Trix LNER coach kits.

Apr 01, 2007 23 Replies

Hi All,



I've been delving into my old Railway Modeller mag pile. In the December '71 issue they reviewed some Trix Gresley design 4mm scale card coach kits. Has anyone, by chance, still got some examples of these? (unmade hopefully) As I model in HO these would be easy to scan and rescale so if you've got a set I wouldn't even have to take them off your hands! Otherwise, I'd be interested in buying them.



=8^)


Regards, Greg.P. New Zealand.


Gresley coaches look german to me anyway so why not just repaint a german H0 model?

(kim)

It would be the wrong scale - also I've never seen an LNER model so I'd never know if I'd got the teak effect right.

Teak Effect! It was teak and with the varnish each would be slightly different any how. I once panelled a coach using strips of printed paper from a Sony HiFi cat In the days when HiFi had wood cases.

In message , Greg Procter writes

Greg, I'm sure I have at least one, and will have a dig through about a million boxes of 'stuff' :-)

Scanning should be fairly straightforward. Memory tells me that they were designed to use the standard Trix plastic bogie in use at that time.

I read in the modelling press a review of the (then) latest LNER coaches where the reviewer said the graining went the wrong way on one set of panels - somewhat later in a later issue it was commented that the grain had been corrected in the following production run. I've never seen a teak coach and even copying a Hornby model wouldn't work because I wouldn't know which production run the sample came from.

Thanks!

Sure, but I would be changing the scale to HO so I'd have to build my own bogies, a task less daunting than trying to find out the appearance of the body :-)

Regards, Greg.P.

There was an article in Model Railway News circa 1969 describing how _real_ teak veneer could be used to make the coach sides. I'm not sure which direction the grain ran but few people complained about the final result.

(kim)

I'd imagine the only way I would find real teak today would be to destroy a piece of antique furniture - the Trix card kit coiuld be a cheaper and simpler option - still, I will read through my circa 1967 Model Railway Newses as soon as I locate them. How would mahogany go?

Regards, Greg.P. NZ

This refers to the recent Hornby 00 Gresley coaches, on the original batch the grain ran vertically on the doors instead of horizontally, this was corrected on later batches.

Mahogany would not match see example

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You might get away with using 1/32 ply as used by boat modelers to skim their hulls. With varish that would look near but would lake the dark oily streaks. Scans of the wood then printed might be better as you could scale down the grain.

Far from the case - teak is still commonly used for yacht decks, both new boats and reconditioning of old ones. A visit to a decent boatyard might yield some teak they'd removed from a boat that they were working on.

There are also a fair few suppliers of "fake teak" deck material. It might be worth trying to get hold of a sample to see whether that would work.

Googling on "teak deck" turns up a good range of suppliers.

OTOH you could look at some of th efurniture-making or restoration suppliers. There's a wide range of veneers on offer, including teak:

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But if you dont know which way it should go then it doesnt matter. Ignorance is often bliss.

Cheers, Simon

I'm sure that inside the life of such models someone would take me to task for having the grain the wrong way or the door handles backwards or something else. If I have to build it I might as well build it right. At least if I use a kit as a basis I can blame the kit manufacturer!

Let them, but be prepared. "its a little known fact that Gresley wanted them this way but the Chairman wanted them the other. So they had a bet to see who ..... and Gresley lost. Gresley kept quiet about it but one of his diaries was found at Lullington in 1963 but was suppressed to avoid embarresment" So I decided to do them the way Gresley wanted rather than how they turned out.

Cheers, Simon

I am assuming that we are talking the teak coaches and not the painted teak coaches. the grain on the doors will be vertical at each side of the drop light, and horizontal above and below the droplight. Its the only way to build frames. The lower door panels are horizontal like lower side panels.

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Greg, did you receive the copy I sent? There are further pages, but I would rather know that the first was safely received, before sending more.

Cheers,

Hi Graeme,

No, it didn't arrive here, unless of course you put "Huge Lottery Win" or "We need an agent in the USa" or "Russian Beauty wants nookie" as the subject line - I sometimes delete those without opening. =8^)

Regards and thanks, Greg.P.

Oh, I thought you would open anything like that! :-)

Have sent a message with subject line as above. Confirm safe receipt, and I'll send the other pages.

Cheers,

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