Golden Fleece 30

My mistake the 2P was BEC (ESANEL), I still had the 14xx in my mind lol. As far as I know there was the only BEC one available. It is a Mashima motor but no knowledge of its number just one I obtained second hand. Garry

They don't Ray, as far as I know all the 00 Kitmaster coach kits and the TT3 loco and coaches were damaged/thrown away. I too have an unmade Scot ready to assemble and motorise. Garry

Not all were for Tri-ang or Gem chassis's. The GEM 2P and LNWR 4-4-0 with possibly the LNWR 4-6-0 were designed for a K's TT tender drive which I have never seen personally but lost out on two on Ebay a couple of months ago. The 2P later had a whitemetal chassis introduced to accept a Terrier motor but this was poor so a month ago I had nickel ones etched to fit. Here are two. The one without a body uses Romford wheels which have too great a crank throw which catches the footplate so the one fitted under the body has holes drilled mid way between the axle and original location. Here is mine running on TT track. Garry

Here are a few I have recently, last 3 months, bought and made up and painted. I managed about 24 unmade kits but only a handful are painted as painting the window bars is a pain in the rear. The roofs are all screwed down now so not bowed as in the photos. Garry

The 14 xx was a GEM kit for which I have just had some etched chassis's made to replace the useless brass and cast whitemetal ones. Gem also did a Royal Scot (unrebuilt), A4, 57xx LNWR 4-4-0 and 4-6-0, 22xx, 43xx K's did the large 2-6-2 and a 97xx, these were the poorest of the lot, especially the 61xx. BEC were by far the best with Standard 5, Standard 4 tank (although a little short for the rear bogie), 2P, 94xx, Q1, J11, G6, E2, J50, Brush type 4, 4F There may be others I have forgotten about lol Some of these I still have to make up others are here although I never made the 61xx, G6, 14xx body these are as bought and awaiting repaints. I don't have a Royal Scot though, any one got one to sell? The black standard 5 is as bought and now in primer for me to repaint and line in black, a third one awaits assembly. Garry

I knew of them Ray but too young to try, my father may have done but if he did it did not work. Unfortunately he was not skilled in practical work. He "built" a TT Wrenn layout for me which never worked, and, it was all on a hardboard base which warped. Garry

Here is a video of my modified Peco points and standard Tri-ang loco wheels running on test. I like the point Rod, very nice, and a long time ago I used to make some but these days it is not for me unless I need something I cannot work around with off the shelf items. Garry

I don't remember the GEM track sold in 18" lengths as advertised, as far as I cam remember in our shops it was always 3'. I am with you on Welkut, heard of it many times in the day but do not remember seeing any. The BEC (ESANEL) 2P is interesting that the were making a semi scale one for tighter radius curves. I think there was an Auto Coach sometime to go with the 14xx but not 100% certain. There is a coach hear albeit a parcels one (I have completed one) and they also did a very nice LNER parcels coach. BEC kits were the best of the lot, nice detail and very little flash. Garry

Now that surprised me that the 97xx came out so early in the TT stages. It was only one year old in 58. Garry

If they run Ray I would not bother buying any, makes it more your loco anyway. Garry

Hi Rod, I had read your post a while ago (month or so) about this somewhere so was interested in seeing what happened. Before I knew of ANY issues I had bought a double slip which is then when I realised the tolerances are for "modern" standards and not Tri-ang's. Due to the complexity of the double slip I bought a diamond crossing a couple of weeks ago to mess with thinking if nothing works it is not an expensive waste. As this worked fine I then bought a couple of points which were very easy to do, remove the check rail and make another. Yesterday I tried the locos out electrically on the point and crossing which was excellent. Remembering your post about the flanges I got out about 10 Jinty chassis's, a Britannia, Castle, DMU and A1A all of which were fine chair wise. So, hand on heart I went to attack the double slip which was not easy due to the closeness of the rails but again all locos apart from the plastic wheeled bogie have gone through with out issues. I have pushed and pulled a coach or wagons through without issue. I only have 4 x 18" homemade lengths or rail at the moment as I don't have any standard Peco track. I had also noticed yours (or someones) post about the curved points and yesterday managed to win a couple on make an offer which got me them at half price (still new and packaged) so again not to expensive if a mistake is made as I will attack one to see what happens. Thankfully I have not come across a loco with the deeper flanges but if necessary thought about making a bush to hold them in a lathe to turn them down slightly. Garry

How about these David? The bottom one is a GW one but no explanation of the others. Garry

I am looking at possibly using Peco track for my layout without modifying Tri-ang loco wheels and found it easy to modify a plain point and may get checkrails etched if I decide to use them. What was a little harder was a diamond crossing and a touch harder still the double slip. I think I have succeeded and will try to set up a proper test section later. Last night it was holding wires here, there and everywhere but had all variations run through each direction of the slip. The only issue was the DMU front bogie with plastic wheels, The ones with metal wheels I converted were fine. The locos and metal wheeled stock really run nice through them. Garry

These are not what I was thinking of Ray. The ones I meant were the older split two wheels on one axle. Garry

Ray, you could try the Wrenn or Tri-ang (Hornby) A4 tender ones. I don't know their size but were quite large and later ones had metal tyres. They may have been 14 but I could not say. Garry

A few photos of the 14xx. The chassis is now finished but awaiting a motor, I need to find a set of gears to suit what I have built it around. The chassis goes nicely around Tri-ang track without the body and hopefully will do so with the body attached without shorting out. The loco body was "roughly" painted when I bought it and I did not want to strip this as the glueing looked reasonable. When it is finished I will strip it if I do not like it. Garry

I have issues with mine springing up too Ray and for test I just used sellotape to prevent them hitting bridges. They are not as good as the Tri-ang style scissor ones in that respect. I don't know if others just removed the springs as very few actually run them under the wires. Garry

Tri-ang's TT did not really last a full 10 years as after about 8 they stopped manufacturing and the following couple of years the price lists would start to say "Not available". The last price list was considerably reduced if I remember correctly. Regarding the Wrenn/Lima tank, that was a joke, even children knew it was nothing like lol. Garry

In Tri-ang's day, TT wise, there was BEC (ESANEL) which were very good castings and models, Gem were not bad, K's were not very good. Those were the 3 main kit suppliers of the time for TT. Most bodies fitted onto a Tri-ang Jinty or Britannia chassis, some like the Gem 14xx had it's own chassis. The BEC 2P (as here) were to use a K's TT tender drive, mine here is on a chassis I have just had etched and built. There were far more kits of different locos kit wise than Tri-ang made which was 8 BR and 2 French locos. Garry

I only used the hand throttles if racing, usually when along side the railway I used a spare controller to let them run continuously. Plus, the hand throttles I think only went forwards (as races do) but all Minic vehicles could go backwards into garages etc or off the car transporter. A small nylon peg fitted in the rear to guide it. Wrenn also had a slot car system which I think was an AC version Formula 152. Garry

Hi Robert, it does go slowly just as well although I did not think this was that fast. Hopefully it will be in lined black one day. I assume you mean gears that have split on their axle so no drive? That is not too good hope you can repair them if that is the case. When you mention roof joints does that mean the roof is not one piece? If so that seems strange for a small model. Garry

A few originals rust, some quite badly. Wrenn used nickel silver which obviously doesn't. On my repaints I always replace with Stainless Steel wire. The split pins were at times brass that had been nickel plated, sometimes plain Nickel so there can be differences. Regarding Export models this is a difficult one as usually the phrase is "screwed coupling = Export", unfortunately that is not the case with diesels like the Deltic, Co-Co, Co-Bo, EMU, E3001, 08 shunter as all these had screwed coupling whether Export or not. If boxed then it should have been plain red with a sticker on. The A4 was never made as an Export model due to its tender coupling but all others most likely were, but, it is very easy to fake these and a few have been on Ebay. It is easy to remove the rivet, tap the hole and buy a replica screw. When you were looking I doubt anyone would have dreamt of faking them. One uncommon item is that the very early Liverpools were actually supplied with old Duchess 3-rail bogies as opposed to the standard plastic 2-rail ones. Garry

I don't have this issue with Kadees. Which signal as I always though the Tri-ang one was large and over scale? The Dublo one was small and neat in contrast. Garry

Due to the clearance issues with the first chassis I made and the footplate curves I made a second one using wheels that were drilled and tapped mid way between the axle centre and the Romford locating pip. As can be seen here it works well and pulls 3 Tri-ang coaches fitted with metal wheels (not pin point though) comfortably. Two Tri-ang coaches with plastic wheels and not too free running were all it could manage as original style coaches. For some reason a couple of bogie wheels would derail on the points and reverse curves so I swapped them over from the first chassis (wheels only not bogie as well). No idea why as they are the same. I will say that the Romford wheels are not always keen on the Tri-ang track but can work. One day I may get to turn them down a little. No doubt if I ever got chance to weight the chassis with lead it would also help. At least if it runs on Tri-ang track it should work fine on larger radius points etc. Garry

The original open bar with "harpoon" hook was always uncoupling on my layout, even now the modern ones are worse still and to me the worst design of coupling going for uncoupling on its own, I use Bachmaan modern bogies under my Exley coaches and they for ever give issues. These newer ones were based around the Airfix versions. The old Tri-ang TT with the same version in 00 was the most superior but I prefer fitting Kadee's to my stock but pricey if doing each end of every vehicle. Garry