TGV intermediate coaches

[hellotojasonisaacs]

Hello again

 

A number of years ago I was given a Mehano Thalys set. Since then I have been searching on and off for intermediate coaches. Firstly, dies anyone know where such coaches can be found? Secondly (more generally) are the couplings between cars interchangable- for example would a Jouef TGV carriage work with a Mehano one?

 

Many thanks

 

M

[Andy Hayter]

Mehano is not out of business but you would be forgiven for thinking so.

 

They were at Nuernberg this year but I have no idea of anywhere you could actually buy their products.

 

best bet for the OP is ebay.fr

 

http://www.ebay.fr/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR3.TRC0.A0.H0.XMehano+TGV.TRS0&_nkw=Mehano+TGV&_sacat=0

[Andy Hayter]

It is all very confusing.  They filed for bankruptcy in 2008.  With no information about anyone buying them out, they turn up at the toy fair in 2015.  The web site is clearly live, but the catalogue .pdf file was created in 2010.

 

Go figure.

 

As I said, you would be forgiven for believing they are no longer there.

[jivebunny]

The trailer packs for the Thalys set pop up on eBay often enough. There's a seller in Germany selling four trailers for under £70 including P&P, or if your budget allows it then our old friend Mr Antiquetoys is selling a complete set for £295 inc. P&P - that's actually a reasonable price considering it's the high-spec three-rail version. The three-rail and two-rail trailers are identical (they're listed separately in the catalogues but are actually the same reference) so you could just complete your set with the two trailer packs and stick the base set back on eBay. Despite all the criticism he receives for some of his ludicrous pricing he's actually a good seller. I bought a rare item from him a while back (it actually was rare - CJM Eurotunnel stock) and the service was quick and professional.
 

Only the older Jouef trailers are compatible with Mehano TGVs, and even with those it's not a straightforward swap and presents a couple of (not insurmountable) problems:

 

- Jouef didn't do a Thalys at the time, so to complete your rake you'd need to buy and repaint six TGV Atlantique or AVE trailers. These tend to sell for around £30-£40 a pop. The more common / cheaper TGV Sud Est trailers are the wrong shape and setup.

- The ride height is different so you'd need to take the trailer apart, pop the couplings out and "hack and pack" the locating holes to shift the couplings "arms" up/down to make the trailers ride higher/lower to match the Mehano ones.

- The bogies are very obviously different. You'd need to either find six spare Mehano shared bogies, or replace the one bogie you already have with a Jouef one. The independant bogies on the end trailers then may need adapting to the right height.

That said, I've been in the opposite situation to you and have successfully adapted a Mehano trailer to fit a Jouef rake. Jouef never produced a bar car for the AVE they released in the mid-90s, so last year I bought the Mehano AVE trailer pack with the bar car in it to see what could be done with it. I'll post a photo this evening, but I now have a complete Jouef AVE rake with a Mehano bar car that works fine with its neighbours and sits at the right height. I didn't even have to repaint it since it was a perfect match for the Jouef ones, which is more than can be said for the Mehano TGV Atlantique... I'll post a photo this evening when I get home and will have a look at whether the Mehano ones originally sit higher or lower that the Jouef ones.

 

I would forget the idea of extending your Mehano set using trailers from the Lima / Jouef / Hornby-Jouef Thalys sets, which are all exactly the same sets produced using the (very good) late 90s Lima tooling. The trailers use Lima's TGV close-coupling system (also very good) so they're completely incompatible with Mehano and older Lima and Jouef models. They're also incredibly rare and a complete set, whether you buy it in one go or in stages, will cost you around £400 - that's assuming you actually win the auctions! If you did do this I'm not sure how easily you could replace the Lima couplings with Mehano / Jouef couplings and get the trailers to work well together, especially as the Lima bogies actually support the trailers from underneath rather than just by the couplings. You could find yourself with a set of modified traiers that are no use to anyone and that you would then have to bin, or sell for spares / repairs. In the below photo, the peg at the end of the bogie fits into a V-shaped slot underneath the following trailer. The bogie is symmetrical and the hidden end of it also has a peg that sits in a V-shaped slot under its "parent" trailer, but this one has a plug fitted to it to stop it dropping out, and the bogie is also attached to the trailer using a tiny spring. On a curve, the pegs move through the V-shaped slots on each trailer and cause the distance between the trailers to increase, bringing them together again on the straight. I think trying to adapt such a refined system to work with the bog-standard 1980s system that Mehano and older Jouef and Lima models use would be risky business, and a lot of work (potentially for nothing if you don't manage!).

JB

[jivebunny]

Further to my last post, I can confirm the Mehano trailers have a lower ride height than the Jouef ones, so to make a Mehano trailer fit a Jouef rake you would lower the coupler height on the Mehano trailer, whereas to make a Jouef trailer (or six) match the ride height of a Mehano rake you would have to raise the coupler height on the Jouef trailers.

 

In my photo below you can see where I've removed the coupler from the Mehano trailer on the left and extended the locating hole downwards using a small file, so that the bottom edge of the hole is roughly at the same height as that on the Jouef trailer on the right. Once that's done it's simply a matter of popping the coupler arm back in and packing the space above it with small bits of thin card to keep it in place. Each trailer has one coupler facing upwards and the other facing downwards, make sure you put each one back in the right way or you'll find yourself unable to assemble your rake with the trailers the right way around! In your case, to modify a Jouef trailer to match your Mehano rake you would do the opposite, i.e. raise the coupler height by extending the hole upwards on the Jouef trailer and packing card under the coupler to lower the ride height.

 

If you go ahead with this method let me know if you have any questions (although considering the trailers are on eBay, I don't see why you would do that unless you wanted to punish yourself!)

 

JB

 

Apologies for grainy iPhone pictures taken in poor light.

 

 

 

Left - Mehano trailer modified to match ride height of Jouef trailers.

Right - Unmodified Jouef trailer.

Bottom - Coupler, with the inner prongs visible to the right.

 

 

Mehano bar trailer sitting between Jouef 1st and 2nd class trailers.

Minor height adjustment needed on the left-hand side of the Mehano trailer as it's now too high.

I may repaint the blue band at the bottom as it's too light compared to the Jouef trailers, but barely noticeable to the eye.

 

 

 

Complete RENFE AVE S-100 rake, stored in flimsy 90s Jouef boxes (including a spare I acquired for the bar trailer!)

 

 

[Memphis32]

Just found this thread, and spotted a mention of the value of TGV sets. I don't suppose the mid- to late- '80s sets are worth anything? I have both the standard and the atlantique sets that I don't see myself using!

[Memphis32]

They're the standard starter sets - powered loco, dummy loco and two coaches, sharing a bogie.

 

The orange/grey set has standard continental couplers between coaches and locos and is branded "Jouef by Fobbi", the Atlantique has a crude close-coupling system.

[Andy Hayter]

Sounds like the bottom of the range sets.  Equivalent to todays Railroad range, but sadly well below that level of detail.

 

Without additional intermediate cars I think the value will be limited.

[jivebunny]

For one of the 1980s Jouef or Lima core 4-piece sets in good condition you'll be looking at £20 tops I'm afraid. Maybe £40-50 if you have a full 2+8 rake. They've been superceded twice and were of the build quality you'd expect for that period - i.e. toys by today's standards.

 

The valuable ones are the 1990s "Lima Collection" train packs and the Jouef "Modéliste" range (very heavy power cars, metal pantographs etc). Those in liveries that haven't been re-released more recently by Hornby Jouef fetch particularly high prices. From the Jouef range that would be the TGV Atlantique and Renfe AVE, and for Lima that's the Thalys PBA and PBKA, 1980s La Poste livery and of course the prototype Pendular TGV01, the last of which is very unlikely indeed to ever get a re-release since the prototype was short-lived and is all but forgotten about. A complete Jouef Modéliste rake will fetch you between £400-£500, and a Lima one closer to £700.

 

The exception is the Jouef TGV Sud-Est from their "modéliste", range. It's fairly worthless today as not only was it a bit of a poor effort at the time (orange gangway seals anyone?), but the 1997 Lima Collection version was far superior and has also been re-released by HJ in the past few years, pushing the value down even further.

 

JB

 

As you can see, the Lima Collection models are a little more refined than the Jouef train set ones.