What British outline models did Minitrix produce?

[railwaysymphony]

Hi everyone,

Having recently discovered (and perhaps impulsively purchased) some "new" Hornby-Minitrix locos around, I'm curious as to what British outline models were actually produced back in the Hornby/Minitrix collaboration days. So far I've seen (well, own)...

A4 Sir Nigel Gresley LNER Garter Blue
A4 Mallard BR Green
A3 Flying Scotsman LNER Green
7P Brittania BR Green
7P Boadicea BR Green
9F Evening Star BR Green
9F 92018 BR unlined black
2MT Ivatt BR unlined black
Class 27 D3579 BR Green
Class 27 014 BR Blue

So, what else did they make?

Dave

[oscar]

Full list and manuals here:-

http://www.vdweerdt.nl/minitrix.html

[poliss]

Updated version of the website here. http://www.nsesoftware.nl/mtdb/

[porkie]

I have the LNER green flying scotsman, railfreight grey 47 & a blue warship.
The 47 and warship, have a working head light. The runing gear and rods on the scotsman are overscale compaired to todays chassis. But its still a smooth runner for its age....

[OwL]

Bearing in mind most of this stuff came out in the 80's the detail was brilliant, back then you had a decent class 47 model with lighting. At the time it beat the pants off farish.
I am still proud owner of large logo blue 47 county of Norfolk and my first engine was apple green flying Scotsman. Still are part of my fleet, and I'm very happy with them both.

[Sprintex]

Not sure about their accuracy with wagons though?

I keep seeing these on eBay:-



. . . but have yet to find the prototype they are meant to be, and certainly can't find any history of Ford using them 

As far as I can tell they went straight from Pallet Vans to Cargowaggon VGAs - neither of which are bogie stock.


Paul

[poliss]

Probably from a German prototype sold as British because it had Ford on the side.

[BernardTPM]

Bearing in mind most of this stuff came out in the 80's the detail was brilliant, back then you had a decent class 47 model with lighting. At the time it beat the pants off farish.

The detail was good, the performance was good, but the overall shape was wrong, the roof being too shallow and the lower part of the front to upright, presumably to fit round the continental derived chassis. Incidentally, early Farish 47s also had diode controlled lights, but these were dropped quite early on.
Minitrix only produced a few 'true' British wagons: Steel and Wooden mineral, BR van and brake van, 12t tank wagon and a superb Merry-go-round (HAA); the rest were repaints of continental models. The BR brake van was a better proportioned model than the Peco (a bit low and stretched) but had a plasticky finish and missed the concrete weights on the platform. Suitably detailed it looked good, though.

[longbridge]

If Minitrix British outline models were still being made today I would still be modelling British but sadly they are not

[Adam1701D]

Towards the end of their interest in UK N Gauge, Minitrix started producing some very high-quality models. The Gresley coaches and HAA Hoppers were superb and commanded silly prices on eBay before other versions appeared.

Their locos were a mixed bunch - the A3, A4 and 47 were very good (though the 47 shape was a bit off) but some of the older locos were very liberally interpreted to fit the German chassis. At the time, most modellers were willing to overlook these shortcomings, as they were the Rolls Royce (or should that be Maybach) of quality. I have still got a first-generation Warship that runs superbly!

Just how many loco kits were around in the 70s and 80s that fitted a Minitrix Chassis? There were A3s, A4s, Rebuilt Merchant Navies and Class 03 shunters running on many layouts years before anything RTR appeared.

I'm sure a lot of older diesel modellers had a Class 27 or two, possibly doctored into a 33 by filing down the middle window on the end! 

[BernardTPM]

Until the new Dapol A3 comes out, the Minitrix version is still the best r-t-r version in N so far, way ahead of Farish's version. For an early model their Brit is pretty good too, though it was a shame they waited so long to replace the US style disc front wheels with spoked ones when they were already in production (on the German Pacific) when the model first came out. On the other hand, the 9F never looked right, basically because a 9F body in real life is quite a bit shorter than a Brit, hence the massive and odd-looking overhang at the front.
Their British coaches were better, particularly the Gresleys; not as many separate fittings as the Dapol version, but dead to scale and well-shaped. The Mk.1s were also excellent by 1968 standards. Had they revamped them with flush glazing they would have given the 1980s Farish versions a run for their money.
The chassis on the Warship and 27 were pretty much bomb proof, very well engineered, but the 27 was, visually, a dog!

[EtchedPixels]

Just how many loco kits were around in the 70s and 80s that fitted a Minitrix Chassis? There were A3s, A4s, Rebuilt Merchant Navies and Class 03 shunters running on many layouts years before anything RTR appeared.

Plus Coronations, Princess Coronations, Duchesses, and about half a dozen little tank engines ! Also the 04 shunter as well as the 03, and the 05.

[Jfheath]

Hi everyone,

Having recently discovered (and perhaps impulsively purchased) some "new" Hornby-Minitrix locos around, I'm curious as to what British outline models were actually produced back in the Hornby/Minitrix collaboration days. So far I've seen (well, own)...

A4 Sir Nigel Gresley LNER Garter Blue
A4 Mallard BR Green
A3 Flying Scotsman LNER Green
7P Brittania BR Green
7P Boadicea BR Green
9F Evening Star BR Green
9F 92018 BR unlined black
2MT Ivatt BR unlined black
Class 27 D3579 BR Green
Class 27 014 BR Blue

So, what else did they make?

Dave

I know I am about 4 years down the line, but I just came across this and the replies don't provide the answer to the original question.  I thought I'd fill in the missing details.

In addition to the above

A3 Flying Scotsman Apple Green 4472
7P Britannia using the same chassis as the Boadicea (and the A3s and A4s)

There are a total of 4 Ivatts
2MT 2-6-2 no tender, black
2MT 2-6-0 with tender, black
2MT 2-6-0 with tender, green
and an earlier (identical) version of the above green with a different number - much rarer.

2 Class 42 Warships (typically Hermes and Intrepid) but this has been around since the early days and a number of different named versions crop up, and it has a number of different mods to the design.

4 Class 47s.  Queen Mother, County of Norfolk, Railfreight Grey, and a Scotsrail Intercity.

0-6-0 Metal body Fowler DockTank

More details and pics on my website at http://www.minitrix.org.uk

[BramptonBranch]

I think the dock tank looks better weathered and the warships look better with a repaint, as long as not stabled next to a Farish one!
Cant decide what the 27 is  supposed to be but quite like the one with the strange blue and grey livery! cant ever remember seeing that!
Was there ever a maroon warship or are they all resprays?

[Jfheath]

If you are referring to the photo on the front page of minitrix.org.uk - the maroon and blue warships there are salvaged from non-running models with an extremely poor re-paint job.  I stripped them down to bare plastic with the original brown Dettol.  Turns out that the plastic is chocolate brown !  The blue one was a Halfords paint that was recommended somewhere on this site.  The maroon was some left over from a metallic paint I used on my motorcycle !  I don't care much about prototypical stuff - I just wanted them to look better, and these were the first models I had repainted.  They will end up as toy trains for my grandkids.

The class 42 warships are ugly looking brutes in my opinion, although many people like them.  Hornby Minitrix marketed two varieties, but the model was there in the Trix catalogues from around 1970/71.  The drawn catalogue pictures often bore no resemblance to the model finally produced and there are pretty convincing arguments that a there were some maroon models produced - pre Hornby.

The grey and blue class 27 ?  There isn't one on the photo.  The 4 models in front of the warship and green class 27 are all class 47s.  The blue / grey model is The Queen Mother, marketed by Hornby around 1983.