Triang Vs. Hornby Turntable

[James-346194]

Morning all.

I posted earlier this year about how my son had basically inherited an old Triang Super 4 set from the 60’s, and how I’ve been purchasing bits and bobs here and there for him whilst trying to keep the set as authentic as possible.

Going through the old Triang customer catalogues, there is an electrically-operated turntable (R408) in some sets. I have struggled to find these anywhere to purchase as they are obviously quite old and rare now, but I have noticed that at some point (presumably after the buyout/rebranding of Triang to Hornby), Hornby did release an electrically-operated turntable designated R408U, and I just wondered how different the two models were, or whether they are the same but just given a slightly different designation to fall in line with Hornby practices.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

[Going Spare]

Happy to be corrected but I think the change of designation from R408 to R408U may have been to differentiate between the track type compatibility - Super 4 to System 6.

[James-346194]

Thanks GS.

It says on the box that R408U does both Super 4 and System 6, so maybe R408 is only compatible with Super 4 track.

[The son of Triangman]

The U designation in R.408U is for "Universal track". Universal track being code 100 track made by Tri-ang-Hornby, Hornby (new 1973) company, Peco, Lima, Joeuf to mention a few.

[Going Spare]

Thank you, SoT - I was pretty certain you would know the full answer.