Tri-ang Railways.

[Ruffnut Thorston]

A previous thread on the Brick Wagon...

 

 

[kevinlms]

Also in Victorian Railways livery, but never produced.

 

http://www.hornbyguide.com/item_details.asp?itemid=1495

[sandwich station]

10 hours ago, Ruffnut Thorston said:

The Brick wagon, without the buffers, was also drafted into the Transcontinental Series...

 

 

[Ruffnut Thorston]

Some Tri-ang Railways NP, Non Printed, wagons, and two different colour and specification Clockwork  "Top Tanks".

 

All were acquired in one lot, and are thought to be from maybe two train sets?

 

Locomotives.

 

Brick Wagons.

 

Horse Box, Oil Tank Wagon, and Container Wagon.

 

Old Time Caboose.

[GoingUnderground]

I think it is generally agreed that the first Triang Transcontinental diesel loco, R55, wasn't exactly an accurate model. It was very clearly based on a Canadian Pacific loco as the bodyshell has mouldings specific to the CP livery of the time, It clearly owes much to the EMD F7 bodyshell, but the shape of the nose is all wrong for an F7. CP had 3 similar locos, the EMD F7, the Alco FA, and the Fairbanks-Morse CFA16-4, with thanks to the Triang-Weebly website for the background info https://tri-ang.weebly.com/r55-diesel--prototype.html

 

It almost seems as if the nose is an identikit of the 3 different locos. Deliberate, possibly, but it is known that the loco was modelled from photos, and it must be a possibility that photos of the 3 different locos were used without the "men from Margate" realising what they were doing. As Richard lines has said, the push to make the Transcontinental models came straight from the senior members of the Lines family on the Lines Bros Board, so it was all done in a bit of a hurry.

 

The nose was much better on the double ended diesel, R.159, the profile looks much more lifelike, but possibly too curved, having seen 3 different EMD F7 & F9 locos up close and personal over a decade ago whilst on holiday in Canada.

 

So I decided to see if it was possible to make an improved F7 starting with the Double ended loco bodyshell.

 

I was prompted by some R.159s being sold on ebay where the previous owner had repainted them in some freelance liveries and added non-working Maerklin pantographs, sort of pseudo R.257 double eneded electrics. I thought that I could do better than that myself.

 

The photos below show my improved F7, still in primer grey, alongside its "parents", the original single ended R55 diesel, and the double ended diesel R159. It still has to have the handrails adding, which I'll do after it has been painted.

 

 

 

It is all R.159, but with some handmade additions, no cut'n'shut using the front of an R.159 with the cab backwards from an R.55. The back wall and corridor connection replicates an R.55 on the basis that the men from Margate probably had photos of that part of the loco when I didn't.

 

It uses the motor and trailing bogies from the R.159 but with the overall wheelbase shortened and the projections below the bottom edge of the shell moved forward accordingly and the fuel tank relocated to match. 

 

I hope that you like it and feel that it is closer to an EMD F9 (as I had very detailed pictures of 2 separate CP EMD F9s (4106 and 4107) than R55. The positioning of the "portholes" and vents differs between the F7 and F9. I'm rather pleased with it, especially when it is eventually coupled up to Triang's CP liveried coaches, once I get some.

 

Now for the hard part, painting it in the CP Grey and  Tuscan with yellow lining livery.

 

And the challenge after that is to make CP's matching "B" unit, 1900. 

Edited June 29, 2022 by GoingUnderground
To correct typos

[Colin_McLeod]

I may have missed any photographs in this thread, but can anyone throw light on the arrangement for Triang Caternary in stations? How does it fit in with platforms without everything getting in the way?  

Any help is appreciated.

[Nearholmer]

I’m not really into Triang at all, but happened to take this snap of a very entertaining layout at a TCS do about a year ago. There was a very busy station scene, with catenary, the latter not getting in the way, although whether that was down to good design by Tiang or by the person who put this together, I don’t know.

 

 

 

 

[Colin_McLeod]

Well that confirms it can be done.  Thanks for the reply Nearholmer. I am trying to interpert from that picture where the botyom of the poles are. Are they in the middle of the platform or are they elseswhere?

[Nearholmer]

As I said, I’m not into Triang, I just photographed what struck me as a cracking “schoolboys dream c1964” layout. We need a hexpert!

[cypherman]

11 hours ago, Colin_McLeod said:

I may have missed any photographs in this thread, but can anyone throw light on the arrangement for Triang Caternary in stations? How does it fit in with platforms without everything getting in the way?  

Any help is appreciated.

Hi Colin,

I suggest you take a look at Oscar Paisleys videos on YouTube to see how they work. He has used them quite extensively on both his layouts that are shown on YouTube. This is a link to his videos. 

https://www.youtube.com/user/oscarpaisley/videos

You can send him questions via YouTube or through his latest videos.

Edited October 27, 2022 by cypherman

[sandwich station]

18 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

 

The masts are positioned between the 2 tracks running through the station.

[Il Grifone]

22 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I’m not really into Triang at all, but happened to take this snap of a very entertaining layout at a TCS do about a year ago. There was a very busy station scene, with catenary, the latter not getting in the way, although whether that was down to good design by Tiang or by the person who put this together, I don’t know.

 

 

 

 

 

Using Dublo figures is cheating!  🤫

[BernardTPM]

Not if it is a Triang Hornby layout 😄

[Nearholmer]

2 hours ago, Il Grifone said:

Using Dublo figures is cheating! 

I suppose that depends on what the layout is meant to be. If it’s a presentation of Triang products, yes, cheating; if it’s a ‘schoolboy’s dream’, very definitely not cheating, it should have anything and everything he could see in the shops or advertised in both Meccano Magazine and Railway Modeller, all rammed in together.

 

Anyway, whatever it was, it was great fun.

[GoingUnderground]

On 27/10/2022 at 11:28, Colin_McLeod said:

I may have missed any photographs in this thread, but can anyone throw light on the arrangement for Triang Caternary in stations? How does it fit in with platforms without everything getting in the way?  

Any help is appreciated.

Use the single masts and put them in the "8 foot" on straight runs.

You couldn't use Triang catenary where there were platform faces on both sides of a single track or a platform on one side and a wall very close to the track on the other unless you modified the masts. 

 

You couldn't use catenary on double track curves with the curved platforms outside of the double track as there wasn't sufficient clearance between the back of a mast fitted to the outside of 1st radius curves when running the longer scale length coaches on the 2nd radius curves.

 

The double track portals R580 were a relatively late addition to the range, appearing in the 1965 catalogue as avaialble "Spring" which became "Autumn in the September '65 price list, finally being shown with a price in the January '66 price list at 4/11 (24 1/2p) for a pair of portals. However, you couldn't use them on curved track for the same reason, insufficient clearance on the inside of the curve. That appied to double track using1st  & 2nd radius curves and also when using 2nd and 3rd radius curves.. They fixed that by modifying the portal uprights to give sufficient clerarance on curved double track in the Hornby Railways era, see this thread https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/174645-Hornby-railways-1972-1996/

[sagaguy]

Not Triang but Trix which gave me the same problem.I had to construct custom made masts from two masts to get it through the platforms.

 

                            Ray.

[Colin_McLeod]

Many thanks for those helpful comments. 

 

So it's between the tracks poles then, possibly modified as per sagaguy's post.

 

Will check those other leads now.

[GoingUnderground]

1 hour ago, sagaguy said:

Not Triang but Trix which gave me the same problem.I had to construct custom made masts from two masts to get it through the platforms.

 

                            Ray.

Couldn't you just have used 2 masts in the same way that I did with Triang back in the 1960s with one for each track? I would have thought that there would have been sufficient clearance on straight track to do that, or are the HD track centres just too close for comfort? Looking in the late Tony Matthewman's book on British Trix, the pictures of layouts with the Trix catenary seem to show that the clearance between track and mast was even more generous than on the Triang system. I do have some Trix catenary, but it's boxed up at the moment and I've never compared the relative clearances between mast and track for Triang and Trix.

 

I do like your "2 arms per upright" design, often seen in real life on tram overhead back in the 1900-1914 approx period with the traction poles literally in the middle of the road, not a problem back then when cars and lorries were a rarity on the highways and byeways. I have a vague recollection of seeing it used before for Trix, but I cannot think where I saw it. It looks like you had to move the clips supporting the wire closer to the upright. You can't do that trick with the Triang single masts because of their design.

 

It's interesting how Triang and Trix tackled the problem of the double track portal in different ways. Trix had inserts that linked the ends of facing arms to give a portal that bore mre than a passing resemblance to those on the 1500V DC Woodhead line, and I think these were available from the first release of the Trix catenary.  On the other hand, when the Triang portal arrived it had the look of the portals installed on the 25kV WCML. The Triang portal did have the advantage that you could make a joining piece into which you fitted the ends of 2 portal cross-members to give you a 4 track portal, or even, at a pinch, a 6 track portal. The placing of the catenary links isn't quite perfect, a slight shave of the ends of the cross-members is all that would be needed for perfect alignment with the track centres, but the overall effect is very good, as you can see from this photo of the little bit of catenary on Super 4 track that I've got set up to play with at the moment. 

 

 

In the background you can see the later grey Hornby Railways portals in use on a  Super 4 double track curve of 2nd and 3rd radius curves. The Hornby Railways portals have been fitted with my modified bases to allow them to clip-fit to Super 4 track just like the earlier Triang R580 portals.

 

The Bakerloo line train under a portal is a "mytabin" image of the area round Neasden if the GCR route all the way from Manchester to Marylebone via Sheffield Victoria and Nottingham Victoria had been electrified at 1500V DC. I think that there are a couple of places between Wembley Central and Watford Junction (Watford (LMR) to London Transport/Underground experts) on hte route of the WCML where the occasional portal does span the Watford DC Lines used by the Bakerloo even though there is no catenary above the tracks used by the Bakerloo trains on that route.

 

Apologies that the focus isn't quite perfect, but you can clearly see the linking piece between the two portal cross-members and the proximity of 6 pantographs ( 4 Trix and 2 Triang) shows that it is stable provided the push-fit is tight enough.

[GoingUnderground]

And to illustrate my answer to Colin's question, as there seems to be some confusion, possibly caused by me, over whether or not you had to modify Triang masts in stations, this is how it is done. The masts and bases are exactly as produced in Margate in the 1960s, nothing's been changed or altered. As you can see, the masts "overlap" which is why you can't easily produce a double arm mast in the same way as Sagaguy has done with his Trix masts. It could be done, but would mean very substantial changes to the top part of the mast , and would also mean creating a shorter clipfit base so that the mast was equidistant from both tracks.

 

 

The track, being Super 4, has exactly the same 67mm spacing as todays Hornby Reilways, Peco & Bachmann setrack track, as it was established with Super 4 track 60 years ago in 1962, and the track in the picture is Super 4.

 

If the clearance between the back of the mast and the other track seems tight, bear in mind that when the Triang catenary was designed back in 1958 Triang Standard and Series 3 track 1st radius curves were 343mm radius, and 2nd radius curves were 435mm radius, giving nominal double  track centres of 92mm so there would have been a lot more clearance. This tighter radius for 1st radius curves meant that the base had to be longer so that the mast didn't foul the inside edge of carriages going round 1st radius curves. When the change to Super 4 was made, with its closer track spacing made possible by the more generous 1st radius curves (372mm) the mast bases were redesigned to be narrower, and changed be 100% plastic, so they would fit the closer Super 4  sleeper spacing compared to Standard & Series 3 track, but the masts themselves were not changed. There is no differece between a 1958 produced (marketed from 1959) non-power mast and the final production 10 years later. The only change to the power mast was to the spring tensioning wire and that changed when the Phase 2 catenary was introduced. 

Edited October 28, 2022 by GoingUnderground
Correcting typos

[cypherman]

Hi all,

Might I make a suggestion for masts in stations. After seeing here some across tracks gantries, could you not modify the Dapol signal gantry to take the power lines. It has narrow legs and covers 2 tracks.

Edited October 28, 2022 by cypherman

[sagaguy]

 Yes,it`s the track centres,the arms were too long for Dublo track so had to be modified by cutting the arms off with a very thin sharp razor saw and after adjusting the length,reattaching with plastic weld,i have to say it works very well.I drilled the bases out to take some small posidrive screws to fix them to the baseboard.There is also a Heljan EM2 fitted with Trix EM1 pantographs and a Heljan EM1also so fitted.

 

      Ray,

[sagaguy]

4 minutes ago, cypherman said:

Hi all,

Might I make a suggestion for masts in stations. After seeing here some across tracks gantries, could you not modify the Dapol signal gantry to take the power lines. It has narrow legs and covers 2 tracks.

My thoughts exactly.I have two of these kits in the cupboard for just such an occasion but at the moment involved in 0 gauge loco conctruction so it`s all on hold for now.

 

                  Ray.

[melmerby]

2 hours ago, GoingUnderground said:

I do like your "2 arms per upright" design, often seen in real life on tram overhead back in the 1900-1914 approx period with the traction poles literally in the middle of the road, not a problem back then when cars and lorries were a rarity on the highways and byeways.

Not that rare, Edinburgh in the 21st Century:

https://goo.gl/maps/vH2Unm7BAitu8Srf7

[GoingUnderground]

10 hours ago, cypherman said:

Hi all,

Might I make a suggestion for masts in stations. After seeing here some across tracks gantries, could you not modify the Dapol signal gantry to take the power lines. It has narrow legs and covers 2 tracks.

There is insufficient clearance for the Triang phase 2 catenary, it just sits on the catenary wire not the baseboard. You can make plinths to lift it though. You also have to devise a way to support the catenary wire. But even then you're not finished, as you then have to make sure that the upward pressure of the pantograph doesn't lift off the baseboard, or just glue it down to your baseboard, ruling out use with a loose-lay layout.

 

I recently took apart an original Airfix one that I built back in the early 1960s before I got started on catenary, and modified it so that I could use it with the Triang Phase 2 catenary. Here is my modified gantry. It may look odd, but it is still work in progress and I will be modifying the walkway to use it as an internal crawlway

 

 

 

 

One advantage of modifying this gantry is that you could add additional kits to let you span multiple tracks and platforms, not just double track, and place the catenary wire supports appropriately. But it is a lot of work, at least it is the way that I did it. You might regard it as overkill, but my conversion was intended to give it the "beefier" look of the power or signal portals used on lines with OHLE. I also modified the feet so that they now clip-fit to Super 4 track.

 

The catenary wire is secured to the gantry using the standard Triang nylon mast links, the links themselves are held in exactly the same way as they are on the Triang R580/Hornby Railways R489 double track portals.

[Colin_McLeod]

12 hours ago, GoingUnderground said:

And to illustrate my answer to Colin's question, as there seems to be some confusion, possibly caused by me, over whether or not you had to modify Triang masts in stations, this is how it is done. The masts and bases are exactly as produced in Margate in the 1960s, nothing's been changed or altered. As you can see, the masts "overlap" which is why you can't easily produce a double arm mast in the same way as Sagaguy has done with his Trix masts. It could be done, but would mean very substantial changes to the top part of the mast , and would also mean creating a shorter clipfit base so that the mast was equidistant from both tracks.

 

 

The track, being Super 4, has exactly the same 67mm spacing as todays Hornby Reilways, Peco & Bachmann setrack track, as it was established with Super 4 track 60 years ago in 1962, and the track in the picture is Super 4.

 

If the clearance between the back of the mast and the other track seems tight, bear in mind that when the Triang catenary was designed back in 1958 Triang Standard and Series 3 track 1st radius curves were 343mm radius, and 2nd radius curves were 435mm radius, giving nominal double  track centres of 92mm so there would have been a lot more clearance. This tighter radius for 1st radius curves meant that the base had to be longer so that the mast didn't foul the inside edge of carriages going round 1st radius curves. When the change to Super 4 was made, with its closer track spacing made possible by the more generous 1st radius curves (372mm) the mast bases were redesigned to be narrower, and changed be 100% plastic, so they would fit the closer Super 4  sleeper spacing compared to Standard & Series 3 track, but the masts themselves were not changed. There is no differece between a 1958 produced (marketed from 1959) non-power mast and the final production 10 years later. The only change to the power mast was to the spring tensioning wire and that changed when the Phase 2 catenary was introduced. 

 

That picture shows the solution very clearly, and also why the overlapp is necessary without recourse to major surgery.

 

11 hours ago, cypherman said:

Hi all,

Might I make a suggestion for masts in stations. After seeing here some across tracks gantries, could you not modify the Dapol signal gantry to take the power lines. It has narrow legs and covers 2 tracks.

 

I had been thinking of that also. I must check the dimensions

 

Edit: just seen Going Underground's post above.  Maybe I'll settle for a simpler solution!

 

 

11 hours ago, sagaguy said:

 Yes,it`s the track centres,the arms were too long for Dublo track so had to be modified by cutting the arms off with a very thin sharp razor saw and after adjusting the length,reattaching with plastic weld,i have to say it works very well.I drilled the bases out to take some small posidrive screws to fix them to the baseboard.There is also a Heljan EM2 fitted with Trix EM1 pantographs and a Heljan EM1also so fitted.

 

      Ray,

 

That's very neat. Using Trix for the station platforms themselves may be another option I could use.

 

That's also a very nice layout, and  I like the arrangement for supporting three catenary wires (just beside the colour light signal)

 

 

 

Again, thanks to everyone for these helpful suggestions.

Edited October 29, 2022 by Colin_McLeod