Rana Temporia

One problem I have had with that type of chassis is the tender coupling bar moving when running in/testing and touching the insulated wheel causing a short circuit. Foxed me for hours the first time. it doesn’t happen when connected to the plastic tender.

Our ‘rich kid in the street’ used to buy Wrenn locos because he could. I don’t think he actually wanted them. My black Hornby Princess was way faster than any of his and he couldn’t find one anywhere. It was one of the last versions of the old type with see through wheels and a white card cover. I think they were made for a catalogue? I still have it in the original box.

If you are in the NW there is a model and toy fair at Bolton’s ground this Sunday (14th), might be worth going but you might find more than you knew you needed. Other than that keep watching eBay.

+1 for maps, I have enjoyed them from a very young age and there is so much you can learn from them. Luckily part of my job involves understanding and interpreting maps and completing surveys. So much information!

As my Father was obsessed with trains I don’t suppose I had much choice although my sister wasn’t interested and I now have all my brother’s stock. I had a lot of clockwork OO trains from Tri-ang and Playcraft from a very young age, along with an Tri-ang Big Big train and some push along stock with blue track. I started to get electric ones when I was around 8 or 9. I don’t have any particular stand of model railways I follow but prefer vintage items such as Tri-ang Transcontinental and the early Playcraft/Jouef stock as it’s what I grew up with. I have stock from all over the UK and Europe in OO and HO. I also have some OO9 stock. Prototype wise I grew up watching green and early blue diesels in the Bolton area and used to spend a lot of time detailing and re-painting locos from various sources. I also enjoy industrial trains as my family came from Leigh and were miners at least back to the 1700s in the area, a treat when I was very young was to go to the pit and see the tank engines shunting lots of grey 16t coal wagons around. I also have a very keen interest in miniature railways, a special treat whenever we went on holiday in Wales was to have a ride on the railway at Prestatyn/Ffrith behind the Fenlow diesels (both still exist), or Southport miniature railway on day trips. Belle View Zoo I can just about remember and I have a very clear recollection of a ride on the Rhyl miniature railway which originally closed in 1969 so I can’t have been more than four. I do enjoy the Ravenglass and Eskdale railway as we visit the area a lot. Apparently I used to be taken to the side of the now gone Bolton and Leigh railway to watch the 8Fs and WDs bringing coal and limestone up Chequerbent bank so that would have been pre the building of the M61, I can’t remember and it was probably an excuse for my late Father to watch them! I like trains and I enjoy fixing vintage models. It’s probably the best thing for my mental health alongside fell walking and model and prototype trains are very important to me. I suspect that’s enough!

There was some very similar OO track made by Brimtoy which came in a couple of tinplate sets. One contained a blue 0-4-0 diesel based on the LMS 1000/10001 with fake bogie sidefames and was powered with a battery controller. There were also other makes of tinplate track that looked very similar. If it’s O gauge as previously stated it’s probably Hornby.

I managed to get some time with a soldering iron outside in the dry weather!!! So soldered up these five electroten/jouef/hornby 0-6-0 chassis ready for some 3D printed bodies I will shortly be ordering. The Yorkshire Engine one has been a work in progress for a while now while I’ve been waiting for some lining transfers. I also changed the wheels and soldered up four Eurostar power bogies to make them fully self propelled. These were silly cheap off the Hornby spares website some time ago. One has been altered to replace a broken ROCO electric loco chassis and another to power an Atlas Editions SNCF EMU (which is in the box with the EMU). The other two are destined for a couple of DC Kits DMUs that have been in the ‘to do’ box for way too long. All tested and running well, just need the bodies now…..and some time….and paint… and transfers.

Not bought much lately so was happy to receive these earlier in the week. They could have originally been sold under the Playcraft, Jouef or Egger Bahn label depending on how old they are but after clearing thick black gunk off the wheels and freeing the axles off they all run fine and all the couplings work well. I already have a few so can now make a decent train up with them for one of my OO9 locos to play with if I ever get round to completing my layout.

I use one of these for close-up work. Since getting it from a swap meet I’ve found it invaluable. It’s a non-branded version that was around £5 with half a dozen lenses. The trick is to get the bit of the model you want at the focal point but I don’t know how I managed without it. There is a light on it but it’s rubbish.

While this was an AF I must admit to having a lot of memories coming back every time I smell Tri-ang/Hornby smoke oil. I had a pannier that had a Jinty synchrosmoke generator added to the chassis and a lot of the SH Triang locos I have have come with smoke generators which start going when the loco is tested. I do disconnect them all now but all they need is a wire re-soldering in case I sell any on. They can be quite a drain on power.

Just had an email off eBay explaining all this. Basically (according to eBay) if you are a private individual selling your unwanted goods either at a loss or a profit and no item sells for more than £6000 you won’t pay any tax. However, if you are operating as a business then you will. There were some examples in the email where people sold quite a lot but didn’t pay tax.

From Pat Hammond’s third book in the Rovex/Tri-ang/ Hornby series Hornby have done this before in 1984 releasing a set with the very rare CO CO diesel. They also produced a BOB in blue and silver for the gala performance and presented it to the Queen. Pat says this is now in the National collection in York. Nether the set or the BOB loco appear to have been available to the public.

Playcraft had an HO one so not that much of a reduction to get to TT. That one was similar to the modern Hornby one in its operation with the two ‘doors’ on the same side as opposed to the Tri-ang type. I think it was the only British item of rolling stock that Jouef kept after the demise of Playcraft although with continental couplings instead of the Hornby Dublo type.

I would be surprised if it worked at all without joining them together electrically as these bogies have traction tyres on one side and even with pick ups fitted to the insulated wheels they’d be erratic to say the least. The loco originally picked up from one side of the power bogie and the other side of the trailing bogie like most diesels/electrics made by Hornby, Lima etc. at around this time. Another thing to watch out for with these motors is the small brass connectors snapping off. I had a few of these locos as they came in several sets with totally inappropriate wagons and were available very cheaply at car boot sales. If the motor bogies were set up and running smoothly they were fine but any dust or grit in the gear train and they were rubbish. I think someone was selling more powerful direct replacement motors for them in Railway Modeller at one point. I seem to recall one version had two traction tyres on one axle rather than along one side. But that might be a second hand one I got that someone had messed with. I will see if I have one handy, I think I still have a couple left somewhere that were detailed up.

There are a number of other fictitious NS diesel and electric locos available from various manufacturers but there are also some genuine ones. Playcraft produced a model of the NS1300 class in blue which was the version of the SNCF BB7100 class that they sold to the Netherlands. It was a different body moulding to the French model but shared the same chassis. Jouef then produced this model in the later ‘Dutch’ yellow and grey colours, Jouef never produced the early blue version. Jouef also produced the Spanish version of the loco which again was a different body moulding and I think the prototype was 3Kv dc as opposed to 1.5Kv dc. Lima has also produced versions of the same loco. Lima has produced the NS1200 class in blue and yellow/grey, and possibly maroon? I think Marklin and ROCO have also produced models of this class. There are models available of the short BO BO electric (ROCO?) that again was a follow up from a French design but I forget the class number. The Dutch put noses on the end to protect their drivers when the class was refurbished. And don’t forget the British EM2s that were sold to the NS, the only HO model I know of that was produced of these was a very expensive brass version.

If the 37 has the class 31 power bogie it’s the X67 but if they both have the same class 47 ringfield bogie then it is X8466. These will also fit the silver seal class 47 bogie. For the ringfield versions I would also buy some additional springs as they have a habit of pinging off around the room. Some photos would confirm which version they are.

Thanks Elloloco, I like the picture of what appears to be a King at the start of the Spanish catalogue followed by a picture of a class 47 below the 31. The 31 towers over the N coaches, but I don’t think it’s as poor a scale replica as the Delic was which may have been closer to TT.

Really enjoying this thread! What are you going to use the other B12 chassis for? I had a couple of damaged locos which I think I’ve got rid of but at one point I did have plans to convert one to an A5 possibly using parts from a GBL Director and the Tri-ang B12 body, There is a scale drawing in one of the old Railway Modellers or Model Railway Constructors I have somewhere. My other option although I’m not sure about wheelbase/size etc would be a Furness Railway Baltic, inside cylinders so no great problems with a suitable chassis but a huge impressive loco

I am sure someone made a working version of these along with other illuminated platform signs but it was a long time ago since I’ve seen them advertised.

The hollow body acts as an amplifier as it reflects around the noise generated by the chassis. One old way of dealing with it was to glue some foam/polystyrene on the inside of the body where it wouldn't foul any moving parts or come into contact with anything hot to absorb the sound energy. Use PVA so as to not melt the foam. Modern locos have almost every bit filled with weights, DCC sockets and the like so don’t generally have this problem.

There are usually plenty of chassis blocks with wheels on eBay for not very much money, just make sure you get the right one! The motor is a standard X04 so watch out for damaged or badly repainted Nellies/Jinties and the like described as runners which you can still pick up for less than a second hand motor.

The original version used the Princess motion bracket and there were other differences with the chassis as I have found out to my cost when repairing quite a few of these. I’m not sure if the early ones used cellulose acetate as I don’t think I’ve seen any warped ones, but they were a very shiny plastic and the decals rubbed off very easily. There are also a number of shades of green used through the years. I got one of the very early ones in a box of junk once and it was seized solid, a bit of cleaning and lubricating and off it went like new. Also in the box was a fully working plunger Princess with a half decent un-warped body and various other contemporary items plus several Dapol ex-Airfix kits. A very odd mix.

Pre-covid that road through Glazebury was part of my almost daily commute! There is a lot of interesting archaeology around central Manchester connected with the railways, rivers and canals. In the River Medlock just up from Pin Mill Brow, there are the remains of the pillars railway bridge in the bed. The area there was used by Manchester to win sand from the river, and most of the flagstones in the city centre were laid on that sand, going down past Piccadilly Station towards Oxford Road there is a car park at the back of the Lass o’Gowrie pub where you can just about see the top of an arch. That used to be navigable up to near Manchester Piccadilly (or London Rd) station and coal was brought up in barges from the canal system. When the link to the Medlock was severed near Deansgate Station, the Medlock began to silt up and the current bed level is around 4 to 6 feet above where it used to be.. The Medlock flows in a siphon below the Deansgate canal basin and emerges on the other side of the Youth Hostel there. There are several good books, there is one called the lost rivers of Manchester which is highly sought after and commands a very high price being long out of print, but you can ask your library to get a copy. there are also a couple of Underground Manchester books available. The river Irk flows in a culvert beneath Manchester Victoria station and emerges into the Irwell near the School of Music. The Irwell used to be navigable to the sea via the Mersey and any excavation in central Manchester will produce vast quantities of Oyster and Winkle shells which were used as food for the masses, being brought up from Liverpool. The construction of weirs stopped all that! The Irwell now joins the Manchester Ship Canal being directly connected to it, and from Media city it’s easy to sail right up to the large hotels in Central Manchester. I’ve done it in a RIB and the architecture is amazing seen from the river. Making use of the old OS maps so much more becomes visible and obvious in a lot of cities, including why some buildings are odd shapes, they were often built up to railways or rivers which may now have gone. Rivers do go, they get diverted or culverted and some of those in Manchester (and elsewhere) became sewers. Some rivers run in large pipes, there is one in London over a railway station and the Roch flows in a cast iron pipe above the railway north of Littleborough.

I have a picture somewhere with a baby deltic (class 23) hauling a rake of the plain blue suburban coaches. You’d probably be Ok with any of the locos used around London in the timescale you’re looking at. Potentially class 21/29 before they were sent up to Scotland, class 15, class 31 etc. All the photos I have seen of these coaches show them as filthy so weathered would get my vote. They must have been clean at some point though.

If you have some of the older HO points (turnouts) they were not all self isolating like most modern makes. The Jouef ones had a sliding fishplate to isolate them but then you had to have other electrical feeds. The old Lima points were rubbish and fell to bits at the slightest provocation! I have never worried about mixing and matching track and in fact some of my old Tri-ang trains run very well on older continental track which is very close to current standards but as Elloloco says, watch the radii. Some have their R1 at around 12.5” which would form a circle inside Hornby R1.