Series 3 / Super 4 fishplates

[LCDR]

Oh for a source of unrusted Triang Track fishplates. I have even tried 124 rail ones with little success. I am now cannibalising track to put less rusty rails in less damaged track bases. The rails are OK it is just the fishplates!

[The son of Triangman]

I agree. a good supply of new fishplates for this lovely old track system would be good.

 

I had thought of having them made but it would have been up to demand and things in the model trade aren't that good at the moment, sales for most things are

 

pretty poor alas.

[LCDR]

Do you have any idea of what these might cost (Tooling set up costs, etc)? It might be possible to gauge demand through the Tri-ang society, and there are people making spares for Hornby tinplate stuff at present who might be able to advise or assist.

 

Does Hornby hold the specifications still I wonder? If so would they allow anyone to have access to them?

 

I would suggest that replacements ought to be pressed out of brass (plated with nickel or zinc?) or Nickel Silver.

 

What do you think? I

 

would certainly be up for a hundred or two.

 

.

The son of Triangman said:

 

I agree. a good supply of new fishplates for this lovely old track system would be good.

 

I had thought of having them made but it would have been up to demand

 

and things in the model trade aren't that good at the moment, sales for most things are pretty poor alas.

[Tony57]

Hi guys

 

If you were to include the grey universal track in with Series 3 and Super 4 track as they all fit togrther, all three types of track need replacement fishplates.

 

I could do with at least 200 new fishplates for my universal track

 

plus another 200 for my super 4 track.

 

There is one small issue on service sheet 43 it shows two types of fishplates S3006 which has the tounge underneath and S3566 Type d which has two lugs at the rear of the plate (which was used on later series 4

 

track) But Rovex says you can fit S3006 on later track ok.

[LCDR]

I would suggest that the S3006 version would be the best one as it fits all three,

[The son of Triangman]

The tooling costs would have been massive. The die for stamping them out was well over £4K to have made, assume I wasn't able to access the original tools. Nickle Silver would have been the idea material for these fishplates.

 

System Six S.3006 fishplates

 

do appear in bulk on a certain online auction site but fetch a pretty penny, someone advertises them on ebay as Tri-ang fishplates, they are unfinished factory items with the two plates stamped out and folded up but not seperated. I bought a stack of them

 

a few months ago and the guy on that site is still selling them.

[The son of Triangman]

To have made it viable fishplates would have had to sold by the thousand, especially if new tooling was needed to make them, so it was a non-starter alas, even with original tooling and Hornby's help I doubt if you would have seen much changed out of £10K.

 

Lack of demand is the main problem, the usual problem for most things new or retro in model railways nowdays alas.

[The son of Triangman]

It's a shame really as the series 4 track is very popular as you can run new alongside old on it and it has piles of accesories and a working motorway system that fits into it.

[LCDR]

I suppose it might be possible to hand produce them using a piece of rail as a mandrel and cutting them out individually from very thin brass sheet. When I get some time I'll try and make a few.