Triang & Others

This section includes Triang, Airfix, Mainline and Hornby engines all produced in 2 rail but converted to run on my 3 rail layout. The majority are tank or small tender engines to fill the gap left by HD in their meagre tank engine line up. There might just be an Express passenger engine or two but they are always interesting and liable to be added to the layout.

Before we start with my locos lets get the history of Triang out of the way.

In other words they were the total enemy of HD – no HD collector would consider Triang (cheap plastic trains) and vice versa (expensive old fashioned 3 rail). But time has passed, the rivalry has cooled and Triang had some interesting engines plus EMUs and DMUs so it was always worth exploring possibilities of 3 rail versions of their engines.

If we go back to the prototype railways of the 50′s and 60′s we find that BR tried very hard to keep branchlines viable and therefore open to traffic by substituting steam with diesel rail cars. The chronology of events in BR provides a very useful and brief overview of the many things that happened during the BR reign. Thus a Triang DMU fits well into the time period in which Dublo exists. Also the Southern Region of BR had a vast network of 750V three rail electric lines with large numbers of EMUs both on commuter services to London and long distance services to Southampton and Bournemouth. Later the Hastings line was dieselised freeing up steam engines like the Schools class and replacing them with DMUs. The Triang EMU I have is a two car version but Triang did make a centre car allowing it to be a 3 car or even a 4 car unit. Hornby Dublo also had an EMU which was introduced very nearly at the end of HD and is thus very rare and therefore very expensive. I make do with the Triang version. Both of these conversions seem to be a bit tricky and I have to admit neither of  these models run very well.

Work in Progress – watch this space