Dublo In The Attic. (Planning).

[Mountain]

I do not know what will come of this as yet, but we have an attic... (And I have Hornby Dublo)... And having both means I can plan and make a model railway!

Now the attic consists of two rooms, the smaller entrance room is 6ft x 7ft, and it opens into a larger full height room of 13 1/2ft x 12ft which has a large window which would need me to stand on a chair if I wanted to open it, and it has electric lighting along with three double mains power sockets, so it has potential. It is fully boarded out and carpeted leaving a nice usable room for a railway.

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[Dad-1]

I've just had a message from a guy who has loads of Dublo to dispose of.
Who buys secondhand Dublo ?

Geoff T.

[RFS]

I've just had a message from a guy who has loads of Dublo to dispose of.
Who buys secondhand Dublo ?

Geoff T.

Look through the catalogues of any model railway auction and they are awash with Hornby Dublo stufff. For example, go to https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb and search on "Dublo" and you'll see what I mean!

[Mountain]

All depends on where it is and what price.

3-rail prices compared to their 2-rail equivalents are interesting, in that for years I had been watching new and secondhand prices, and in the past 2 rail Dublo and Wrenn secondhand prices were once at least double, if not triple the price of a 3-rail version depending on what it was.

Yet fast forward to the last half a decade and Wrenn, Triang, Playcraft (Jouef)and Dublo 2-rail prices have massively plummeted with the increase of many of these models of locos being duplicated with new highly detailed modern equivalents. 3-rail which always used to have a relatively low price as soon as 2-rail models came along, has slowly risen with inflation so is still low but has not fallen. However, 2-rail Dublo and Wrenn have never been so low!
In the past, those who were up for it we buying 3-rail locos, along with paying out for conversion kits, and the kits alone often cost about the same as what used to be the price of a new (Old stock) tender driven Airfix loco, converted them and still sold them on for a profit, and I am not joking!
Yet today I have seen these 2-rail converted models go for the same price, or even lower than their 3-rail equivalents!

[Bigmet]

I do not know what will come of this as yet, but we have an attic... (And I have Hornby Dublo)... And having both means I can plan and make a model railway!

The main room is a great space for a layout, keep the small entry room clear, as the ladder access needs to be unobstructed for safety, if nothing else.

Plenty of possible layout plans to keep you busy for years! Personally, I would go for a U shape arangement so you can walk into the middle of the layout, with no ducking under, and also around the outside for maintenance, the thirteen and a half feet dimension will easily allow that using H-D three rail track.

...Yet fast forward to the last half a decade and Wrenn, Triang, Playcraft (Jouef)and Dublo 2-rail prices have massively plummeted with the increase of many of these models of locos being duplicated with new highly detailed modern equivalents. 3-rail which always used to have a relatively low price as soon as 2-rail models came along, has slowly risen with inflation so is still low but has not fallen. However, 2-rail Dublo and Wrenn have never been so low!

I have been taking advantage of this price plummet for the all time best H-D model, the 8F; which back in the day was the only RTR OO eight coupled model, and taken overall the most accurate model in the H-D range. I have now bought five, four of them for the purpose of ditching the H-D mechanism and lightly modifying the cast bodyshell interior in order to fit the current Hornby 8F mechanisms inside. This delivers an 8F with a drive of accurate appearance and very quiet and refined control, and - the reason for doing this - proper 8F tractive capability which puts the finished model on par with the Heljan O2 and Bachmann 9F. And I could sell off most of the H-D mechs and tenders and current Hornby 8F bodies to more than cover the purchase cost of the H-D purchases! (For some reason you can consistently get more for model parts than the complete ensemble; I don't understand why, but am happy to reap the result in money saved...)

The project in the waiting room. I retained the best ringfield motor 2-rail mechanism and the 2 rail flanged wheelsets and side rods from another: one of these days I will cut down the chassis block width, and hinge the rods, to make an all flanged 'original' H-D 8F, capable of negotiating the 30" ruling radius of the freight only sections of my layout.

[centenary]

I've just had a message from a guy who has loads of Dublo to dispose of.
Who buys secondhand Dublo ?

Geoff T.

Like me! I have quite a bit of Dublo 3 rail track, locos and buildings but, it breaks my heart seeing the utterly low prices this sells for at auction.

Better prices may be got at specialised toy auction houses but these are rare in the UK. Im only aware of 2 specialised toy auction houses. The nearest to me are on the UK east coast, hundreds of miles away making it impractical to take or have delivered to them for listing.

The decision is either to keep in storage as childhood momentos or let go for a low price. A 3rd option would be to build of course but, given all my time is taken with building the current layout, that's a bit of a pipe dream right now.

[Mountain]

I was considering it ideal for a U-shape layout myself. Just need more 2n'd radius curves as I only have enough to do a circle, so I would need some more. (I have far more 1st radius curves than I would ever use! I may just jiggle track designs a little to compensate instead). I can do a large oval at a higher level or a large oval with a lifting section but the U-shape idea will make it easier and simpler to get in and out.
Surprisingly, the things in that smaller room were left by the previous owners of the house, so we have spare laminate flooring, several rolls of wall paper, Christmas decorations etc. The wall between the two attics is thin wood, so I could easily have storage sidings in the smaller area of the entrance attic if needed.

We did have all sorts of plans from making the room into a bedroom by having a proper curly staircase into the living room below and maybe an additional window in the wall as it would give a fantastic view, but as we are not really staying, as with journey times between South and North Wales with all the new 20's now making it impractical to go there and back in a day forcing us to have a change of plan, it means that whatever I build needs to be of a not so permanent nature, just incase someone after us may have other plans. (If they like trains and love Hornby Dublo then great! Saves me taking it down! )

Anyway... For now, I may as well have fun with these lovely things!

Also had ideas of a large outdoor layout going into the workshop which forms part of the house having access both to the outside and the house itself. The garden is at a suitable height to run trains into this room from outside. The workshop room is of a wooden shed-like construction so is ideal. There are even two sets of steps up to the garden so that the railway lines to the garden will not obstruct anyone wanting to walk past, so no ducking under or forcing oneself over model railway lines needed. It is one of the things that attracted me to this cottage. We also loved that it has easy access to the beach... A lovely gem of a beach that hardly anyone goes!

[Bigmet]

That's a lovely location. Wales has some of the best little used, clean and warm in summer, beaches in the UK, as a 1978 walking party I led along the Pembrokeshire coast path 'discovered': best not to advertise this too much or it might get overrun by what the Cornish call Emmets. (Not sure of Welsh usage, our rugby instructor at secondary school (native of Pontypool, for which he had been a first team member, and also a Welsh team reserve), would call us 'Naughty Sanness' when we ragged him about 'Why is there a South, West and North Wales, but no East Wales? To which he would reply, 'Because you stole it from us, Naughty Sanness that you are.)

[Mountain]

He probably played against my Dad. Sanness? No idea what that word is.

A photo of the opposite wall.

[Phred]

Mountain wrote:
We also loved that it has easy access to the beach... A lovely gem of a beach that hardly anyone goes!

Sounds absolutely idyllic.

[Bigmet]

Sanness? No idea what that word is...

Neither had I, but fortunately a Welsh friend supplied an answer this morning: that particular man's pronunciation of 'Sasness' = the people that we now call 'English'; which firstly makes sense of his accusation in response to our ragging, and secondly has to be congruent with the 'Sassenach' of Scots; deriving from 'Saxons' Wish I had known that at the time as I could have made a good rebuttal of innocence in the matter, since I am of Frisian Dutch and Scottish descent.