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Trix printed card LNER teak Gresley coaches


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Does anyone else remember these? They appeared - and then disappeared - and I only ever had three, despite the attractive price; my recollection is of 3/11 or something similar. I well recall going near cross-eyed cutting out all the compartment side windows and the corridor side compartment wall openings before assembly, but then they went together really well and the printed teak looked good. Did one have to score the inside face to get the beading depth, that I do not remember? Whatever mine were sold years ago as impractical to repaint when I went BR(ER) and I have never seen one since.

 

Any out there?

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If you are  member of Facebook,Phil Delnon in Trix model railways back in February of this year built some of these.I hope Phil doesn`t mind,they are of historical value.

 

                         Ray.

 

 

                             

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I don't remember those.  What date were they on the market?  Can't say I've ever seen any for sale at exhibitions etc. either.

 

In the sixties (or possibly early seventies) IIRC. I remember seeing some in Beatties in Holborn at the time.

 

I don't think they sold very well. We had moved on from printed card rolling stock by then, though I believe Hamblings still had the Merco litho sheets.

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In the sixties (or possibly early seventies) IIRC. I remember seeing some in Beatties in Holborn at the time.

 

I don't think they sold very well. We had moved on from printed card rolling stock by then, though I believe Hamblings still had the Merco litho sheets.

That probably explains it, around the time I was involved in 'other interests' and not taking much - if any - notice of railways.

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I don't remember those.  What date were they on the market?

There's a review of them in the December 1971 Railway Modeller. Three types are shown which (as listed in the Bakers Model shop advert) are C1 All 1st, C2 Brake Third Composite (see post 26) and C3 Composite. The beading was embiossed, giving some relief to the surface, the inner face of the sides was printed black and basic interior partitions were provided so there would be a modicum of detail for those ambitious enough to cut the windows out.

In the same issue the first four N gauge card building kits were reviewed (N1 Station buidling, N2 Platform, N3 Signal box and footbridge N4 Goods shed - 2 more were added later: N5 Engine shed and N6 Terminus building). Now, I knew about these for the Minitrix range; what I'd forgotten is that shortly after they did a similar range of card building kits for 00 too (00-1 Station building, 00-2 Platform, 00-3 Signal box & huts, 00-4 Goods shed, 00-5 Engine shed, 00-6 Platform shelters). I have seen the N buildings, but can't recall seeing the 00 ones.

The 7mm scale open top 'Preston' tram was reviewed in the October 1971 RM.

Edited by BernardTPM
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I recall buying one of these to experiment with from the long gone Applegarth's Model Shop in Claypath Durham in the late 1960s / early 1970s. The attraction was the pocket money price, but I remember really struggling to cut out the windows etc. with a pen knife(!) and not having a clue how or where to obtain suitable bogies or wheels. Do I recall correctly that the bogie sideframes were merely flat grey card prints ?

Whatever, it didn't make the grade or last long before being consigned to the rubbish bin, but that would be due at least as much to my juvenile ineptitude as to any shortcoming of the kit.

 

Regards,

 

               John

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I recall buying one of these to experiment with from the long gone Applegarth's Model Shop in Claypath Durham in the late 1960s / early 1970s. The attraction was the pocket money price, but I remember really struggling to cut out the windows etc. with a pen knife(!) and not having a clue how or where to obtain suitable bogies or wheels. Do I recall correctly that the bogie sideframes were merely flat grey card prints ?

Whatever, it didn't make the grade or last long before being consigned to the rubbish bin, but that would be due at least as much to my juvenile ineptitude as to any shortcoming of the kit.

 

Regards,

 

               John

I was going to ask what the builder was supposed to do about wheels and bogies.

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Trix suggested using their coach Commonwealth bogies!

Genuine enquiry, was that suggested in the instructions? I can only remember being none plussed about running gear and my build wouldn't have been worth spending more money on anyway.

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Genuine enquiry, was that suggested in the instructions? I can only remember being none plussed about running gear and my build wouldn't have been worth spending more money on anyway.

Don't know but that was definitely what we bought. I think somewhere in the murky depths of the odds bin in the garage I still have my bodged attempt (not currently accessible easily as under other stored stuff). My recollection is there were card bogie sides and also underframe trusses so I suppose you were supposed to file detail off the bogies and overlay the card.

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I don't think they sold very well. We had moved on from printed card rolling stock by then, though I believe Hamblings still had the Merco litho sheets.

Back in the day when it was the physical model shop you could get to that was a significant part of the availability equation, it depended on their stocking policy too. Neither of my local shops made much effort with Trix I now realise. What was in stock was limited and once sold a long wait before more appeared. Never did manage to purchase an A2, which I very much wanted.

 

Peco would go on clanging out their wonderful wagons based on printed card for a long time yet (are they still at it?) and for representation of varnished teak printed card is still a credible option I think. A modern set of die punched and embossed printed card sides to go on a plastic shell anyone?

 

Trix suggested using their coach Commonwealth bogies!

They did indeed, think they were 5/6 a pair, more than the coach kit! Living a train ride from KX, I soon after discovered THE model shop, and they had a range of suitable assembled Gresley bogies available, so an upgrade occurred.

 

To my lasting regret I sold most of the Trix commonwealth bogies, restored to the made up Trix teak coaches when I sold them on. The material from which Trix moulded this bogie remains the most successful bearing material I have ever encountered in model railway. Now fitted with scale size MGW coach wheels - steel tyre, polished stainless steel pin point axles, there was another ace product of the 1970s - they will roll away on no gradient at all. Superior to all current RTR, although Bach's scheme of split axle pick up on coach bogies runs them close enough, with the added benefit of reliable pick up if power is required on the vehicle.

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I remember eagerly anticipating these when they were first announced, being (wrongly) under the impression that they would be nice plastic RTR LNER coaches, and being so disappointed when I saw what actually appeared that I never even contemplated buying any.

 

Had to use PC Models kits to make (half) decent representations of LNER coaches, instead!

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Probably the Hornby LNER coaches (for all their shortcomings) killed them off. A complete R-T-R coach or a card kit for much the same price - no contest. Also the availability of Trix was always a problem. I suspect the price put dealers off stocking the make,.A Dublo A4 at around £4 or a Trix A10 (The Trix model never got rebuilt to an A3 ) at £10 - again no contest.  (I'll leave aside the AC motor and the chassis from a German Pacific....). It's telling that the Trix Princess never appeared after the war following the release of the Rovex one (less than £3 against £10 here). The warping problem hadn't raised its ugly head back then.

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Actually, if they'd done Thompson coaches they would have been a lot simpler to build without that complex roof shape! There were also the BSL Gresley kits that had been around a couple of years or so.

 

Forming the tumblehome would not have been too bad with the aid of a steel rule to impart a curve, but the roof must have been a nightmare in card. It does not like curving in more than one dimension and can't be filed smooth like plastic. (Soaking in shellac might help, but then its goodbye to the printed finish.)

 

Persuading the P.C. sides to curve was bad enough. I never built a Gresley, but did a Churchward 'Toplight'. The finish is excellent but the lack of mouldings spoils the model. (some were steel-sided but not the one I built - an E95 IIRC.)

Edited by Il Grifone
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Hornby only had the 'Thompson' coaches when those kits were available...

 My impression at the time is that 'we' wanted the real teak coaches, not the ersatz. The wooden framed and panelled coaches from Gresley and Howlden always way outnumbered the more recent steel panelled stock until steam was withdrawn at the KX end of the system. I couldn't get on with the PC models flush sides either, so very wrong. Then the Kirk kits appeared and we had the long desired solution.

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I found the remaining sides I still have. It turns out that the brake was a Brake Composite, not Brake Third. I had cut the windows out and tried mounting them on clear plastic. Unfortunately my teenage self made a mess of it (too much solvent, probably), hence the distortion at the brake end of the corridor side. The compartment side is cut out but not mounted.

The printing is quite nice and the embossing provides some relief, but the graining above the waist is incorrect as it is horizontal. Also having two droplights in the double doors is wrong.

 

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Interestingly this appears to be the same diagram BCK as Minitrix eventually did as proper plastic moulded models in the latter part of the 1980s (without the droplight error in the luggage section).

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  • 8 months later...

In my early days of railway modelling, back in the early 1970's when I was 16, I built a corridor 1st. I made the underframe out of balsa and fitted it with  whitemetal bogies, brass buffers, a balsa roof fitted with whitemetal ventilators and clear glazing. It's never yet run in service!!

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