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The last production (Triang) Hornby R357 A1A locos


andyman7
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21 minutes ago, Silverfox17 said:

David, I think Patb  was referring to moving the wheels out regarding the post of 00 to 0 gauge lol. 

 

Garry 

 

Hi Garry,

One would have to move the whole thing out....     :)

 

Must get some new glasses.... (and perhaps lay off the wine?  umm perhaps not!)

 

David

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2 hours ago, Il Grifone said:

 

It would depend on the track. I've always found Tri-ang will run on HD 3 rail track without problems beyond a bit of a bump on pointwork and Trix fibre, the other contender, is universal anyway (later production - the earlier stuff is Trix wheels only.

 

Control and, if necessary, adjustment of the check gauge (15mm* for HD track) is advisable for all rolling stock. (says he who doesn't always do it...).

* Coincidently the same as BRMSB.

 

I've not had the jerky running problem, but the nylon armature bearings are not one of  the models best features. Excessive end float is endemic to Tri-ang  motors. The worm should slide and mesh correctly with the gear at all settings, but sometimes the extreme end causes problems (it shouldn't really get that far) due to damage or faulty manufacture. A file will cure it.

 

EDIT

If anyone wants one:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TRI-ANG-R357-CL-31-body-shell-spares-repair-CIRCA-60S-80S-REF-381-to/303660321843?_trkparms=aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D225076%26meid%3Da61453c8c1494328bcf3eb22cd7963e2%26pid%3D100277%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D4%26sd%3D224148164145%26itm%3D303660321843%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2060778%26algv%3DSimplAMLv5PairwiseWeb%26brand%3DTri-ang&_trksid=p2060778.c100277.m3477

 

You would need to source a motor bogie and I'm not sure which version it is. There's a bit of damage but, as the seller says, it should be easily repairable.

(Usual disclaimer!) The seller has one (presumably from this body), but at £22.50 it seems a bit prick to me.

A bit pricey even!  Or did you mean big? Predictive text strikes again.

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23 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

To me they always seemed incredibly ponderous on passenger trains, lacking any energy, and when I first went in the cab of one I was amazed by how crude it all was. I was used to Cromptons, and a lesser extent Hymeks, which seemed far livelier and certainly far better designed internally.

 

Replacing Hymeks on the Paddington/Oxford/Worcester route was definitely a backward step by BR. And when I started work on BR at Harlow Town in 1978 they shared the Liverpool St/Cambridge trains with Class 37; While the 31 could get up to a decent speed, it took an awfully long time !

 

I too had D5572, in BR blue, and longed for a Freightmaster set, but never did get one. 

 

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Yes, those are the sorts of services I was thinking about, out of Paddington, Kings Cross and Liverpool Street. Kings Cross was, of course, particularly painful, climbing the bank like a wounded slug, but they were deeply uninspiring on any passenger working.

 

Steamport has educated me though, because I didn’t know they were re-engined in the 1980s. By that stage my only interest was in the mercifully few cases we were given one for an engineer’s train that I was overseeing - there was  still a hard border between the SR and GWR, so if the work spanned that we had to swap locos in the middle of the job and the 31 would always arrive late and limping from Old Oak, manifesting a load of minor faults that made everyone’s job just a little bit harder.

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My favourite locos. But growing up in Cambridge, they were our staple diet, they were everywhere in East Anglia to the exclusion of almost everything else. To an innocent trainspotter, they seemed capable of anything & everything, from express passenger (9 coaches on the Fenman) to local stoppers. workings. Double headed on the heavy coal trains on the GE/GN Joint, to local pick-up goods. It seemed the downfall of them though was the FYE and blue livery, they didn't like that I'm sure. They got moved away and moaned at, those strangers didn't seem to like them. But we did.

 

Stewart

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On Friday 29th June 1973 5827 broke new ground for the Class by heading 1V76, 0915 Liverpool - Penzance westward from Plymouth. A photo showing it passing St Budeaux appears in Traction 164 (June 2008). A single Class 25 would only have been turned out for such a duty if Laira literally had nothing else, so they must have been aware of and trusted the Class 31's downrated and thus virtually unbreakable EE power unit to haul a Class 1 passenger service over an arduous stretch of main line.

Class 31s in blue livery could and should have looked considerably more attractive than they did. The new corporate livery painting instructions stated that all locomotive types having cab side windows in a "clearly defined recess" should have the yellow extended into this area (see Traction 90). It didn't get more clearly defined than on Class 31 yet Doncaster ignored this on first repaint D5649 in late 1966 and continued to ignore it for the next 20 years, right to the end of the ETH conversions, and this despite turning out freight machines in Large Logo Railfreight Grey. An Old Oak Common repaint of 31135 in 1982 showed how standard BR blue should have appeared. The green full yellow ones would have looked better too, although at least they still had the relief of twin white stripes.

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I worked on loads of 31s as a secondman at KX. They were quite capable and reliable locos for almost everything we used them on, from cross-London freights to suburban trains out of Moorgate to the Cambridge buffet expresses to standby express work. We had just over the ton a few times on the up buffet expresses coming through Wood Green tunnel.

 

It was only when we had an "out of area" loco from the <spit> western that we had troubles.

 

Slipped to a stand one Sunday trying to pull 900 tonnes of spent ballast out of KX, well, it WAS raining; failed once on an evening Cambridge down train north of Welwyn Viaduct on the 2-track bit, got dragged out PDQ with a loco from WGC within 15 minutes. A regular feature was overheating leaving KX in summer with the radiator end leading, the air flow missed the radiator vents!

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5 hours ago, stewartingram said:

My favourite locos. But growing up in Cambridge, they were our staple diet, they were everywhere in East Anglia to the exclusion of almost everything else. To an innocent trainspotter, they seemed capable of anything & everything, from express passenger (9 coaches on the Fenman) to local stoppers. workings. Double headed on the heavy coal trains on the GE/GN Joint, to local pick-up goods. It seemed the downfall of them though was the FYE and blue livery, they didn't like that I'm sure. They got moved away and moaned at, those strangers didn't seem to like them. But we did.

 

Stewart

Rather like the arrival of Class 50s on the Western Region then! Perhaps the cause was the people of the Western Region, not liking stuff minus the label of 'Made at Swindon'!

Although I seem to remember that the people of the Valleys, didn't like the replacement/rebuilt locos they received post 1923. It seems to be all relative.

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21 hours ago, roythebus said:

I worked on loads of 31s as a secondman at KX. They were quite capable and reliable locos for almost everything we used them on, from cross-London freights to suburban trains out of Moorgate to the Cambridge buffet expresses to standby express work. We had just over the ton a few times on the up buffet expresses coming through Wood Green tunnel.

 

It was only when we had an "out of area" loco from the <spit> western that we had troubles.

 

Slipped to a stand one Sunday trying to pull 900 tonnes of spent ballast out of KX, well, it WAS raining; failed once on an evening Cambridge down train north of Welwyn Viaduct on the 2-track bit, got dragged out PDQ with a loco from WGC within 15 minutes. A regular feature was overheating leaving KX in summer with the radiator end leading, the air flow missed the radiator vents!

 

I assume the Western got all the cr*appy ones. It's usual procedure - keep the good and unload the junk....

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On 19/09/2020 at 11:16, Il Grifone said:

 

 I always thought these were attractive (for a diesel), but were rather elusive where I lived at the time (Birmingham area).

They are quite easy to convert. Add a pick up under the non-powered bogie, bin the tension locks and fit Peco or HD couplings in their place. The Class 37 can be done the same way.

Something really needs to be done about the excess height. A bit of plastic carving solves that.

More of them about in later years - as a regular Bescot visitor on Sundays in the mid to late 80s, quite a few were based there either for Engineers' duties or the New St-Peterborough/Norwich trains in those pre-Sprinter days.

 

David

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On 21/09/2020 at 20:41, Il Grifone said:

 

I assume the Western got all the cr*appy ones. It's usual procedure - keep the good and unload the junk....

 

That was my impression too at the time - 'unloading the junk' resulted in the WR receiving lots of green Class 46 Peaks (crew training in Cornwall in early 1970 initially involved D151 & 167 (55A?!) in blue followed by months of different green ones), then from 1971 lots of green Class 25s (D7657 still with small yellow panels, D7675-7 in their original early blue) and Class 31s, all green ones bar 5809 with double arrow logos. There were (generally ageing) blue examples mixed in of course, but the green ones outnumbered them.

 

The last green Class 46s (D147/63/65) went through works in 1972 and Class 25s (including those three early blue ones) in 1972/3. 5668, 5818 & 5827 were still green as 1974 dawned but only 5827 lasted long enough to become 31294 still in green livery - and then only from 15/2/74 to 6/3/74 (a month less than originally thought).

 

It must have cost the Western a fair old wodge to overhaul the other Regions' cast-offs (and then the Class 50s turned up.....) but the upside was that it made the early 70s WR scene more colourful than it would otherwise have been for us enthusiasts!

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6 hours ago, Neil Phillips said:

 

That was my impression too at the time - 'unloading the junk' resulted in the WR receiving lots of green Class 46 Peaks (crew training in Cornwall in early 1970 initially involved D151 & 167 (55A?!) in blue followed by months of different green ones), then from 1971 lots of green Class 25s (D7657 still with small yellow panels, D7675-7 in their original early blue) and Class 31s, all green ones bar 5809 with double arrow logos. There were (generally ageing) blue examples mixed in of course, but the green ones outnumbered them.

 

The last green Class 46s (D147/63/65) went through works in 1972 and Class 25s (including those three early blue ones) in 1972/3. 5668, 5818 & 5827 were still green as 1974 dawned but only 5827 lasted long enough to become 31294 still in green livery - and then only from 15/2/74 to 6/3/74 (a month less than originally thought).

 

It must have cost the Western a fair old wodge to overhaul the other Regions' cast-offs (and then the Class 50s turned up.....) but the upside was that it made the early 70s WR scene more colourful than it would otherwise have been for us enthusiasts!

The WR wouldn't have needed other regions cast offs (were they expecting anything other than unwanted examples?), it was an indirect result of them going down a path of non standard locomotives, i.e. hydraulics. Certainly none of the other regions wanted the various diesel hydraulics, they needed entirely different training.

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On 19/09/2020 at 23:20, Steamport Southport said:

After re-engining and then refurbishment

After re-engining but before refurbishment they often overheated in one direction - can't remember which now - as the cooler group hadn't been upgraded to match the more powerful engine.

 

Edit - Roy has confirmed above that the overheating was with No 1 end leading.

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4 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

After re-engining but before refurbishment they often overheated in one direction - can't remember which now - as the cooler group hadn't been upgraded to match the more powerful engine.

 

Edit - Roy has confirmed above that the overheating was with No 1 end leading.

So they overheated when No1 end leading in Summer.

Were they overcooled in coldest Winter?

Jan 1979 I was waiting at Doncaster, deep snow everywhere, about 5.30 in the morning,  the train to London appeared under North Bridge with a 31 in charge, entering the platform a major burst of the radiator,  the loco rapidly dumped about 10 gallons of coolant out of the grill, and the loco stopped dead with the rear carriages out of the platform.

There was a major build up of heavy  ice around the grill,  did the 31 class  have any  winterisation treatment for cold weather situations?

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11 hours ago, kevinlms said:

The WR wouldn't have needed other regions cast offs (were they expecting anything other than unwanted examples?), it was an indirect result of them going down a path of non standard locomotives, i.e. hydraulics. Certainly none of the other regions wanted the various diesel hydraulics, they needed entirely different training.

 

Doesn't change the basic fact that the hydraulics needed replacing and the WR was not going to get the donating Regions' best stuff, that's entirely understandable and no, I don't suppose it came as any surprise. There was never any question of the hydraulics shifting Regions, they were for the chop (Class 14s to Hull was a desperate move to find a use for nearly new locomotives which were, let's be honest, glorified shunters and hydraulic transmission in shunters wasn't that novel).

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The hydraulics were never the success they had been in Germany (loading gauge problems?). One of those things that looked good on paper.

Like the whole nationalisation thing, which should have been done in 1923. A series of standard locomotives would have made sense then (the GWR designs en bloc), but in 1951 it was already clear that diesel and/or electrification was the future (ignoring daft ideas like nuclear powered locomotives) and continuing existing designs. In fact I believe the idea was steam as a stop gap until electrification, but a change of government put paid to that. Denationalisation of road transport effectively killed the post war transport plan. (The same thing happened with the APT in the '80s.)

Edited by Il Grifone
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Speaking as a basher, 31's weren't the most sprightly of things, but they could move when needed. On the return leg of the RESL Grampian Highlander tour in Nov 1984, 31202 & 404 were at the sharp end of 11mk1's from Derby to St Pancras. Speed was well into the 80's & 90's right the way up to Hampstead Tunnel. On another occasion, the 1730 Birmingham New Street-Euston all stations via Northampton service, booked for 5xMk1's plus AC electric loco vice class 310 emu, one day produced 31263 on the front. Despite the pedestrian nature of the motive power, it was only a couple of minutes down at Bletchley.

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