Triang catalogues.... 1962-1967

[ntpntpntp]

I had a Playcraft set from Woolies, with the little 4 wheel diesel shunter in BR green, a couple of wagons and a brake van as I recall.  It ran quite well on my Super 4 system.

Ah the arrival of the Ringfield Motor 9f - I remember when I saved for and bought mine via our local model shop's "savings club", it was a superb performer and I loved it running with my blood and custards.  Looking back now it was very shiny green and copper, but most impressive      Just occasionally I see one on a 2nd hand stall and get a craving to re-acquire, so that's bound to happen one day if a mint one turns up at a good price 

[Bealman]

Yes indeed. I know an N gauge man who bought one of those spaceships, made a nice wooden plinth, put a bit of sceniced and ballasted OO track on it, and sat it on his sideboard as an ornament, simply because he "likes looking at it"

[Bealman]

.....continuing our 1963 adventure, dear viewer, we come to what I thought at the time was an odd thing to include in a model railway catalogue, but as a retired science teacher, looking back from today, now think it's pretty cool....

Science Sets!!

These were touted in the catalogue: "Rovex Scale Models Limited, the builders of Triang Railways, now bring to you the exciting world of science" and were under the banner of Triang-Lionel. Where or what the "Lionel" bit came from or was, I've no idea. Any info appreciated.

Anyway, there were 4 series: Famous Inventors, Electronics Engineering, Weather Stations, and Plastics Engineering (this last one sounds like a load of toxic fun).



I never had any experience with any of this stuff at the time, though I vaguely recall seeing some of it in a shop somewhere. As a science teacher, I must say that the Famous Inventors kits look pretty good - educational and fun - IF - they did everything the catalogue said they did. Good value for money, too, ranging from 36/9 to 45/- (still getting me head round that old money).

Each kit had a gold plastic bust of the famous man himself. The range was:

* Gutenberg (printing press), * Hooke (compound microscope, available Summer 1963), * Cartwright (power loom, available Autumn 1963 - looks really cool - if it worked), * Hero (steam turbine), * Morse (telegraph), * Edison (phonograph), * Edison again (electric light), * Galileo (telescope) and * Bell (telephone).

The Science Sets are intriguing. They came in MKI, MKII and MKVI versions. What happened to MKIII one can only speculate!

It's difficult from the pictures in the catalogue to see what you got for your money, but the blurb states that the MKII weather station (119/6) had a "precision aneroid barometer" and two "dial computers on the console" to "simplify calculations of relative humidity and temperature-humidity index". There was also an electric anemometer to indicate windspeed and direction (I thought the wind was supposed to make that go around?  Of course, I assume you put it outside and connected it by wires to the dial inside your kit).

I assume that the MKIV electronics lab would be a bit similar to the Phillips Electronics kits that came out a few years later, although the blurb made some pretty heavy claims: "Operate home appliances by remote control, and build many other ingenious devices from this magnificent safety-tested equipment". YIKES! 

As for the plastics lab, all I can make out are a whole lot of moulds to make things like rowing boats, a Mercury capsule, a world globe, a chess set, and test tubes and other stuff, including two big bottles of God knows what. Hours of toxic fun!!!

[Graham]

thanks for stirring the memories George, i remember having a set in the mid 60's but cant remember what it was or what happened to it. I have a vague recollection it was given to a distant relative with my Scalextrix in the very early 70's. By that time i was an apprentice with Post Office Telephones (now BT of course) and busy studying when i wasn't off chasing girls and beer.

[Bealman]

 

I presume it was the telephone set you were given. 

Yes, girls and beer and study(! ) tended to get in the way of model railways back then. 

Scalextrix (Is that the correct spelling? Doesn't look right, but there again I've been pulled up over that in this thread already) was big competition for model railways at that time, and I'll be looking at that to some extent in future episodes. 

[Graham]

you are correct should have written Scalextric.

[Bealman]

Thanks, mate. When I saw your post I was scratching and scratching my head 'cos I couldn't remember the spelling either! 

[Bealman]

Wrapping up 1963.....

The catalogue's final section was devoted to TT, and at this particular point in history, the range was quite extensive:



It was similar to the OO collection, except the "Transcontinental" segment was simply "Continental".

What is immediately obvious, however, is the solid "spoked" wheels, which sort of takes the edge off the models a bit (well for me, anyhow).



However, as already noted, the range was quite extensive, and new items were still being introduced at the time, as in the Continental surburban electric set, coaches and track cleaning car seen on the pages above.

The Britannia Class locomotive, "Boadicea" even had smoke!

Unfortunately the gauge did not really catch on with the general public, and Triang suspended production not long after this catalogue.

Turning to the back cover, though, gave one a hint of what was to come. Triang had it's eyes on promoting Minic Motorways..... and that is exactly what they did.... starting in 1964.



Stay tuned! 

[exmouthcraig]

I'm really enjoying reading the trip down Felony Lane with all of your memories and ways to get the latest stuff.

What's really interesting is, I reckon it would of been 1994 that I got my first Hornby OO trainset, my uncle had a decent 00 gauge layout in his dining room, most of that would of been this stuff that your talking about now, most of my "extras" were second hand.

Dad got a 8x4 board from our local merchants and it had 2 levels on it. Its amazing how much of what was listed in the 1990 / 1994 / 1998 catalogue is what you had in 1963!!!

By 1997, I had started secondary school, got my first paper round, space was hard to come by in the house to keep the layout on the dining room table and shortly after we must of stripped it up and it's still in the original boxes today!!

The orange track gradient clip on pieces, I had in grey to get up to my 2nd level.

[Bealman]

Thanks, Craig! 

Maybe it will all get resurrected one day? 

[martyn]

Seeing the Minic advert with the train going over the elevated bridge reminds me that Playcraft had something similar, but the incline piers were made from large cubes with a platform top; and the bridge was quite a large girder one, which I had. Playcraft also had a number of line side accessories; I can remember having a set of gradient posts, water trough signage, and speed restriction signs (though I'm not sure about the latter....)

The Playcraft track was way ahead of Triang in the period we're talking about for looks, and it wasn't until Super 6 came out that it caught up. But it was difficult to use the Playcraft and Super 6 together; the fishplate were on the same side........and as I've said, the Triang flanges were too deep to run on Playcraft.

The Triang given to me also had the two types of couplings; one, the newer version, not unlike the Hornby coupling of today, and the other was a hook on top of a curved plain bar.

Later;

About this time, Airfix brought out a series of building kits and rolling stock kits which were to OO scale, and I had quite a few of these, noticeably the pub and dockside crane. I think at least some of these are still available in the Dapol range. I also was give a solitary Kitmaster loco kit; possibly a Pacific of some sort. I can't now remember because although I made most of it quite successfully, I managed to lock the valve gear up, and so it was only ever used for background decoration. Were there not motorising kits later available from a third party supplier for some of these kits?

Martyn

[Bealman]

Yeah, the Playcraft track was finer than the Triang stuff of the day.



Airfix had a fantastic range of OO scale buildings and lineside kits. The great thing was that they were pocket money cheap - I think I had every one of them, including the footbridge, girder bridge, and turntable. In fact, here's an Airfix lineside hut, horrible 13 year old Bealman paint job included, on my N layout just last week!!



There were most certainly motorising kits available for Kitmaster locomotives, and articles about them were frequent in the model railway press of the day. I had a Kitmaster DP1, but it never got motorised.

[nharding99]

Playcraft once produced a kit for Macclesfield station which I found to be very exciting as this wasn't far from where I lived - ideal for my EM2 and AL1 locos (I suppose we'll be introduced to these in the not too distant future). I had no problem operating a DC voltage prototype on my 25kV layout!

[Bealman]

Cool! 

[martyn]

I really don't remember the station kit at all...

I also had quite a few more Airfix building kits, though I can't now remember which ones, and quite a lot of their military kits were used on my railway. They also produced figures, mainly military, to go with their kits and again I used some of these on my railway.

Martyn