Triang catalogues.... 1962-1967

[ntpntpntp]

Some tender locos-the B12 at least-also later had a simple form of 'chuffing' sound; basically a metal tab fixed to a tender wheel axle rubbing on a rough surface within the tender as the wheels revolved.

Yep, there was a clip fixed to the axle -  which from memory was extremely similar to clips found in Meccano sets  -  rubbing on a metal tongue coated with a layer of sand. The tongue was routed into the hollow chamber of the tender.

Simple but quite effective to the ears of a young enthusiast

[ntpntpntp]

Loving this thread btw.         

I've just been for a quick wander around here
http://www.tri-ang.co.uk/

[Bealman]

Thanks for the link! I just had a quick look, and it looks good. Interesting he's upgrading the site. I'll take a closer look tomorrow!

Glad you're enjoying my efforts, by the way. The pictures I'm taking with my phone of the catalogues on the floor are crap, but I kid myself that they're in keeping with the vintage of the thread!   

[MinZaPint]

Although my OO layout was Hornby Dublo I'm thoroughly enjoying this thread, I liked Hornby because of the chunky feeling Die cast locos (Duchess of Montrose was my favourite!) whereas the Triang I remember was plastic, I had a Bo Bo diesel which had a plastic body and very disappointingly adopted the shape of a Banana! Back to this thread a picture on post 108 stirred "The little grey cells" and after much thinking finished up covered in dust under the spare bed (old fashioned spring frame jobby, visitors find it very romantic as it dips into the middle!) to retrieve an old cardboard style suitcase full of abandoned railway projects mostly OO. Anyway there it still was!



which revealed



It's only ever run on a yard of test track, I lost interest in model railways in about 1960 when Motor Bikes, Girls and Beer were more interesting, went back to the trains in the late 70's after getting married, Graham Farish taking over!

Thanks George for this thread which has bought up a lot of memories for fellow forum members. 

[joe cassidy]

I remember classied ads in the Sunday papers in the 60s advertising job lots of what I assume was "obselete" Hornby Dublo stuff. They could be found among the ads for trusses and civil defence great coats. I never managed to persuade my dad to cough up

[ntpntpntp]

<drools over that Caledonian Single> !!!

[Bealman]

Yeah, that Caledonian Single sure is in good nick! Thanks for posting, David!! 

1964 continued....

The Minic Motorways range began just as the name implies, a sort of model railway but with cars. Hence the "normal" cars, buses, lorries, etc shown on these pages.





However, Triang/Minic were obviously very much aware of the slot car racing craze which was taking off at about the same time. My NZ mate had a Scalectric set a few years before I talked him into a train set!

Realising that they already had the infrastructure set up, the firm produced a half a dozen "production race cars", and parceled them up into three racing sets. These were joined in later years by Corvette Stingrays, and all sorts of other goodies such as a chicane and operating frontier posts, but I'm getting ahead of myself here.

With the recent discussion here about smoke units, don't you just love the steam lorry with the smoke generator sticking blatantly up through the cab? The police car with flashing light is pretty cool, too.



As can be seen, the range of road components was pretty extensive, allowing quite complex schemes to be realised. A glance at the hand controllers shows they had a reversing switch - these cars could do something Scalectric cars couldn't - they could go backwards!



Ok, I may not have known how the locos achieved Synchrosmoke, but I know how this trick was done (don't forget, I eventually ended up with a set) 

There was a small reversing pin at the rear of the car which sat in the slot, so it prevented the thing from jackknifing all over the place when you reversed the current! Simple, but effective.

However, the nice thing was that it was removable, so when you were racing, the rear of the vehicle was free to swing around on the corners just like a Scalectric car. Cool, eh. 

Wrapping up 1964, I've included this final page for no other reason than I think the bungalow with automatic garage door and a smoking chimney is, well, cool!



Coming up.... the eleventh edition - 1965.

[Newportnobby]

Anyway, returning to the catalogue page above, industrial locomotives #6, "Connie" and #7, "Nellie were joined by #9, "Polly". Above was a new model - a Co-Co Class E.3000 electric locomotive. Now that's a model I wouldn't mind having in my N gauge collection. Has anyone ever done one?

I doubt it, as the E3000 locos were Bo-Bos so another typo there.
There's my EM2 shown. What year did the working catenary come out please?

[crewearpley40]

Mick according to @Newportnobby , brightontoymuseum.co.uk  triang launched their triang railways Overhead Power Supply System for model railways in the 1959 catalogue . Hornby dublo launched AL1 E3002 single pantogrsph loco in 1963 shortly before meccano went  bust. Who remembers the EM1 / 2 ?

[nharding99]

Mick according to @Newportnobby , brightontoymuseum.co.uk  triang launched their triang railways Overhead Power Supply System for model railways in the 1959 catalogue . Hornby dublo launched AL1 E3002 single pantogrsph loco in 1963 shortly before meccano went  bust. Who remembers the EM1 / 2 ?

I loved my EM2. Mine was in corporate blue livery with full yellow ends.

Even though we seem to be fussier these days about specialising in particular loco operations and regions I wouldn't mind betting that this would be a success in N gauge, partly for nostalgia reasons (all of those current N gauge modellers who owned this loco in their childhood). Maybe those nice chaps at RevolutioN might give it a go one day.

[Bealman]

Ok, I'm assuming a return to a Cuneo cover with the eleventh edition, though I'm not certain. It indeed looks like his style, but once again there is no sign of the mouse, or a signature. Could be off-pic, to bottom right, I suppose.



The eleventh Triang Railways catalogue was an austere affair - thin (only 24 pages), and with little new product. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, there was probably a lot going on behind the scenes, with the up-coming amalgamation with Hornby Dublo. But that was in the future, and the young Bealman was still the Triang man!

By now, his mate had decided to get a train set for Christmas, and it looked as though it was to be the "Holiday Express", with a B12 and a couple of blood and custards.



It was a surprise, therefore, when Bealman called around to his place a few days after Christmas, and found "The Defender" set trundling around his fledgling layout!



It was, however, great fun, and many happy hours were spent taking aim with the 4-rocket launcher at the exploding box car, as it trundled around in the dark, illuminated by the searchlight wagon!! The rocket launcher was surprisingly powerful, and all four could be launched individually, or if you really meant business, fire all four of them off together!!

That very same Christmas, Bealman received the new Car-A-Belle set. It was in the mail order catalogue that the Bealmum used to order stuff from, and he was successful in persuading her to make that his Christmas present.

I admit with some embarrassment today that I had no interest in the car transporters at all - I just wanted the Jinty with Synchrosmoke 



One new announcement for 1965, however, was the English Electric Type 3 Co-Co Diesel, which the catalogue described as; "One of the latest mixed traffic diesel locomotives to go into large scale service with British Railways".



By now, the old station buildings from the fifties had disappeared (along with the rubber haystacks). Bealman hated that "modern double track engine shed" seen here, however, and he still thinks it looks stupid to this day.



The back cover depicted yet another drool pic, the railway combined with Minic and Model-Land, and I must say that I think that it looks good - nothing except Rovex product in that picture, and it all goes together rather well.



Next: 1966 - the year of amalgamation!

[chrism]

Ok, I'm assuming a return to a Cuneo cover with the eleventh edition, though I'm not certain. It indeed looks like his style, but once again there is no sign of the mouse, or a signature. Could be off-pic, to bottom right, I suppose.

It certainly does look his style, but apparently it wasn't a Cuneo.

There was a similar thread on RMWeb some years ago which included a post listing the covers and whether or not they were Cuneo's work.

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/41622-the-hornby-catalogue-influence/page/4/&tab=comments#comment-1522845

[martyn]

The synchrosmoke Jinty-R52S?-the first Triang loco that I bought, as opposed to my collection of Playcraft, from a long gone toyshop in Clacton. The Jinty I had been given to start my Triang collection didn't feature this; and the previous owner had painted it brown, to boot.

It later suffered again as it was one of my first attempts to renumber; to an ex LNER J71, I think!

Martyn

[Bealman]

.....Bealman picked up the latest copy of the Triang Railways catalogue, but...... what was this..... shock! Horror! Triang... Triang... HORNBY?! Eeeek!!



Anyway, we all know the mouse is on the top of the catenary mast but blotted out by the logo (see page 1), so let's take a look inside.

What was on the first two pages? To be released in 1966... A treat for Western fans, that's what! Two locomotives!



A 4-6-0 Western Region Hall Class locomotive, "Albert Hall" (with driver & fireman), and Hymek B-B Diesel Hydraulic locomotive! The Hymek blurb states: "Authentic BR livery emphasises the attractive lines of this modern workhorse".

I've always liked Hymeks, but have yet to acquire one in N. It's on the Bealman wishlist. 



As @Train Waiting pointed out a few posts back, there was a train set called "The Midlander". The 3F appeared in maroon livery for the first time in this catalogue. That would be unprototypical though, wouldn't it? Did a 3F ever appear in this livery?

Interestingly,at the top of the page,  Bealman's original Pullman set of 1962 has been re-named the "Inter-City Express", and "Britannia" has been replaced by the new EE Co-Co locomotive. This, of course reflected the contemporary scene at the time.



Bealman's Car-A-Belle set with it's 12 MINIX cars (not to be confused with the motorised MINIC cars) is featured, with the Synchrosmoke Jinty which was the only reason the young Bealman had the set. The Minix cars had horrible silver wheels and were very plasticy. However, I recall seeing an article in Railway Modeller (and not all that long ago in the context of the timeline of this thread) about super detailing these cars. They were certainly cheap and nasty, but good raw material for such a project.

On the same page is a new set, "The Goods" featuring "Polly", and a flat wagon with yet another shiny-wheeled Minix car -  Harry Potter Anglia cars were flavour of the year in 1966! But what caught my eye (just then, actually) was this set came with a controller, not available for Australia! Dunno why, we run on 240 volts 50 cycles AC - maybe Polly was scared of kookaburras, or something!

At the top of the page, it can be seen that the Hornby Dublo "Barnstaple" steam locomotive made it through the amalgamation intact - for now!



The diesel page is interesting. I'll address the first couple of issues to @Newportnobby . Firstly, the typo has been addressed and the E.3001 "Co-Co" is now a Bo-Bo. Secondly, his beloved "Electra" loco is now blue!! Also blue is the double-ended Transcontinental locomotive - and I've only just realised as I'm writing this - it and the matching blue coaches are the only Transcontinental stock in this catalogue!!!

The Transcontinental range was quite obviously being phased out, though this never occurred to me in 1966!!! There is no Transcontinental freight stock at all in this catalogue, and a check of the 1967 catalogue reveals that the Transcontinental stuff has disappeared completely (apart from Battle Space).

That really is a revelation to me, and something I've only discovered by writing this thread. Well, well well. 

Another surviving Hornby Dublo locomotive is on this page - the Co-Bo diesel electric. Wouldn't mind seeing one in N gauge. Didn't it haul "The Condor"? All Hornby Dublo locos were supplied with coupling converter wagons, by the way.



The freight roster was essentially the same as in previous years (minus the Transcontinental stuff!) with the addition of a coupling converter wagon. Interestingly blue-gray coaching stock made their first appearance.



1966 saw the introduction of Battle Space, which was essentially just existing stock in a new paint scheme, and has already been discussed.





Note that, except for the back cover, no Minic Motorways appear in the 1966 catalogue. By now, Rovex had made the decision that they would market this range completely separately, and began to produce a dedicated catalogue.

The Model-Land page above touts Minix as "THE GREATEST little CARS IN THE WORLD". Dunno where that idea came from, some eager young PR man, I assume.

At this time, just after amalgamation, the original Hornby Dublo plastic buildings were retained:



Young Bealman thought some of these were ok - the terminal buildings, with the overall plastic roof were particularly impressive, as was the engine shed. Bealman actually had one of these, bought back in 1962 - well before the amalgamation. The Triang version was crap, as can be seen on this page, along with the Hornby Dublo version. No comparison, I reckon.



Also on the same page is the Dublo crane with the big crank handle mentioned in an earlier post. This time, the Triang product wins hands down.

Finally, the back cover features the railway-Minic Motorway level crossings, oh, and that horrible Hornby Dublo crane!



Coming up - 1967 - the year of flower power and the year that Bealman waved goodbye to Triang Railways!

[Bealman]

Ok, I'm assuming a return to a Cuneo cover with the eleventh edition, though I'm not certain. It indeed looks like his style, but once again there is no sign of the mouse, or a signature. Could be off-pic, to bottom right, I suppose.

It certainly does look his style, but apparently it wasn't a Cuneo.

There was a similar thread on RMWeb some years ago which included a post listing the covers and whether or not they were Cuneo's work.

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/41622-the-hornby-catalogue-influence/page/4/&tab=comments#comment-1522845

Just had a look after typing the last post. Very interesting - thanks for the link!