Triang Honby Coaches

Here in Canada, many of our metric products come in stupid sizes.

498ml, or 497ml or 496ml for example, rather than a round 500ml.

This is to make price comparisons more difficult for the consumer.

-- Cheers Roger T.

of the Great Eastern Railway

You youngsters can't calculate price comparisons in your head?

Canada Post sells domestic stamps in books of 10, but US and overseas stamps in books of 6! (And you don't have to lick 'em.)

We buy milk in polyethylene bags! A 4-litre pack contains three 1.3333 litre bags - a holdover from the days when it was 3 quarts (3.41 L).

Very interesting!! But back to the original question. Any advice on upgrading Triang Hornby Coaches?

Don't your supermarket shelf labels have unit pricing? Ours do.

Not all, not many.

-- Cheers Roger T.

of the Great Eastern Railway

"MartinS" <

I was just checking with SWMBO and we can't recall the last time we saw milk in bags.

-- Cheers Roger T.

of the Great Eastern Railway

Still sold in Ontario. Only Macs/Beckers and 7-11 offer the option of plastic jugs with a returnable deposit. 2 litre and smaller are in cartons. I remember lugging home glass 3-quart jugs in the 1970s!

"MartinS" <

Think they may still be sold in bags in some stores, though I don't know which ones.

The options here are small "Individual Servings" 1L, 2L or 4L cartons/jugs.

-- Cheers Roger T.

of the Great Eastern Railway

In message , David Westerman writes

We (the wife and I) always by stamps in 100s.

In message , Graeme Hearn writes

I thought that as far as you were concerned, it's us who are "down under". Why else do you print maps with Tassie at the top?

You don't have to lick ours when they come in "books" of 12 or 100 either.

"Roger T." wrote

Here in the UK Peco flexi-track is sold in 914mm lengths (1 yard to you and me) but the legislation requires the metric sizing to be shown ahead of the Imperial one.

Interesting that we now have to buy out petrol in litres to drive our cars on roads where distances are still in measured in miles.

John.

=>Very interesting!! But back to the original question. Any advice on =>upgrading Triang Hornby Coaches? =>

I replace the wheels on almost all UK stuff I buy -- I get the closest RP25 wheels available from the usual reliable sources. One of these years, I'll probably replace the bogies, too. I "adapted" a really ancient pair of Triang coaches into a single business car for my Central Alberta Railway many years ago. Taking the trucks off (a grommet held them in place) and plugging holes to get a good mounting surface for the trucks (bogies) was a major pain; and I used a pretty large chunk of plastic to make a mounting pad for the couplers. Newer cars look to be a little easier to work with, but I've not tried it yet.

Couplings are another matter - I use KDs on coaches, just because they work well, even though they are not prototypical. Problem is differing buffer beam heights from different mfrs - I wish you guys would get together on some standards, so that any bogie with correct wheels placed under any coach would result in the same buffer-beam height. I prefer body-mounted couplers, and I use wide enough radii (24" and up) that they work as expected. I use hook & chain couplings on goods wagons, I don't shunt these much, and picking up the chain with a little bamboo or wire skewer for un/coupling is no great hardship. Again, buffer beam heights vary just enough to be aggravating. Actually, I don't have a GWR diorama right now... Sigh.

As for details, lining & lettering etc: how much you want to fiddle with a ready-made coach body is entirely up to you. There are loads of products available to help you, and a lot of things can be made from scratch. EG, I saw a very nice article somewhere on making those curvy outside door handles using a jig and soft brass wire. The photos made it look easy - but I'm kinda gullible. :-) Some people just love doing this - and if you start, you may well become obsessive about it, so be warned. :-) The Triang/Hornby castings look like a good base for superdetail if you want to go that route. But again, variations compared to other mfrs' products mean that if you want a superdetailed rake of coaches, you may well have to stick with one mfr's products. Train/Hornby are "selectively compressed".

HTH

=>

=>"MartinS" =>> We buy milk in polyethylene bags! A 4-litre pack contains three 1.3333 =>> litre bags - a holdover from the days when it was 3 quarts (3.41 L). =>

=>I was just checking with SWMBO and we can't recall the last time we saw milk =>in bags. =>

=>

=>-- =>Cheers =>Roger T.

One of the advantages of living on the left coast? Or one of the disadvantages?

Hah!

I use so few stamps (most of my financial transactions are on-line) that I only just finished up the ones I had left over from last Christmas!

In Canada, Peco and Atlas flextrack come in 36 inch lengths. Our speed limits and speedometers are in km/h, but if we drive across into the US, we have to cope with miles and US gallons (3.78 litres).