HI, at 2:29 into the video that is for the TPO, or the travelling post office. That particular building is where the mailbags get dropped off. Hope this helps
Lawrie...the building with the red side is part of the Hornby automatic mail train set and was used to catch the mail bags thrown from the coaches..it would have had a ramp in front of it. The American box car permenant way wagon was actually a track cleaner...turn it upside down and you will see slots where the cleaning cloth came through the chassis and made contact with the rails. You took the roof off and soaked the cloth with methylated spirits then ran it in a train to clean the rail surfaces. 👍
Over here in Germany, this System was known as Trix Express. I still have my Dad's first Trix Express stuff from about 50 years ago that I sometimes put together. When compared to my stuff, your track is the older "Cardboard-Sleeper" type, produced from 1953 to about 1964. The newer "Plastic-Sleeper" track already has a realistic rail profile but still was 3-Rail (or at least in Germany it was 3-Rail). Unfortunally I only have one power connecting track for this system, otherwise I would send it to you
Glad you enjoyed it Lawrie. I think a bit of thin solid core wire or some brass shim wedged between the track and sleeper would make for a reasonably good connection. Until I read the comments I too had no idea what the red plastic structure was.
i keep seeing that Hornby made a Ruston 48DS in OO scale, since seeing your videos on your actual Ruston 48 I have been giving great thought to picking one up when i can find one.
Look on some of the model railway suppliers website's like Hattons, Gaugemaster or similar as they discount the prices compared to going directly to Hornby where you mostly pay full retail price.
Great to watch while quartering a 1981 Hornby Jinty after fitting replacement axles and axle bearings. 8th time lucky with the drivegear axle, hopefully...
The Trix track my father had in the mid-1950s had a black moulded, hollow plastic base with sleepers all moulded in one. The locos we had were 0-4-0 tender engines of no set prototype, tho' british outline, with brushes at the side. There was a semi realistic Hunt class The Pytchley and a two-car red and cream bogie diesel railcar with lighting. I always liked those simpler couplers that even Hornby had at the time.
Hi Lawrie, spotted an unusual OO wagon on Ebay, turned out after some research to be Trix, so looked for a video about it, and bravo, you have really given Trix an airing! I'm tempted myself to have a play with some. I can see a lot of advantages! Thanks for the interesting, and informative film!
Wiring scheme is common return on the center with up to 2 locomotives in normal usage. Adding catenary allows for a third locomotive. Out of the box the locomotives were coded: diesels on one side, steam on the other and electric on the catenary The tender derails because it has narrow flanges, you will need Trix Express wheels to make that work
Hi Lawrie. There's an interesting comparison between your Trix goodies and Dublo. That is that the Trix system is pure HO gauge, that is 1:87 scale. You can see this in the small difference between the relative sizes between your Dublo outline 0-6-2 and the Trix one. Trix did introduce some other UK specific models over the years, and I remember in particular a very nice looking Britannia and a rake of Pullman cars. The father of a friend of mine from junior school (1950s)/60s) had a layout on the floor of the biggest bedroom in the house, and the UK specific rolling stock looked completely out of place compared with the original TTR stock, which was really pretty nondescript. Ciao Hugh
I really enjoy these videos Lawrie, I got back into train this past year as well. American O gauge, 3 rail, is super cheap here in the states, and nearly every old person I talk to remembers a Lionel train around the tree at christmas time.
Welcome back to the hobby, glad to see somebody likes Lionel 3 rail too. Wouldn't exactly call it cheap, but if you use the older tubular style track and the older locos and rolling stock, it can be quite reasonable.
@@patricpeters9716 Pity that MTH is closing down/restructuring this year, personally like their Railking locos. Begs the question of what everybody is going to do if they need repairs as the equipment ages, particularly the electronics.
@@Shipwright1918 funny thing isn't it: my MTH #9 I basically turfed as it failed the quality test miserably, but my 100 year old Ives 3241 still works a treat!
@@muir8009 Well, when it comes to tinplate, I definitely prefer the originals over replicas for exactly that reason, the electro-mechanical guts can be very reliable if you keep them maintained, which is certainly easier to do than with a circuit board. Keep the electrics tidy and bright, and keep the mechanicals whirring smoothly with a shot of oil and a little grease every so often, and it'll run forever.
Watching Lawrie work out the "wiring" issues had me continuously thinking "well, why not just jury rig a pair of connectors?" But then I remembered that he isn't me, and thanks to my father's job I usually have an ample supply of wiring, scrap metal bits, and the like laying around that I can bodge something together if I need a wiring setup (for instance my old N-scale, Atlas Code 80 track has a pair of terrible crossing-style wiring connector pieces I've never liked. I was able to fashion some connectors out of scrap wire and some metal loops that had held some of his parts together. which I was rather proud of let me tell you).
Love those Dublo Duchesses. I have an ancient Montrose which had been horribly repainted red by its previous owner. I did a full repaint and relining when I was a youngster and had it converted to two rail. When I was working in Australia a few years ago I found a 2 rail City of London which I repatriated to Europe. Lovely locos. I've never had any Trix though. That 56XX is really quite nice!
interesting, Trix Twin was not the first OO electric system though - The Bing Tischbahn had introduced 3 rail electric sets by 1926. I have a first issue 1922 OO Clockwork set if you would like to borrow it.
Very nice Lawrie. The Trix track certainly seems more adaptable to a layout. I've just spent a very frustrating afternoon getting my Doublo loco to go over a set of points without derailing! The Doublo track has to be dead flat to work properly. Thanks for a great video.
The Trix 0-6-0T loco is a model of an LNER "Buck Jumper", hence the Apple Green colour that was retained into BR days. Mini-Trix also did a model in N guage.
My dad had a bunch of Trix, both the cardboard and the newer plastic rail. He also had some Triang wagons, my main experience with those is that they loved to derail, they were just a bit too light, and the wheels didn't quite fit the track profile.
Because of the insulate wheel centres, it's easier to convert a Trix Twin loco to 2 rail operation than that of a Hornby Dublo 3 rail loco. I had to convert a 3 Rail Castle to 2 rail for a friend, back in the 1980's. I had to replace all the wheels & axles plus make pick ups.
I had loads of Trix stuff, both the AC and DC powered. They were very heavy locos with more powerful motors than any other make. The detail in the DC locos was excellent also. The downside was that they were very expensive in comparison with Hornby or Triang.
Okay, now for some real history - never mind your fifty years ago, what about nearly seventy years ago? I was hooked on model railways by my yearly visit to Gamages in Holborn, at Christmas, with my granddad. If you don't know, this was a 'department store' with a huge (I think temporary, but I could be wrong - I was like, five.) 'O' scale model railway, with what seemed like miles of track and a million trains. Then my cousin, Peter, showed me his model railway (train set) and I was converted. I'm not sure if his layout was fixed down (on a baseboard) or whether he used to put it all out when he wanted to play with it, but I think it was a double oval, with cross over/s and a couple of sidings. Now remember I was about five or six, but even then I was 'technical'. I understood stuff that five year olds don't any more. The thing was, I knew this was called 'Trix Twin', that it came from Germany (which in about 1952 was probably very unusual) and that IT WAS AC CURRENT. To reverse the engines - there were two , stylised tank engines (not modeled on any prototype although recognisably British) there was a switch which made the engine buzz. Then it would go in the opposite direction. There were two knurled caps just below the body on one side and I somehow knew these were the brushes. I played on that layout a good few times, until my cousin moved from just round the corner, to a bus ride away. Then I was given my first train set; a Rovex 'Princess' and two couches, driven from a plastic control/battery box, with two 6v 'Lantern Batteries. Decades later, when I was a field engineer for a major company working on CT Scanners and MRI scanners, my mates and I used the expression "Smell of Train Set" for the smell of hot, electrical components - always a good indicator of the source of the problem. Can anyone throw any light on the Trix Twin I saw in the early fifties?
Isn’t the power supposed to connect to those two screw terminals right in front of you and if you put a pair of the terminals on the other side of the track you can run two trains connecting just like the old scalextric did with the heavy blue metal transformer and two screw terminals
Piko also had a 3 rail system called Pico express the trains are hard to find and were made before they changed their name from Pico to Piko to try to avoid being confused with the British brand Peco. If I can remember the Track had wooden sleepers.
@@lmm Piko Has been making modeltrains (mostly german) and continental european since 1946 They do 2 rail DC and 3 rail AC trains. The Pico express from the 1950's is understandably rare! They also have been making G scale for while. They also do N gauge and TT
Hi Lawry, interested in your TRIX stuff. I have both German and UK trix, my Dad`s and mine. The rails with the levers are actually uncoupling rails to unhook individual carriages without big fingers.... Trix made two special rail pieces to connect the power, one as a curve and one as a straight. the very short pieces are part of a points rail. Trix made two radiuses of curves. the large radius used three curved rails to make a 90deg bend and the short one used four. If you add one of the small pieces to a short curve it is the equivalent of a single large curve. They were also used on the curved section of each points set. This gave a choice of which curve arrangement could be used off the same point. My Dad`s stuff is 1920`s and is on bakelite whereas mine is 1950`s and is the same as you have in the vid. Both are three rail.
The track reminds me of Lionel tubular in O gauge in a way, it's basically just a piece of steel rolled over a form making a hollow tube that's pinched onto the metal sleepers. Main difference is in the electrics, in Lionel the current is AC with the center being the hot with the two outer rails being negative, and each engine has a mechanism called an e-unit which cycles the motor through forward-neutral-reverse (and can be locked in any of the three positions) every time you turn the power off and on again.
tubular track was obviously the norm for tinplate, dublo used solid rail from '38 on, but zeuke/Berliner/tillig still used rolled track until a few years ago. Lionel (ex ives) reverser is about the worst they could've used, only one I can think of that's worse was Lionel's own design. just a pity they couldn't have used a variation of marklins which was vastly superior, actually since before WW1 model railways had better reversers. easy in hindsight of course...
@@muir8009 To each his own, I suppose, always thought the e-unit was a clever little mechanism myself. As for tubular track, the main upshot was that it was relatively simple to make and used less metal than a solid rail, which meant it was cheap to make and cheaper to buy. Gets pooh-poohed nowadays by the scale people as not being realistic, but I personally like it. Still cheaper to buy, easy to modify, and makes for a nice retro layout. Also sounds like nothing else with a train going over it, particularly a tinplate one.
@@Shipwright1918 that's something I've always felt about tubular track, steel wheels, and mass: it sounds like a TRAIN. funny: in early tinplate Hornby O catalogues one of the blurbs was made of metal, just like a real one, Lionel' were in the same ilk. I probably do sound a bit negatory of the old e-unit: I can't help but think that when Ives came out with it JLC was really bugged that he wasn't first. the hasty Lionel response was obviously cribbed together, but JL really seems to have to need this Ives unit. could you imagine if they'd done a reverser using the DC pulse instead of a whistle? instant, failsafe, foolproof reversing. no wonder when the whistle came out so many modellers just ditched the whistle and wired the DC unit straight up to the reversing solenoid. one of my model railway magazines from 1909 has a few designs. the e units okay, just could've been so much better :)
@@muir8009 @muir8009 Exactly. The modern trend in layouts is to deaden the sound as much as possible, so if you strain your ears, you just might hear a soft tipita-tip, tipita-tip from the wheels. With tubular on a wood baseboard, oh brother, what a sound! A deep resonating rumble with a lively clicketa-clack, clicketa-clack and numerous other noises that make the trains seem bigger than they really are. 1st time visitors who haven't seen the layout yet sometimes look around puzzledly and ask "Is it raining?" As the overall sound is very close to the sound of a rain shower hitting the roof, only to be amusedly informed "No, that's the train in the closet", shortly thereafter I get heads poking in the door and invite them in.
Trix 3 rail system. I have with me one Trix Steam locomotive and the other diesel locomotive. Both almost brand new. I run them on Marklin 3 rail solid centre tracks. Using a DC Trix Express controller. I am into model trains and from Chennai India..
Just realized you conld convert modern 2 track 00 gauge locos to run on trix track by disconnecting the pickups on one side of the train and installing a skid underneath, and moving the disconnected pickup point to that. The wheels and everything have all the required insulation. It just lacks the central pickup... but there are handy dandy screws under most frames. you just need to find something to function as a skid and a slightly longer screw.
With the Hornby Dublo track if the two outer rails short in the same way the trix track acts with loco and metal axled coaches. Does that mean you could run the two rail locos on the Diablo track as it seems to be insulated?
@@lmm oh damn, missed opportunity ehy, I just downloaded a Y7 for Trainz 12 and its such fun to drive and shunt, seeing how much it can do Maybe you could catch the other one if its still in steam, or in steam at all
with trix you can run 2 locos at once centre rail & left rail & centre rail & right rail if you do this then run hornby you end up shorting out the 2 controlers
British Trix was offered for sale to Triang in 1966, but Triang was still paying off Mechano's (Hornby) the massive debts that they'd inherited with the merger, so turned them down. We could have seen Triang-Hornby-Trix as a brand!! However, Triang - Hornby did throw British Trix a lifeline by contracting them to create the now highly collectable distillery grain wagons for them.
I used to run 3 trains independently because I had the trix EM1 Bo-Bo on overhead wires' At that time in the early 60s, you could not do that with any other system.
Trix Twin track there is some new old stock out there look at the points for this you can see it for the eu market they look like the first one's that lego came old with
Bachmann do some underground rolling stock but they only run on the two outside rails like every other model now, but they could be converted. Issue is the models Bachmann does isn't cheap.
Dublo has no equal,even now.It still can be repaired,and if you look around you can still find very good examples.The die cast locos and exceptional valve gear makes them living classics.I would agree that modern 00 is fantastically detailed but they have no soul.Twin Trix was out of scale and was not capable of competing with Dublo.Also the range was huge,not just the locos,but everything else.Dublo’s downfall was its cost,it was too good.
Sorry thought it read twin trix. 🥴. I think the thing with the red roof is a mail bag catcher? I checked it does say twin trix on the title. But who cares? I'm being a pedantic git. Sorry mate 😳. Brilliant video as always. Makes me miss my model railway even more! 😢 Ho hum. Looks like France will be going back into lockdown again soon. So maybe it's time I started building a new layout.
I love how excited Lawrie gets, can you imagine him on Chrimbo morning. You're a star Lawrie, don't ever change :).
HI, at 2:29 into the video that is for the TPO, or the travelling post office. That particular building is where the mailbags get dropped off. Hope this helps
You know you're gonna be happy when Lawrie unboxes old train memorabilia
Lawrie...the building with the red side is part of the Hornby automatic mail train set and was used to catch the mail bags thrown from the coaches..it would have had a ramp in front of it. The American box car permenant way wagon was actually a track cleaner...turn it upside down and you will see slots where the cleaning cloth came through the chassis and made contact with the rails. You took the roof off and soaked the cloth with methylated spirits then ran it in a train to clean the rail surfaces. 👍
Over here in Germany, this System was known as Trix Express. I still have my Dad's first Trix Express stuff from about 50 years ago that I sometimes put together. When compared to my stuff, your track is the older "Cardboard-Sleeper" type, produced from 1953 to about 1964. The newer "Plastic-Sleeper" track already has a realistic rail profile but still was 3-Rail (or at least in Germany it was 3-Rail). Unfortunally I only have one power connecting track for this system, otherwise I would send it to you
Glad you enjoyed it Lawrie. I think a bit of thin solid core wire or some brass shim wedged between the track and sleeper would make for a reasonably good connection. Until I read the comments I too had no idea what the red plastic structure was.
I’m loving this. A boy and his toys. I could watch this forever.
Love the sound of metal running along a scaffolding pole sound of the trix track hahaha nice video though, cant wait for more videos of the layout.
i keep seeing that Hornby made a Ruston 48DS in OO scale, since seeing your videos on your actual Ruston 48 I have been giving great thought to picking one up when i can find one.
Look on some of the model railway suppliers website's like Hattons, Gaugemaster or similar as they discount the prices compared to going directly to Hornby where you mostly pay full retail price.
I am a huge fan of Hornby Dublo and Trix Twin train sets. My favorite the Horny Dublo 3 Rail. ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
The next logical step is Hornby Clockwork, right?
Great to watch while quartering a 1981 Hornby Jinty after fitting replacement axles and axle bearings. 8th time lucky with the drivegear axle, hopefully...
The Trix track my father had in the mid-1950s had a black moulded, hollow plastic base with sleepers all moulded in one. The locos we had were 0-4-0 tender engines of no set prototype, tho' british outline, with brushes at the side. There was a semi realistic Hunt class The Pytchley and a two-car red and cream bogie diesel railcar with lighting. I always liked those simpler couplers that even Hornby had at the time.
Oh really? I'll have to try and find some
Hi Lawrie, spotted an unusual OO wagon on Ebay, turned out after some research to be Trix, so looked for a video about it, and bravo, you have really given Trix an airing! I'm tempted myself to have a play with some. I can see a lot of advantages! Thanks for the interesting, and informative film!
Oh super! Pleased to be of help!
The second thing you got out the box is for a parcel train. It is meant to collect them when the train goes past.
Wiring scheme is common return on the center with up to 2 locomotives in normal usage. Adding catenary allows for a third locomotive.
Out of the box the locomotives were coded: diesels on one side, steam on the other and electric on the catenary
The tender derails because it has narrow flanges, you will need Trix Express wheels to make that work
Hi Lawrie. There's an interesting comparison between your Trix goodies and Dublo. That is that the Trix system is pure HO gauge, that is 1:87 scale. You can see this in the small difference between the relative sizes between your Dublo outline 0-6-2 and the Trix one. Trix did introduce some other UK specific models over the years, and I remember in particular a very nice looking Britannia and a rake of Pullman cars. The father of a friend of mine from junior school (1950s)/60s) had a layout on the floor of the biggest bedroom in the house, and the UK specific rolling stock looked completely out of place compared with the original TTR stock, which was really pretty nondescript. Ciao Hugh
I really enjoy these videos Lawrie, I got back into train this past year as well. American O gauge, 3 rail, is super cheap here in the states, and nearly every old person I talk to remembers a Lionel train around the tree at christmas time.
Welcome back to the hobby, glad to see somebody likes Lionel 3 rail too. Wouldn't exactly call it cheap, but if you use the older tubular style track and the older locos and rolling stock, it can be quite reasonable.
@@Shipwright1918 Well, I also have the urge to buy every piece of MTH I come across now, currently sitting at 2 railking and 2 premier steam locos.
@@patricpeters9716
Pity that MTH is closing down/restructuring this year, personally like their Railking locos. Begs the question of what everybody is going to do if they need repairs as the equipment ages, particularly the electronics.
@@Shipwright1918 funny thing isn't it: my MTH #9 I basically turfed as it failed the quality test miserably, but my 100 year old Ives 3241 still works a treat!
@@muir8009
Well, when it comes to tinplate, I definitely prefer the originals over replicas for exactly that reason, the electro-mechanical guts can be very reliable if you keep them maintained, which is certainly easier to do than with a circuit board.
Keep the electrics tidy and bright, and keep the mechanicals whirring smoothly with a shot of oil and a little grease every so often, and it'll run forever.
The idea of model locos that have lain in a dusty drawer for half a century, being brought back to life, is excellent.
Hi Lawrie. I did so enjoy your obvious delight at the Trix goodies once you realised what they were.
Watching Lawrie work out the "wiring" issues had me continuously thinking "well, why not just jury rig a pair of connectors?" But then I remembered that he isn't me, and thanks to my father's job I usually have an ample supply of wiring, scrap metal bits, and the like laying around that I can bodge something together if I need a wiring setup (for instance my old N-scale, Atlas Code 80 track has a pair of terrible crossing-style wiring connector pieces I've never liked. I was able to fashion some connectors out of scrap wire and some metal loops that had held some of his parts together. which I was rather proud of let me tell you).
Love those Dublo Duchesses. I have an ancient Montrose which had been horribly repainted red by its previous owner. I did a full repaint and relining when I was a youngster and had it converted to two rail. When I was working in Australia a few years ago I found a 2 rail City of London which I repatriated to Europe. Lovely locos. I've never had any Trix though. That 56XX is really quite nice!
I rescued two Trix Brake Vans from a junk shop, got em for £1 each, I can confirm your suspicion that the Twix wagons had plastic wheels.
Please add how to wire up rails do we can run two rail and three rail on the same track. Great idea. Thanks.
interesting, Trix Twin was not the first OO electric system though - The Bing Tischbahn had introduced 3 rail electric sets by 1926. I have a first issue 1922 OO Clockwork set if you would like to borrow it.
Very nice Lawrie. The Trix track certainly seems more adaptable to a layout. I've just spent a very frustrating afternoon getting my Doublo loco to go over a set of points without derailing! The Doublo track has to be dead flat to work properly. Thanks for a great video.
The Trix 0-6-0T loco is a model of an LNER "Buck Jumper", hence the Apple Green colour that was retained into BR days. Mini-Trix also did a model in N guage.
Oh really? Thanks for the info
My dad had a bunch of Trix, both the cardboard and the newer plastic rail. He also had some Triang wagons, my main experience with those is that they loved to derail, they were just a bit too light, and the wheels didn't quite fit the track profile.
Oh really? Interesting
That unloading platform is still made by hornby Ex Lima
Because of the insulate wheel centres, it's easier to convert a Trix Twin loco to 2 rail operation than that of a Hornby Dublo 3 rail loco. I had to convert a 3 Rail Castle to 2 rail for a friend, back in the 1980's. I had to replace all the wheels & axles plus make pick ups.
Oh really?
I had a 2 rail Tyco brand train growing up in the 70s
Never knew tyco did model railways
That is a very interesting 3 rail system. I have a vintage 2 rail TRIX E2. Nothing like what you got there.
I had loads of Trix stuff, both the AC and DC powered. They were very heavy locos with more powerful motors than any other make. The detail in the DC locos was excellent also. The downside was that they were very expensive in comparison with Hornby or Triang.
Yes, I'm really impressed with the detail of the 56xx compared to the dublo n2!
The piece of track you tried to couple to was an automatic decouple for separating rolling stock.
Oh was it?
Okay, now for some real history - never mind your fifty years ago, what about nearly seventy years ago? I was hooked on model railways by my yearly visit to Gamages in Holborn, at Christmas, with my granddad. If you don't know, this was a 'department store' with a huge (I think temporary, but I could be wrong - I was like, five.) 'O' scale model railway, with what seemed like miles of track and a million trains. Then my cousin, Peter, showed me his model railway (train set) and I was converted.
I'm not sure if his layout was fixed down (on a baseboard) or whether he used to put it all out when he wanted to play with it, but I think it was a double oval, with cross over/s and a couple of sidings. Now remember I was about five or six, but even then I was 'technical'. I understood stuff that five year olds don't any more. The thing was, I knew this was called 'Trix Twin', that it came from Germany (which in about 1952 was probably very unusual) and that IT WAS AC CURRENT. To reverse the engines - there were two , stylised tank engines (not modeled on any prototype although recognisably British) there was a switch which made the engine buzz. Then it would go in the opposite direction. There were two knurled caps just below the body on one side and I somehow knew these were the brushes.
I played on that layout a good few times, until my cousin moved from just round the corner, to a bus ride away. Then I was given my first train set; a Rovex 'Princess' and two couches, driven from a plastic control/battery box, with two 6v 'Lantern Batteries. Decades later, when I was a field engineer for a major company working on CT Scanners and MRI scanners, my mates and I used the expression "Smell of Train Set" for the smell of hot, electrical components - always a good indicator of the source of the problem.
Can anyone throw any light on the Trix Twin I saw in the early fifties?
Yes another episode of this series
Isn’t the power supposed to connect to those two screw terminals right in front of you and if you put a pair of the terminals on the other side of the track you can run two trains connecting just like the old scalextric did with the heavy blue metal transformer and two screw terminals
Piko also had a 3 rail system called Pico express the trains are hard to find and were made before they changed their name from Pico to Piko to try to avoid being confused with the British brand Peco. If I can remember the Track had wooden sleepers.
Oh really? I've not heard of them
@@lmm Piko Has been making modeltrains (mostly german) and continental european since 1946 They do 2 rail DC and 3 rail AC trains. The Pico express from the 1950's is understandably rare!
They also have been making G scale for while. They also do N gauge and TT
Loved the video I have a Trix 3 rail Britannia from the late 50s brand new in a box, its loco driven steel bodies very heavy is she collectable.
Oh especially if still boxed!
Love trix twin, I have a small set of it that got past down to me, unfortunately it’s quite hard to get in Australia .
Hi Lawry, interested in your TRIX stuff. I have both German and UK trix, my Dad`s and mine. The rails with the levers are actually uncoupling rails to unhook individual carriages without big fingers.... Trix made two special rail pieces to connect the power, one as a curve and one as a straight. the very short pieces are part of a points rail. Trix made two radiuses of curves. the large radius used three curved rails to make a 90deg bend and the short one used four. If you add one of the small pieces to a short curve it is the equivalent of a single large curve. They were also used on the curved section of each points set. This gave a choice of which curve arrangement could be used off the same point.
My Dad`s stuff is 1920`s and is on bakelite whereas mine is 1950`s and is the same as you have in the vid. Both are three rail.
Oh thank you for the information!
The track reminds me of Lionel tubular in O gauge in a way, it's basically just a piece of steel rolled over a form making a hollow tube that's pinched onto the metal sleepers.
Main difference is in the electrics, in Lionel the current is AC with the center being the hot with the two outer rails being negative, and each engine has a mechanism called an e-unit which cycles the motor through forward-neutral-reverse (and can be locked in any of the three positions) every time you turn the power off and on again.
tubular track was obviously the norm for tinplate, dublo used solid rail from '38 on, but zeuke/Berliner/tillig still used rolled track until a few years ago.
Lionel (ex ives) reverser is about the worst they could've used, only one I can think of that's worse was Lionel's own design. just a pity they couldn't have used a variation of marklins which was vastly superior, actually since before WW1 model railways had better reversers. easy in hindsight of course...
@@muir8009
To each his own, I suppose, always thought the e-unit was a clever little mechanism myself.
As for tubular track, the main upshot was that it was relatively simple to make and used less metal than a solid rail, which meant it was cheap to make and cheaper to buy.
Gets pooh-poohed nowadays by the scale people as not being realistic, but I personally like it. Still cheaper to buy, easy to modify, and makes for a nice retro layout. Also sounds like nothing else with a train going over it, particularly a tinplate one.
@@Shipwright1918 that's something I've always felt about tubular track, steel wheels, and mass: it sounds like a TRAIN. funny: in early tinplate Hornby O catalogues one of the blurbs was made of metal, just like a real one, Lionel' were in the same ilk.
I probably do sound a bit negatory of the old e-unit: I can't help but think that when Ives came out with it JLC was really bugged that he wasn't first. the hasty Lionel response was obviously cribbed together, but JL really seems to have to need this Ives unit. could you imagine if they'd done a reverser using the DC pulse instead of a whistle? instant, failsafe, foolproof reversing. no wonder when the whistle came out so many modellers just ditched the whistle and wired the DC unit straight up to the reversing solenoid. one of my model railway magazines from 1909 has a few designs.
the e units okay, just could've been so much better :)
@@muir8009
@muir8009
Exactly. The modern trend in layouts is to deaden the sound as much as possible, so if you strain your ears, you just might hear a soft tipita-tip, tipita-tip from the wheels.
With tubular on a wood baseboard, oh brother, what a sound! A deep resonating rumble with a lively clicketa-clack, clicketa-clack and numerous other noises that make the trains seem bigger than they really are.
1st time visitors who haven't seen the layout yet sometimes look around puzzledly and ask "Is it raining?" As the overall sound is very close to the sound of a rain shower hitting the roof, only to be amusedly informed "No, that's the train in the closet", shortly thereafter I get heads poking in the door and invite them in.
Trix 3 rail system.
I have with me one Trix Steam locomotive and the other diesel locomotive. Both almost brand new. I run them on Marklin 3 rail solid centre tracks. Using a DC Trix Express controller.
I am into model trains and from Chennai India..
The model trains are all good and lovely but that T-shirt though!
I'm from the us and we have the o gauge 3 rail trains there awsome the old ones won't die
marklin hasn't let go of 3 rail since they invented it: 3 rail is the best
@@muir8009 I have a couple old marklin o gauge going strong also
Im actually starting to see oo gauge in the states not many but it's starting most people have g gauge o gauge a n scale over here
Just realized you conld convert modern 2 track 00 gauge locos to run on trix track by disconnecting the pickups on one side of the train and installing a skid underneath, and moving the disconnected pickup point to that. The wheels and everything have all the required insulation. It just lacks the central pickup... but there are handy dandy screws under most frames. you just need to find something to function as a skid and a slightly longer screw.
With the Hornby Dublo track if the two outer rails short in the same way the trix track acts with loco and metal axled coaches. Does that mean you could run the two rail locos on the Diablo track as it seems to be insulated?
2 rail on the trix track, not dublo. 3 rail peco or wrenn is the same as trix
Went out and bought a twix especially to eat while watching this video
Never seen the trix three rail system. You could probably get some track from shows or Ebay.
Where would you get the return to the third rail from?
you could run three at once with overhead wires
Interesting that it uses Horn Couplers.
The excitement 🤣
When will you get chance to do a Lawrie goes loco on that gorgeous LNER Y7 985 loco. Always been curious about it
I'm going to have to wait for it to come back from overhaul, as the ticket expired in December
@@lmm oh damn, missed opportunity ehy, I just downloaded a Y7 for Trainz 12 and its such fun to drive and shunt, seeing how much it can do
Maybe you could catch the other one if its still in steam, or in steam at all
Trix originally ran on AC. In those days you could not interchange Trix and Hornby Dublo.
Yeah, that's the very early stuff isn't it - the one the GWR refused to let them out GWR on the models as they didn't look like their engines!
That’s the first trip e2 I have seen running pretty rare model honestly
Oh really? Good to give it a run really
Hi lorry you need to show as your big layouts in the storage have you paid the storage fees
hey you planning to make a model railway would be cool to see you make a layout
The origional Trix had much coarser wheel profiles
with trix you can run 2 locos at once centre rail & left rail & centre rail & right rail if you do this then run hornby you end up shorting out the 2 controlers
with the hornby loco
British Trix was offered for sale to Triang in 1966, but Triang was still paying off Mechano's (Hornby) the massive debts that they'd inherited with the merger, so turned them down. We could have seen Triang-Hornby-Trix as a brand!!
However, Triang - Hornby did throw British Trix a lifeline by contracting them to create the now highly collectable distillery grain wagons for them.
Oh that's a shame. Didn't know that
The only 3 rail I have used is O gauge. Have you any O gauge?
Mmmm, Twin Twix.. Left Bar or Right Bar? 🍫 🤔🤭😂
I used to run 3 trains independently because I had the trix EM1 Bo-Bo on overhead wires' At that time in the early 60s, you could not do that with any other system.
Oh I remember in the 90's Hornby had the overhead too so you could do that!
Trap some wires in the fish plates to hook up the power without using the croc clips.
Trix Twin track there is some new old stock out there look at the points for this you can see it for the eu market they look like the first
one's that lego came old with
That track would be ideal for building a London Underground based layout if you could get the rolling stock.🤔
Bachmann do some underground rolling stock but they only run on the two outside rails like every other model now, but they could be converted. Issue is the models Bachmann does isn't cheap.
23:12 i must laugh on the wagons when derailed and you want to try comment on it :D sorry it was little bit funny
Dogs can't use MRI scanners but cats can
That GWR trix model looks almost Ho compared to the crude Hornby model. I think the wagons of trix let them down though.
I think it is
Dublo has no equal,even now.It still can be repaired,and if you look around you can still find very good examples.The die cast locos and exceptional valve gear makes them living classics.I would agree that modern 00 is fantastically detailed but they have no soul.Twin Trix was out of scale and was not capable of competing with Dublo.Also the range was huge,not just the locos,but everything else.Dublo’s downfall was its cost,it was too good.
Dublo is great. Its still got a real magic to it
I'm servicing an old triang R251 or LMS 4F whilst watching this ( its disgusting and hasn't been run in between 10 to 20 years or more
Oh god not more track😂😂 your table ain't big enough!!
You mean Trix Twin right?
That's totally what I put. Yep. Didn't change it.
Sorry thought it read twin trix. 🥴. I think the thing with the red roof is a mail bag catcher?
I checked it does say twin trix on the title. But who cares? I'm being a pedantic git. Sorry mate 😳.
Brilliant video as always. Makes me miss my model railway even more! 😢
Ho hum. Looks like France will be going back into lockdown again soon. So maybe it's time I started building a new layout.
Hi
Use some oil they sound likes they it