thing that used to niggle me was knowing how many drops of oil you needed as you had no idea how full the Seuthe unit was, and the same must have applied to the Synchrosmoke units as well.

Almost all my Triang locos with smoke have the Seuthe unit. The only Synchrosmoke unit that I can recall seeing was in my brother's 57xx pannier, and IIRC, the element sat in the white stuff. In fact, thinking about it, it would have to or there wouldn't be any direct contact between the smoke oil and the heating element. It was lack of oil that caused the elements to burn out, which always struck me as the "achilles heel" of the synchrosmoke units. With the Seuthe units the problem was forgetting to put your finger over the chimney when you turned the loco upside down and the smoke pipe dropped out, never to be seen again. They never seemed to work so well without the smoke pipe. Does anyone know if you can get replacement smoke pipes. I suspect that ther must be an appropriate diameter hypodermic needle that could be trimmed down and profiled to the right length and shape if all else fails. I can't see the body of a standard domestic plug 3/5/10/13 amp fuse being suitable for a replacement Synchrosmoke element/cartridge, it is simply far too long and the diameter is much larger than the original cartridge. There are some smaller 1 amp plug fuses around, as used in older designs of shaver adapter plug, but without digging out the fuse from such a plug and a loco with synchrosmoke to check, I still think that they'd be too long and the diameter would still be larger than the original element. Even if the diameter wasn't a problem, cutting them to length might be difficult.

Mine also appeared to be scuffed when I bought it from new when the MC2 first went on sale, many years ago. In my case the scuffing was to the the protective plastic film applied to the surface of the logo. When I removed the film the scratches went as well. Have you removed the protective film on yours? It is almost invisible as it is cut to the exact size of the logo plate and it is very hard to see that there is a protective film. Whilst it will sound like I'm defending ESU, I think folks are making unfair comparisons between high volume products like smartphones and tablets, produced by extremely large corporations with stacks of cash and significant R&D and product control departments, and the MC2 produced by a far, far, far, smaller business. Smartphones and tablets are designed to be as small and compact as possible, and will contain many custom components all tightly crammed together and fixed rigidly in the casing. It was this lack of space that caused the spate of battery fires in one brand of mobile phone. The numbers in which the MC2 is likely to be sold make it uneconomic to have too many custom designed components, and using an off-the-shelf battery was probably one way to keep the cost down. The MC2 rattle, which is very slight on mine, has two causes. The first is the battery moving slightly in the casing as it is held losely in place by the PCK and the chassis with the connection to the PCB being by a fly lead and plug and socket arrangement. I've taken the back off mine years ago, which is how I know about the battery, and I can tell you that there is nowhere for the battery to go and I think it's movement is very unlikely to cause any damage. Everything else in the MC2 is screwed down to the casing. The other cause of the rattle is the side buttons floating in the holes through the side of the case. But none of this stops it working. As regards the quality of the ECoS, I can only speak from personal experience. I have 2, one is the monochrome ECoS 1 which is over 12 years old, the other is the colour ECoS 2 which is over 11 years old, and both are still going strong, touch wood.

Unlike you, I have a clutch of EM1s, including one that I acquired around 1970 which already had a motor bogie gearbox suffering from Zinc pest, as well as an AL1, some Warships that are intended as donors for restoration of some EM1s, a Western, and a Transpennine EMU, all DC. It is those locos that give me my experience of Trix. And I was also a bit economical with the truth. The EM1 could also be run to pick up from the Trix catenary system, in which case It only needed pickup shoes for the centre rail common return. Thus only Trix could say that they had a system that offered the possibility of 3 trains under independent control.

I think you oversimplifying the Trix story, and could be confusing folsk wh oare not familiar with tRix models. Trix started life in 1935, 3 years before Dublo, as an AC system with coarse scale wheels. In the mid 1950s they finally realised that they had to change and moved from AC to 12 volts DC, and introduced fine scale wheels. Saying that Trix will run on AC applies to their AC models only. Trix models, such as the AL1, EM1, Warship, Western, and Transpennine DMU only ever had DC motors which used permanent magnets just like Dublo and Triang locos and a permanent magnet DC motor will not run on AC. When Trix introduced fine scale wheels many models were sold as universal, meaning you could run them on Trix's own track or on finer scale track. The universal wheels had a plastic flange moulded to the back of the fine scale wheels to make the flange as deep as the coarse scale wheels. To run the loco on finer scale track you had to remove the flange. This was a one way trip from coarse to fine as the flange had to be cut off and could not be readily reattached. Also Trix DC locos' internal wiring was fundamentally different from Dublo locos, and for that matter from Triang ones. The wheels were completely insulated from the chassis, and the chassis didn't form part of the circuit between track and motor brushes and wasn't live. All pickup was via pickup shoes, not via the wheels, and there were wires to make the circuits between the pickup shoes and the motor brushes. Depending on the orientation of the pickup shoes, you could run a Trix loco on 2 rail, or 3 rail, or in Twin mode picking up from either the left hand or right hand running rail with the centre rail being the common return. Dublo 3 rail locos could only be run on Dublo 3 rail track or on Trix track if it was being used for 3 rail running only.

I know that many people see the Trix centre rail and automatically see Trix and Dublo as being equivalent 3 rail systems, but Trix was never sold as a simple 3 rail system, and arguably it is an oversimplification to treat it as a 3 rail system equivalent to Dublo, and Maerklin. It could be used a true 3 rail, or as true 2 rail or in its Twin mode with either There were significant difference between Trix Twin/Trix Express and Dublo track and locos.

Based on my experience using the Tube, most commuters go for the coach opposite the exit so that they can get out of the station as quickly as possible. Sitting nearest the doors is logical on a potentially crowded train, especially if you're going to need to struggle to get through the standees to get out. If passengers need to change trains on the Tube then they go for the carriage closest to the entrance to the interchange walkway. This results in some bunching as many Tube stations have their exits nearest to the centre region of the train. But there are notable exceptions of stations with exits or major interchange walkways at the front or back of the train. In these cases those carriages can be crammed at times whilst there is a lot more space elsewhere on the train. Perhaps I've just travelled for too many years on the Tube where you do have to sit facing someone no matter where you sit, apart from the carriage end jump seats, as there are no airline (or bus) style seats. And if sitting in the transverse seats knee room was a luxury, and the chances are that you clothing will be in contact with those of the persons on either side of you if you're in the middle of a bank of 3 seats like on the old A60/62 Metropolitan line stock as that, the Central Line 59/62 Tube Stock, and Bakerloo '38 Tube Stock were my "daily drives" for the odd decade or two. Hence, I go for the table seats, as do many people as they are often occupied whilst there are empty seats elsewhere, and avoid the bus/airline style seats because you're so blocked in by the back of the seat in front. I have no problems facing people as I've learned to look away and not intrude on their visual space to our mutual comfort. But I find it odd that you don't like sitting opposite someone, but you're quite prepared to sit physically much closer next to them, or do you rely on being slow in moving your bag or coat from the seat next to you to discourage folks from sitting there? It's a bit antisocial, but I will admit I do it myself and have done for years so that I've got more space. Given the choice and the time to buy the ticket in advance and have a railcard I'd go First just for the extra guaranteed room even if someone does sit in the seat next to me, which is what I do when going to Warley. Let's hope I can do that in November.

Ron, I can see the financial strain imposed by Covid causing a rethink on all UK government expenditure, and HS2, being such a big ticket and so controversial a project, must be at the top of the list. It wouldn't surprise me if the timetable was extended, and the spec reduced to save money, which is why I said "..not in my lifetime...".

Oh, I fully support HS2 and wish it every success. But I really do think that electric self-driving vehicles are a threat to HS2 and its longer term financial viability. I hope I'm wrong.