Golden Fleece 30

There was no supporting documentary evidence to acknowledge it as such though Ray. "A fool and his money" springs to mind. With it being so easy to do how can anyone tell what is genuine and what is not? Garry

I guess the white plastic would be a give away as I know the Trix versions were moulded in white (I did try to repaint one in the late 60's early 70's). The Dublo one I think was moulded in blue but these could have been done a different colour later. Garry

Are you sure it was a Trix body? Dapol did sell a lot of old Dublo E3002 shells off but I cannot remember if glazing was included, it may have been. A few of these have been built using the Dublo Bo-Bo chassis which used similar bogie side frames although the bogies themselves were completely different. The side frames differed with the Bo-Bo ones being metal and screwed like the initial Deltic ones but the E3002 had plastic clip on like the later Deltic and EMU. Garry

I would question the export comment. There is no mention or record of a production run in 3-rail for export. A few reliable experts and the Dublo book by Michael Foster have never said such a thing. It is not to say one or two of the factory specials were never sent abroad but that is all. These are very easy to convert anyway with 4 wheels and a pick-up which are easy to source. One person did purchase a few spare bodies in the 70's, maybe 80's and made up some replica 3-rail ones. From what I understand he possibly had connections with some old Mecanno staff but certainly had access to a lot of Dublo spares even making a few Black 5's in both 2 and 3-rail mostly from Dublo parts purchased. I don't know what loco body he used whether it was a Tri-ang plastic one or a modified Dublo 8F or possibly a new cast one. Garry

Don't forget the Dublo 08 shunter was also plastic as were the starter set locos before E3002 came out. I believe the number E3002 was used to denote a 2-rail model with E3003 proposed for a 3-rail one which never actually appeared. The factory are suppose to have converted a handful for certain people but supplied in a 2-rail box. My Trix model is the genuine twin motored version. At one time Trix provided small diecast BR emblems on the loco as in real life. Garry

Here is my second 2P chassis, this time fitted to a second hand loco from New Zealand a few months ago. The body and tender were stripped and as the parts had been glued I managed to clean them up then solder together. The tender at the moment is a 4F one. The new chassis went together just as nicely as the first one but this time I used the wheels that came with this loco body. This was because the wheels had been drilled half way between the centre and the standard position which I guess was due to the clearance on the footplate. I found out it ran well fitted to the body with no clearance issues GREAT. NOW A PROBLEM, the chassis jumped up and down each revolution as one of the wheels had a flat tyre which when ran was worse than I thought. How this happened I have no idea but on trying to turn it down in the lathe the square locating part wore down to round so the wheel slipped on the axle. Luckily I found two more wheels and hoped I could drill and tap in the same place without a means to measure. Thankfully it worked and the loco runs a treat on the test track so hopefully a video will appear tomorrow. Garry

It did John. Garry

Ray, it was the HD body (which was Plastic to start with not just Tri-ang's) but the switch part was modified. Dublo had a lot neater arrangement of a metal insulator looking pin that went into one of two holes depending on the pick-up source. Tri-ang modified it to the ungainly slot and switch. I think they modified the buffers too as Dublo used the last design of R1 buffers in red plastic. On my Dublo ones I replaced them with R1 nickel buffers. Tri-ang kept Dublo's pantographs but soon changed from 2 to 1 which happened in real life. They used their own chassis with knurled wheels but at least they did not have tyres on. Here is a Trix one with a Dublo version (minus the plug changeover switch) for comparison, and although to a smaller scale the Trix one looked right especially with the bogie wheel spacing being longer. The Trix version also had the neater looking plug change over method. Garry

Don't forget there was some "sharing" as such with Tri-ang using Wrenns (Dublo) 8F/City tender bases for their undersized streamlined Coronations and Wrenn using Tri-ang's A4 tender as they did not want to get involved with the tinplate side of Dublo. Garry

I never said it was the same as the Ringfield already in production but that Dublo was looking at a different version. Maybe they were looking at a copy of the Fleishmann one themselves and after the takeover Tri-ang decided to copy/modify it for theirs. I doubt we will never know for definate. Garry

If Hornby Dublo had never been taken over, the name Hornby would not be in use on the ex Tri-ang system so who knows what they would have been called now? As has been stated Tri-ang used the Dublo E3001 body but used their own chassis, what has not been mentioned is that Hornby Dublo were looking at a possible tender drive 9F so Tri-ang's may well have been developed from that too. We all have our own thoughts on what we class as the better system and it is not for us to say the other was no good, as we all know both systems worked well we just have preferences of our own. Here two Trix A3's (I preferred their bodies to the Tri-ang ones) on Dublo/Wrenn chassis, my Tri-ang Britannia on a Dublo chassis, a Tri-ang 2MT on a Dublo chassis and a Margate Black 5 on a Dublo chassis. So you see I do have a few Tri-ang items in use lol. Garry

No not really as I will say "Hornby which a long time ago changed its name from Tri-ang". I will say that at the moment I have been developing my TT railway and that is basically all Tri-ang as no other manufacturer made British outline stock. Three companies, GEM - BEC - K's, made some kits but not complete locos. I am really happy with it all and as with most Margate 00 stock does run well after all these years. In 00 I have nothing against Tri-ang locos as such,I just prefer Dublo. There is the issue with all Tri-ang's buffer heights though being a couple of mm too high which made them look odd, especially the wagons that looked top heavy. Garry

I did say I liked the XO4 motor and a few locos, but, Dublo in my opinion were better. The 3-rail Bo-Bo had no issues, the 2-rail got sorted late in life. I don't like tyres so a Deltic, EMU and Co-Bo have been fitted with homemade steel wheels and work fine as can be seen on my YouTube clips. If you put a whitemetal body on the Dublo chassis they work as good. One reason Tri-ang locos initially seemed better is because they had the sintered iron wheels as opposed to Dublo's 2-rail and later 3-rail locos nickel plated ones. When Tri-ang (as Hornby) changed to nickel their performance went down. Even Dublo's nickel wheeled locos do not pull as well as the original mazak ones. As soon as Tri-ang diesels got nickel plated wheels they used tyres. At least Dublo did not put tyres on a steam loco like the Jinty etc. I have a Britannia body fitted to a Dublo chassis which outperforms my standard Tri-ang one easily. Don't forget that Dublo's valve gear resembled a proper one from day one in 1938, it took Tri-ang (as Hornby) a long time and even then the Duchess and B17 etc was no where as neat although better than their 50's, 60's and 70's Princess, Hall, Britannia, 2-6-2 tank etc round slide bars and no expansion/union/droplinks used. At the end of the day it is each individuals choice but I do have the Tri-ang EMU, Blue Pullman, DMU all 3-railed. Garry

The name Hornby was synonymous with quality, mostly metal construction as opposed to the cheap end plastic. A Dublo loco felt right, a Tri-ang one was just as it is plastic and lightweight. Tri-ang survived due to being cheaper but no where as good. I like their XO4 motors and a few locos but only because they were different to Dublo's range. Carriages and wagons are not seen on my layout. Most coaches are actually Exley as they are even better than Dublo but wagons are Dublo or Bachmann/Mainline. Garry

I certainly do, that is what they started out as and to me Hornby relates to Dublo and always will. It is no good using a better competitors name to try to alter your image. After all these years it is still Hornby AND Tri-ang. If you look at some of my YouTube videos I still class it as Dublo 3-rail even though there is no Dublo track used and my Tri-ang locos are converted to 3-rail, mostly having the insulated wheels replaced with non insulated ones. Garry

Thats correct but to all intents and purposes the company is still Tri-ang to me. They bought the name from Hornby Dublo during the 1964 takeover to use the name so will always be Tri-ang to me. Garry

The origional turntable had two inlet/outlet tracks 180 degrees apart with no indexing. It was hit or miss taking your finger of the power button as to where it stopped. The second version had 3 outlets and one more at 180 degrees to the centre one. This had a slight delay in movement when the bridge aligned with another track. This was done by having some teeth half removed on the drive cog. I have no idea about the last one as it was a very poor model but had I think 7 outlets to it. Garry

The origional Tri-ang turntable was powered by the XO4. This turntable was the one for standard grey track. The base was a large metal disc, similar to Dublo, and a steel knurled pin driven from the motor was mounted nearly vertically rubbing against the discs edge. The second version, for super 4 track and TT ones, used the TT/4-2-2 XT60 motor through two worms and two cogs. This was Tri-ang's best looking of the 3 they made. The last version from Margate, for series 6 track, went back to the XO4. This was the worst looking one of all. The origional turntable was electric only, the second one was manual with your finger or electrical with a motorising kit available separately for manual ones and the last one was manual turned by turning a water crane mounted at the side. A motorising kit was available for this too. Garry

It's not the same motor Ray. The Tri-ang one does not have carbon brushes like the Zenith but does have a brass rear bearing plate instead of the diecast one and a larger magnet. Also there is a single screw through the rear as opposed to the two through the bearing plate on the Zenith. This could be why it is a different number and uses a 3 as it is a different style as it is not a copy of the XO3 as such.

Hi David, looking at it again I guess the worm had to be removed to get the front plate off to have access to the commutator. The magnet is only held in with it's magnetism and tape. It is a good job the XO4 was designed which in my opinion was the best motor ever made for reliability, strength, ease of use, ease of repair and lastly cost. It could not be beaten taking all those into account. Garry

Hi David, This Zenith motor came into my possession a couple of weeks ago in the TT collection I bought. Rovex/Tri-ang must have added the 0 to the numbers as this is just X3. The note states that brushes should only be changed by sending it back to GEM. Would this entail removing the wheels as taking off and putting back on is not going to keep them tight on the axle. The rear bearing seems to be a Zinc alloy type with nothing else in the center. Note two brass screws used to keep it together. The early 00 2-6-2 tanks had the TT style keeper plate holding the wheels in place and as far as I know this was the only loco so equipped, or, I have not come across the others as yet. Garry

Hi David, Apart from different chassis designs and valve gear etc the big two variations I know off are the plunger pick-ups as the loco had plastic driving wheels and before that a horizontal roller. I have known about the plungers since the 60's but I only found out about the roller about a year ago when someone posted a photo on a different site. Here is the TT 0-6-0 (now an 0-4-4) and you can see the screws holding the side plates on although the rear one has been moved, and the bearing slots. # Garry

Hi David, basically then this is like the TT 0-6-0 and Castle chassis where the motor bearing plates are trapped in the side frame slots? Garry

I never knew that, you learn something everyday (well some days lol). Garry

Having dug out a BEC 2P I bought a while ago I noticed that whoever had it before had drilled the Romford wheels mid way between the centre and the boss which will have been to alleviate the crankpin/footplate issue. These were only very small so I have drilled and tapped them for the Romford crankpins, made up another chassis and will see how this works. The wheels did look the "Tar Brush" chap had been at them so I have cleaned the treads and face slightly in the lathe for now. This loco came un-motorised and looked like it had the tender drive fitted at one time but now it will get a motor like the earlier chassis made. Garry