Trix Twin Railway.

[Mountain]

I thought I would start a thread about TTR, for TTR enthusiasts. All I have are a few wagons which I have just taken out from being stored away as someone maybe wanting them for their collection, but no doubt you lot have more in your collections you can share photos of.
I have often seen TTR at swapmeets etc. They look well made and sturdy things, and the locos are oretty sturdy things.

[Mountain]

Some more photos. It is interesting that TTR wagons often come complete with almost prototypical representations of loads.

[End2end]

Your right there Mountain. I see lots of these at train fairs. Funny though. I don't ever remember seeing them on a layout at any exhibitions.
I must say though they do look a lot sturdier than some of their modern day plastic counterparts although fine detail is at a minimum.
Thanks
End2end

[Bufferstop]

Until they started releasing two rail DC models in the sixties they may have been sturdy but their wheel standards rule them out for any modern track.

[Lysander]

I had Trix Twin as a child: unfortunately my father acquired a mix of AC and DC locos however and it didn’t all go well!

Trix had an interesting history though: then German-owned, it produced beautiful pre-War boxed sets (including a fabulous Coronation) but after the War some pretty non-descript tanks, American locos and shorty coaches followed (although the Scotsman and Pytchley locos continued, followed later by an EM1) until they upped their game considerably with their Trans-Pennine DMU, A4, A2 and standard class 4-6-0 locos. The early 60s saw a move to two-rail also.

There were other good models in the range but the use of an odd scale (3.8mm approx) and their comparative expense when compared to the precocious newcomer, Triang, pretty much saw the death-knell.

I still have my early 50s locos: their Mazac wheels have long since turned to dust though.

Tony

[Ex-Pat]

In the 1950's my first train set was a second-hand Trix Twin Midland Railway compound complete with that ugly high bakelite track.

The loco was extremely heavy, and interfered with the TV reception to such an extent that a suppressor was required. The set grew to include my pride and joy - 70000 Britannia. I also remember saving up to buy a 56xx tank at the princely sum of 67/9d (£3.39).

99.9% of it was disposed of to St. Christopher's Railway Orphanage in Derby in the 1960's. I have however for some reason still retained a couple of items and which today have come out of their boxes for the first time in over 50 years.

Here is the genuine TT suppressor:

Complete with box

Next is a yard lamp costing 6/6d (33p):

The bulb is missing.

The TT system involved rather heavy-duty plugs as can be seen from the plugholes in the base of the lamp:

The only other item I have is a much more modern affair - a cardboard coach kit that I have only opened but never contemplated building:

The plastic envelope

The contents

[Lysander]

I've seen those card kits but never seen one built. Trix produced some very nice LNER Teaks in tinplate before the War, as well as some quite good Pullman coaches.

Tony

[Bigmet]

I've seen those card kits but never seen one built...

They were very good kits, and better yet cheap and in my teens I practically had a production line running. (My eyesight wouldn't be up to cutting out all those window openings now!) I sold every single one I constructed, so that in my mid-teens railway modelling became self funding!
Those 'Hints and Tips' that come to mind:
Cut out the corridor windows completely. A brass hand rail made from brass wire inside the window looks so much better.
Paint the card edges in every cut-out a mid brown.
You can rule behind the beading with a blunt scriber if wished (Biggest difference on the ends.).
Don't try to build the trusses in the kit, DIY from plasticard, or better yet metal.
The roof shape at the ends was difficult, but a good filler and sanding down was the way forward. (Back then it was 'Isopon'.)
Find and fit your own ventilators.

Made better looking 'teak' than the PC kits with their plastic printed sides. (Prototype Models made some 51' non corridor Gresley stock in the same style, which were good too.)

My BIG mistake. Trix had a 3.8mm/ft Commonwealth coach bogie which was also dirt cheap, and these were what I used to make them work, unless people were prepared to fork out for whitemetal kit bogies (latterly the ABS Gresley bogie, superb product from the late Adrian Swain). The Trix bogies were the most frictionless vehicles ever available, moulded in a slippery polymer in a track dirt brown colour. Like a nitwit I sold the lot about 45 years ago, except for one pair I accidentally overlooked.

OK, they are a scale 3" short, but they will take a pinpoint axle 14mm wheel, and look fine. And how they roll. Had I realised that modelling late BR steam lay in my future, I would never have let them go...

[Lysander]

An interesting read Bigmet. And I've heard others comment on the free-running quality of those bogies, particulalrly under Trix's later scale-length [but still 3.8mm] Mark One coaches.

This is a nice early Trix example, a just-post-War Pullman. It has interior lighting [like their American Pullmans] and considering the time that it spent in an attic, unprotected, is in really good condition. It lives now in the club's show case, along with a lot of other vintage rolling stock.



Tony

[Bufferstop]

The 3.8mm scale is fairly easy to understand. This was a German company with an H0 range, making UK models which they wanted to be compatible with both their H0 and the UKs 00 ranges. Given the UKs slightly smaller loading gauge 3.8mm/ft gave a similar sized model to their H0 products, and one that was probably as close to 4mm scale as many UK products were, certainly lengthways. At the time both Hornby Dublo and Triang produced much shortened coaches, Triang by missing out one window each side and HD by slimming the windows a little and the bits in-between a lot.

[Alexander Court]

That pullman looks rather lovely. I used two have two lner prewar (I think) coache s that were TTR that had weird couplings on them that had wheels that disintegrated and have been relocated to someone elses collection. I had a red TTR suburban sirt of coach once too I think that was given replacement bogies off of a Lima/Hornby ews hopper or something (I only had the bogies so guessing at the wagon type) but that has since been sold. I do have one TTR item left which came to me as just a coach body which I have fixed to a triang chassis with added footboards robbed from another Triang brakevan (I think) and this forms part of my brewery's private train. I'll get some photos to upload (hopefully I can post them later). Wouldn't mind another or a matching brake coach (unlikely for its size).

Alex

[Alexander Court]

Managed to get some pics of the TTR Coach I have, it's perfect for the brewery train as it's nice and short and fits in the sidings which are also fairly short and the coach length matches up quite well with my army Ruston. It also turns out that the Ruston works over all of the trackwork on the layout without the flat truck, which makes operation easier.

TTR3.jpg (69.41 KiB) Viewed 466 times

I was googling and decided I would really like to do the same conversion with a full brake 4 wheel coach that would go with this one.

Thanks,
Alex

[Bufferstop]

Trix couplings were a minor minefield due to a failed attempt to avoid the patent held by Peco and Meccano(Hornby Dublo). Trix thought they could get around the patent by producing a mirror image version, Meccano and Peco took a different view, and in the end so did the courts. Trix were forced to apply to Peco for a license to use the design, at which point they started fitting compatible ones. Meanwhile Triang(Rovex) were developing a coupling based on the LANAL design, which was better at coupling but a pig to allow a vehicle to be removed from a train. But once they developed the TensionLock design, and merged with Hornby (bought out would be more accurate) that was the universal design in the UK. They never patented it, probably they though having cornered the market they didn't need to.

[Lysander]

Alexander - you may be interested to know that your Trix four-wheeler body was only made between 1936 and 1939. Trix made a four-wheel Full Brake to accompany it and both can be found in LNER livery, also. A bit of history you have there.

Tony

[Mountain]

That is one interesting little coach! It almost looks like a Hornby 4 wheel coach!