Minitrix dinosaur

belstone · November 07, 2019, 02:53:05 PM

This one caught my attention on eBay and I ended up buying it:

Just another old Minitrix Type 2 diesel in chromatic blue, small yellow ends and white window surrounds. Minitrix were a bit quick off the mark getting their model out in BR Blue before BR had actually decided what BR blue looked like. But what's that leaflet under it?

Hand-drawn artwork by someone with some skill. Note the address at the bottom: Courtaulds gave up on British Trix at the end of 1967 and the assets were transferred to a new company, Thernglade Ltd. I haven't yet established when the Type 2 first appeared on the UK market, but I believe it was towards the end of 1967. The box for this model is unusual. It's actually the wrong box, labelled for a Mk1 coach, but has the correct foam insert and I have found one other Type 2 for sale with the same plain green box design. I'm pretty sure these boxes were only used on Courtaulds models: the Thernglade models (1968 on) all seem to have been in standard German Minitrix packaging, green and yellow window box with a polystyrene tray. So I suspect this slightly "playworn" Type 2 is one of only a tiny handful sold in 1967, at the very dawn of British N gauge. If anyone knows anything more about the very early days of Minitrix in the UK I would be very interested to hear.

Richard

msr · November 07, 2019, 03:33:13 PM

My first N Gauge loco was this one, bought new for £4 in December 1969 from Bold & Burrows Ltd who had just moved around the corner to 12-22 Verulam Road, St Albans, Herts. So the stock may have dated from 1967 but was still on retailers shelves a couple of years later.

belstone · November 07, 2019, 04:48:09 PM

Quote from: msr on November 07, 2019, 03:33:13 PM
My first N Gauge loco was this one, bought new for £4 in December 1969 from Bold & Burrows Ltd who had just moved around the corner to 12-22 Verulam Road, St Albans, Herts. So the stock may have dated from 1967 but was still on retailers shelves a couple of years later.

£4 sounds cheap. A new Farish Pannier cost £5.99 in the newfangled decimal currency in July 1971, and inflation wasn't that high then although things were about to get much worse. Bankruptcy stock? I admit to a fascination with very early N Gauge: next on my list is a Farish Holden tank in GER blue, in its lovely little imitation velvet lined box. So pretty, and such a terrible piece of mechanical design.

Richard

msr · November 07, 2019, 05:17:54 PM

Good point about the price. The RM for March 1967 gives the RRP at just under £6. This has jogged my memory and I think I part-exchanged this model with some old Hornby tinplate stock which the shop proprietor was keen on collecting, so that probably accounts for the apparently low price. I think the deal might well have included some Minitrix track and half a dozen points as well which I would have acquired at around the same time.

kirky · November 07, 2019, 06:08:15 PM

Oh my how things have increased in price...or have they?
https://www.officialdata.org/uk/inflation/1967?amount=6
Links the buying power of £6 from 1967 to 2019. Its very interesting to read that £6 then is worth about £108 now. So a six quid loco when I was 4 would cost about £108 quid now. And thats pretty accurate as far as locos are concerned I would say.
Just for the sake of interest.

Cheers

ntpntpntp · November 07, 2019, 06:11:52 PM

That sort of very early issue of a model is just the sort of thing that piques my collecting interests. An interesting and unusual find!

BramptonBranch · November 07, 2019, 07:17:41 PM

I have the blue Holden and it runs! also the black one and that runs to!!
Lovely little things wouldn't part with them for a modern one either.

AndyRA · November 07, 2019, 08:28:54 PM

Might be considered a dinosaur, but a brilliant and reliable chassis. I still have some that date back to when they were new in the late 1960s. However they have found a new lease of life under other things.

Paddy · November 08, 2019, 01:09:09 PM

I have to say the mechanisms of Minitrix locos (even then) were excellent and showed how our German cousins like to over engineer everything. If only locos today were as robust... I still have four Minitrix Britannias and they run wonderfully (should have added with all different names and numbers!).

Paddy

BramptonBranch · November 08, 2019, 03:29:55 PM

A Minitrix dinosaur warship just sold for £92 + £5 postage on eBay.....

Les1952 · November 08, 2019, 10:47:05 PM

Despite Fleischmann having the name and the reputation at the time I have found that Minitrix mechanisms of years ago keep going well after their Fleischmann equivalents have bitten the dust.

The only down side is the enormous current they seem to draw by modern standards makes them difficult to find a suitable chip for if you want to fit them for DCC.

Les

maridunian · November 09, 2019, 08:47:09 AM

The Minitrix 2F/T3 chassis, all bought at-least-2nd hand, all at least 30 years old, powers most of my layout's loco stable.

Mike

Bealman · November 09, 2019, 08:56:58 AM

Jfheath · October 25, 2020, 05:01:08 PM

Wow - thank you for posting that. I've been delving into the Minitrix history - which you might have gathered from the 6/19 and 1/20 issues of the NGS Journal, if you read these.

So this discovery confirms what I had believed before writing for the journal, but I had yet to find catalogue proof that the blue and green Class 27 locos were first introduced by British Trix (part of Cortaulds Group) in 1967. They were then bought out by German Trix who acquired all of the tooling and the factory. They formed Thernglade, specifically to continue production of these N gauge models at the Wrexham plant, and kept on some key staff from British Trix. Confusingly, the green class 27 appeared in the German Trix 1969 catalogue as a new model. I suppose it was new to the German Market. The Blue class 27 did not make an appearance in catalogues until Hornby introduced it into their Hornby Minitrix line in 1980. I daresay that there are some early 1967 versions knocking around that were never advertised in catalogues.

What I am also trying to establish is the origin of the Class 42 warships. I have found catalogues from 1967/68 which show that British Trix had Blue, Green and Maroon Warships in their OO line up, and they had just started manufacturing N gauge models. The fact that the early Class 27s and the early warships have a VERY similar construction, seems to suggest that the warships might have started life with British Trix - but since German Trix bought up the company and the tooling, they could have just continued the project at the Thernglade plant in Wrexham, to bring out the Warships as brand new in 1970. The Thernglade catalogue from 1970 does list 2 Warships, both shown with names that never went into production - Spartan (blue) and Vanguard (green). This suggests to me that they were new in 1970 - the artist for the catalogue seemingly having to guess some detail in time for the catalogue to go to press. (eg - their N Gauge Britannia clearly wasn't available to photograph, so a photo very much like one I have seen of of Trix's OO Britannia was used instead !)

ps - I am not aware of a type 1 and type 2 Class 27 loco. I have a few examples, some look early, but I acquired them without boxes. One is definitely a Hornby Marketed version. I've not spotted any difference.

ntpntpntp · October 25, 2020, 05:47:12 PM

I would have thought British Trix's involvement with the 27 and 42 would have been just the bodyshell, given that the 27 used the chassis from the German E10 and the 42 used the chassis from the German V200.

The 27 chassis remained the same version for its entire life as far as I know and never adopted later the E10 or similar chassis, whereas the 42 adopted the later re-designed V200 chassis (body mounted buffers, different bogie sideframes, long-shaft motor etc.)