Much of the Lone Star OOO scale train range were almost direct copies of the Triang range, including the couplers. These trains, Treble-O-Lectric can be seen and discussed on my site, linked below. Scroll down to "Treble-O-Lectric Railways". They were originally manufactured in London (Palmers Green) and later in Hatfield, Hertsfordshire. Doug
early on in this thread I showed some of my early attempts with White Metal kits. Looking through the l;oft the other night I found a small folder full of catalogues A Hamblings booklet from 1960 a typical loco of the period found inside You have seen a couple of completed Gem Kits this was the sort of sales brochure that got me interested The Caley Cardean in the brochure The prices are classic, British pre-decimal money with the purchase tax listed seperately. Wish I could pick one up for £5 now! A brand I did not buy many of was K's kits although I did once have a fight with their double framed Midland 0-6-0 Always meant to get the GCR 2-8-0 but never got around to it And finally. You remember the Schools class 4-4-0 above? And the Southern Bulleid 4-6-2? Originally they came out in the Kitmaster range along with a whole heap of other Plastic, static loco kits and I found an original leaflet from 1962 just before Airfix took them over An interesting selection, Never got the NYC 4-6-4 or the CNR 4-8-4 sadly More soon
Airfix had all sorts of great stuff. Friends and I used to buy their boxes of soldiers and I know I've built some of their kits when I was young. I picked up this catalog in a Montreal department store while on a family vacation in the early 1970s and I've had it ever since. I didn't realize until we returned home that it's written entirely in French!
Long ago I was really into the Airfix OO scale WWII armor. Built quite a few of those kits. Had some good fun!
Something has been bugging me. I knew somewhere I had a negative of a photo taken by my dad of my first 00 layout. Now, every image is catalogued from Dad's earliest photos of British railways right up to my latest shots (tonight it was two class 47s on the Three peaks charter) on a massive Excel set of spreadsheets. But the obvious search enquiry 'CTR-F' using 00 as a target found every egine number with 00 in it! So it was a long winded process but , Hey!, found it Triang Princess class 4-6-2 'Princess Elizabeth' passes under an Airfix Footbridge. Long before what I understood what ballast was. I think we still lived at Tylney Road then so I would have been about eight, I guess. Circa 1963 Kev
Contrast Old RTR Hornby Class 142 straight out of the box in the old Regional Railway color scheme This is a pig of a livery to do!. The railtec decals are very good but very, very fragile Mine and the one I painted for Martin. Mine will be lightly weathered at some stage and have DCC sound fitted Going to make some real 'old school' gangway connections to go between the units. The old fashioned concertina type made from folded black card. Retro! Anyway. We took the "Republic Steel" Z gauge layout to Kirkby Stephen East model show at the weekend to help out the preservation society based there. Brooklyn helped run the layout but was also appointed to supervise 'Barras' the station cat and found himself operating some of the other layouts A classic Hornby Dublo 3 rail layout And this. Now he isn't very tall but he took this picture of a 00 layout that was being raffled off We didn't win but seeing him operate it made me realise that a simple small layout with plenty of operating interest and hidden sidngs would please him better than a continous loop, round and round affair So Ill get the drawing board out and have a think More soon Kev
So I picked up a Lima Class 87 in 00 similar to this one for not much money Very much a model typical of its time but the basics are there. My example had been varnished with something weird that was flaking in parts and tough as old boot in other areas It sat in the brake fluid for days and days For some reason it had two different cab interiors fitted, The typical Lima pancake motor bogie can be seen The plan was to do it as one of the four Clss 87s we had for a short period circa 2004-5 to work Anglo Scottish intermodal services. I never, ever, saw one working! The marker lights were modified, The fire extinguisher bottles were added to the roof and the air hoses and coupler hooks added to the buffer beams. The decals were Railtec class 37 ones modified Still odd bits to do but getting there Wish i'd levelled the pan head before I took the photograph Kev
Martin came to pick up his 142 the other night and once his jaw had stopped dropping when he saw the class 82 (think he might one of them too) he said "How much do I owe you?" 'Nothing' I 'said you can owe me a favour' "So what is Brooklyn modelling in 00" "I've got some stuff he can have" Following day The more I looked into it there was all sorts of historical stuff. more soon However...Our Chelsea, Brooklyn and Savannah have all tested positive for Covid (It hasn't gone away, folks) So he won't be at this lot for a few days He is not happy!! Kev
So Brooklyn got into his box of goodies on Saturday and was delighted. All sorts of stuff including Lima, Hornby, Triang, Hornby Dublo and a manufacturer I had completely forgotten about. Playcraft were a company who aimed at the lower end of the market and sold sets through outlets like Woolworths rather than model shops. They did somne British stuff but as the models were supplied by Jouef of France they were actually HO! They did a Class 28 Bo-Bo diesel as well and to be honest I have never, ever, seen one Kev
Brooklyn and I sorted through the big box of 00 rolling stock that Martin gave him and found all sorts of cool stuff. After I took him back to his Moms I set about putting them all through the Ultrasonic cleaning bath as most of them were filthy Couple of days leter he was playing with some of them on the photo board and I asked him if he wanted to learn how to do proper model photos His Canon EOS 450D, on a tripod with the EF 18-55mm lens. AF priority. ten second timer, F20 giving an exposure time of about 1 second.AND STAND VERY STILL! it is picking up the available light through the workshop window with some fill in flash Meanwhile the bargain Hornby Class 90 arrived from an Ebay vendor Broken pantograph which I knew abou,t but a decent enough runner Stripped down to its components parts before the body goes in the brake fluid This is what it is going to finish up as, hopefully another one of our experiments with heritage AC Traction that did not last long. I never saw it run on the mainline but it passed me the other day on a Freightliner Intermodal (Genesee & Wyoming) Mossend to Daventry container train. FLIM always run these double headed which is very wise in my opinion as they stand a better chance of getting there! More soon
After a week in Brake fluid Primed to look for any flaws that need rectifying If you have the Yellow paint aerosol out you might as well do a few locos at the same time The 00 class 90, another two Class 37s and an 87 in Z Now for some strange reason I only took on picture of the 90 at the 2014 open day but looking through the VT files I realised I filmed it being prepped for the show. A couple of video stills later Steve Finn cleans the buffer faces before painting them silver More buffer painting with Steve and Ian Redmond More soon Kev
Are the buffers new? Just thinking that as soon as these are used, won't the paint be worn away quickly?
Just done for show. Don't last two minutes in service! If you ever see a picture of the Royal train the lead buffers are always imacculate. They go out of their way to make sure nothing buffers up to them Look out for my next North west rail video where I get the Royal train going through Lancaster Kev
Done a lot of trials with 'Rattle can' paints to get the best match and came up with Ford Midnight Blue in the Hycote range The mailman delivered some more of Railtec's superb decals for the 90 and the Mk II Escort coaches "Wait a minute" I hear you say " there isn't a pair of each for the 90" The full size Vynil wraps were assymetrical due to the differend between the plain side of the car body and the side with all the grills So the other day I bought a new Pasta storage jar. " whats that for?" said the wife "we have already got one" The mad scientist experiment 1.5 litres of Brake fluid stripping the bodyshell fo the Hornby Mk II BSO prior to conversion to one of the Escort coaches we use on, er, special moves Going to go from this to this on board diesel generator, gangway connections replaced with armoured observation windows, One way mirror glass in the passenger compartment windows and gun racks One mean Mother! I've spent quite a bit of time riding this so really ought to make a decent conversion of a pair of them
