Rana Temporia

Tony, as Bee has mentioned before, you can download Freecad surprisingly for free! I am used to 2D industry standard Autodesk CAD software so trying to use Freecad is a bit confusing for me as the commands are different although it is a massively powerful product and I need to spend more time with it (if I ever get any!). There are some excellent free tutorial videos online for Freecad. There are also lots of free 3D files for OO models already available, either at 4mm scale or 100% scale that need scaling down to the right size. The problem I have found is getting someone to print them. All the people who have been recommended have either not replied or have never actually got round to doing it. I think 3D printing is going to be the way forward for a lot of modelling, why Hornby aren’t involved is beyond me.

I don’t know if anyone knows the answer but I recently got two Hornby Pendolino motor bogies extremely cheaply and I want to swap the wheels with traction tyres for solid wheels to make them self propelled units. I think the bogies are X9711, they are the version with black rather than white gears. I think the wheel sets on them are X9718 and I wondered if the X9704 wheels have the same diameter axles so that they could be swapped over? If anyone knows the answer to this it’d be much appreciated. The motor bogies run extremely well and seem to have silly power magnets as they pick everything up around them.

I am supposed the rude word filter didn’t stop this thread. It’s stopped some of mine for less grinning

Great loco

They are possibly from the Hornby Acho range, Hornby Dublo’s French branch. I have seen the Acho stock with both the Continental type and the standard Dublo ones. Some Tri-ang stock was also sold with continental couplings, I think under the Acho brand but also VB.

Do a search on this as there have been lots of similar questions before. I am dealing with the same issue and I know about model trains and I’m finding it difficult. I sold some items to a dealer, I won’t go there again! I have had some success selling wagons in job lots but I suspect that none of them have ever been out of the boxes so I have been getting a good price for them. One dealer tried it on and didn’t get any, another gave me what i wanted so got them all. I have been selling locos on eBay, I know what they should be going for so I am getting better prices but it’s a lot of work and eBay take around 20% on the selling price AND postage. I am still getting around two to three times what I would get from a dealer though so it’s worth it, especially as I know what I am doing. It’s worth mentioning that currently there seems to be an increase in the number of idiots on eBay who don’t pay when they win something and don’t reply to messages. I always report them but eBay doesn’t seem interested.

Keep going right on the second link. Some incredible locos on there!!!!

This is the unit and some quick calculations and tests show that I need a minimum of 15mm between the ends of the coaches to get it round a 1st radius curve. Losing the black corridor connections gets me 8mm so if I move each coach out on the central bogie by 4mm that should do it. I will also have to lose the cab steps but I can live with that.

It’s probably a metric M threaded bolt if Bachmann can’t supply it (unlikely). If you have a friendly engineer with some miniature metric dies you can get them to check what size it is using one of the others and order some off various websites. One of my work colleagues did some for me off some 1960s continental locos and I was able to get everything I needed off eBay for pennies rather than pay inflated prices for ‘genuine’ parts which were simply M nuts and bolts between 1 and 2mm. The convention for metric screws, bolts etc. is M and a number so M2 is 2mm diameter, you just need to know if it’s coarse, medium or fine threads. Tri-ang, Hornby Dublo etc used BA threads and again dies are available to check what they are. There are several charts with the nearest metric equivalent to drill clearance and tapping holes but you need the correct BA taps, nuts and bolts.

I hadn’t thought of looking at tram sites thanks, pretty obvious when you see a lot of the modern units in places like Manchester a Birmingham. As my partner keeps telling me, dont be so closed minded. I’ll put some time in over the weekend. I think the biggest problem I’ll have is working out how to do it without ruining the appearance of the articulation and getting it round a first radius curve.

I have found the same colour to be indistinguishable from the Precision paints DMU green so Tri-ang must have got a good colour match with their plastic.

I motorised one of the Atlas editions French EMU units and it was obviously designed to be easy to do. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to do another one and chose the Z4702 articulated unit as I liked the look of it. The construction of this unit is completely different and doesn’t appear to have been designed with motorisation in mind, and there is a lot more metal in it that may need to be worked with. Nothing is not solveable but i have never had to sort an articulated unit before. I would assume that the central bogie is the best one to power, and have the correct size tenshodo but that brings another problem in how to connect to the two coaches, as the finished unit will need to get around 1st radius curves so the distance between them will have to be worked out leaving a non-prototypical gap around the bogie. (Remember this is HO so 1st radius is not a real problem). I have seen a photo of a motorised unit on a French website but there is no indication of how it was done. Has anyone powered an articulated unit or has any other advice on where to put the power unit?

There have been several versions in different coloured green plastic including the short lived appalling ‘Kendal mint cake’ appearance. I think a later one was painted a decent version of the standard green. If it’s plastic as 81F says, you won’t be bale to touch it up and will have to paint the whole loco. I have two that were originally blue, one was detailed as the earlier version with head code discs and the other painted similar to the Hornby green version but some were painted in two-tone green with a paler upper body, rather like the class 25/3s. The much earlier Playcraft HO version had a pale green or grey plastic body and fully painted finish in a very good match to BR loco green.

Bee, some information for Manchester around the early period of the Industrial Revolution. I used to work for a company that did site investigation and part of my role was to dig underneath buildings and find out how they had been constructed as most had no records. The usual method of construction was to dig a trench, build a brick foundation that was wider at the bottom laid direct onto the bedrock (yellow or red sandstone) or hard red clay that lies beneath most of Manchester City Centre. The trench was then backfilled with whatever they had to hand, ash, rubbish and lots and lots of oyster shells that were the peasant food of this time. Before the Manchester Ship Canal was built barges could sail up the Rivers Mersey and Irwell straight into the centre of Manchester and bring seafood in vast quantities. This changed with the construction of weirs, and for a while some very low draft boats were used that could be dragged up the weirs and carry on their journeys. Lots of the old tips around Manchester are also full of oyster shells. The River Medlock through central Manchester was also navigable up through the city centre and barges could sail up a tunnel from near Oxford Road up to near Manchester Piccadilly station where wagons could be loaded with the coal they brought. All the canals, rivers and railways in the city centre were interlinked, and there were major boatyards constructing quite large vessels in Manchester City Centre. They would make an interesting addition to a period layout. The control building in Castlefield basin looks just like a signal box! Have a look at the Manchester Coat of Arms, the three gold stripes on the shield represent the Rivers Irwell, Irk and Medlock recognising the importance of them to the City and the ship (odd for an inland City) represents the Bridgewater Canal linking Manchester to the sea, superseded by the Manchester Ship Canal. Another peasant food up until the Rivers were killed off was salmon. There was a report in one document I read about mill workers in Salford complaining about the amount of salmon they were being forced to eat caught by the Mill owner in the adjacent Irwell. Possibly important to remember that the River Irwell is the divide between the Cities of Manchester and Salford. NEVER tell someone from Salford that they are in Manchester, I have made that mistake before.

A number of the model railway magazines have published drawings for locos that were designed but not actually built. Is it possible someone has adapted a kit/proprietary loco to build one of these? I have seen a model of the 2-8-2 original design for the 9F. The other option is that not all the parts are off this loco.

I managed to find some time to do some work on the Atlas Editions model I have had for a while. I threw away all the parts that had fallen off it and I couldn’t locate where they had come from. I have replaced the moulded pantographs with Jouef ones, I would have preferred Lima ones as they have the insulators included but I didn’t have any in good enough condition. I have glued the bogies together so they are setting but this looks like it will be a very easy conversion. I found another on a French website but he had painted it a very dark green rather than the bright green the model comes in. I have no idea what the correct shade is for this unit? I can only find B&W prototype photos. Parts of it do seem a little fragile, I may look at how I can strengthen it a bit. I only paid a pound or two for it, so quite happy with this one.

I have been after one of these for quite some time now! I’ve paid more than I wanted to but it’s the only one I have seen for sale in the UK for years, watch a sudden avalanche of them appear now. Basically it’s the old Jouef/Playcraft BB67001 body, originally painted with extremely well moulded see through grilles and separately fitted metal stripes at one end, 4 axle drive from a huge can motor and brass wheels and cogs, later self coloured blue body withplastic moulded stripes, 2 axle drive and a smaller motor. Finally the body was modified to take their standard long wheelbase clockwork chassis and the blue version was sold as clockwork. That wasn’t the end of it though, the modified body was sold in starter sets, possibly in blue but definately in Red (Lima and at least one other manufacturer has released this loco in red, a colour that the real loco never carried). And…. In one set for a very limited time and not sure if it was sold in the UK in green. This has the final version of the chassis with single axle drive, motor in the bogie etc. The place where the hole would be for the clockwork version is clearly visible and the slot in the roof is present for the clockwork brake. It actually runs quite well if a little noisy. I have a number of the different versions of the blue one with the various motors, one red one with the better Playcraft chassis swapped for the rubbishy single axle drive and now the green version. It is in very good condition and now joins my collection of ‘toy’ locos. Great!!!

I’m sure that some people have used salt to produce that rusty weathered finish, presumably under the paint? I have also read about people using chalk dust and tried it on an Airfix pug, the results were quite good.

Great post. Unfortunately I don’t have room for a lathe and search out damaged later versions of the Dock Shunter and DMU which had closer to scale wheels in junk boxes at swapmeets or on eBay. The main problem with them is that they have rubbishy plastic cogs that strip on the axle or totally disintegrate. I swap the wheels onto the axle with brass cogs and then sell the old wheels on. There is always someone who wants them. The axles are standard Tri-ang loco ones as are the wheel insulators which makes things easier. I know I live in the UK which probably makes finding them easier but they are coming up less now than they did a few years ago.

What might be of interest is that the Manchester Metrolink is designed to go round curves that are a scale 15” or Hornby first radius. Also, the 9F and some early locos aren’t the only ones with flangeless wheels, some short wheelbase industrial locos also has flangeless central wheels due to the extremely tight curves they worked on in steelworks and the like. Prototype for everything!

For the Manchester end of the line you need the Manchester and Salford Sheet 32 surveyed in 1849 and published in 1851, all the turntables Bee refers to are clearly visible in Liverpool Road Station. Aussie Fred, if you come to the UK again I think you can get the full OS App free for a short while which has all the up to date UK maps on it and works off GPS rather than the phone signal providing your smartphone can access it. I have had no problems using it in the far North of Scotland or down in Cornwall on my phone. I do pay an annual subscription direct to OS as it’s cheaper than going through the App Store, I think it’s about £25 a year and much better than having a box full of outdated tatty OS maps. As we do a lot of mountain walking, being able to pin point where you are if the cloud suddenly drops is great and although I usually still have a compass and map with me I hardly ever use them now. I think there is a free version of the OS App with limited mapping information on it.

If you want to look at old British OS maps for the whole of the UK try googling the National Library of Scotland, I think NLSMaps will find them. Totally free unlike the rest of the UK, which for the other repositories is a bit pointless. There is everything right back to the 18:00s on there. Apparently the Scottish government decided that as the public had already paid for the production of the maps they should be free, how true it is I don’t know but it’s a fantastic resource.

I have seen those N models for sale at swapmeets for as little as 50p a go. Possibly good for 009 conversions?

Threelink, I couldn’t agree more. If I wanted an ornament for the engine shed I’d get one of the Amercom/GBL static models and paint it properly…..but then I’d probably end up motorising it anyway. My late Father's layout still has some Tri-and locos in the engine shed, amongst some of the later locos they don’t look out of place and help give the desired impression. I have posted a reply to Bill but it’s waiting for moderation due to a photo. Some of the Atlas models are on Amazon currently at all of the first 6 in the range for <£50 including postage from somewhere in Europe, possibly Spain. Someone has replied in Spanish that they are advertised as metal when in fact they are plastic and the bits fall off them. It wouldn’t stop me getting another. Also a shame that most if not all of the actual locos rather than the MUs in the range have been done by the major manufacturers, yes it makes them easy to motorise but the bodies are no better than the existing ones. Many of the range are on eBay in the £10 to £11 bracket or even less if you buy in multiple and the sellers are open to offers. These are new, boxed, fairly good HO models, admittedly much less robust than the Triang models that this thread is about but for the prices they are great. I doubt all the sellers in the UK, Europe and the far East are selling them at a loss so where have the prices come from? They can’t all be from discounted clearances unless the production was ridiculously over the demand worldwide. Such a shame the only UK model I am aware of is the class 81. A nice L&Y or Merseyrail EMU would have been good as would an EM1 or EM2.

Bill, I only have one, the main moulding and the finish is superb but the steps and other bits fell off when I got it out of the box. I think I only paid a pound or two for it new, at one point they were on Amazon at 10 different for £60 including delivery. I did also think about getting their HO class 81 as a number of people have posted how to motorise one. I will do the EMU at some point, I have the Tenshodo and replacement pantographs but some of the bits might have to stay off if I can’t locate where they go. These models are designed to be motorised and not only prototypes that the main manufacturers haven’t touched but were available at a silly low price, they probably still are.