TRIX OO Scale products?

According to the letter written by George E. Mellor of GEM Products fame to the Railway Modeller in 1926 it was to disguise the overscale tyres and flanges necessary for operation on typical curves at the time. For that reason he preferred 00 to either H0 or 19mm "finescale" although his company made all three to special order.

(kim)

There were complaints at the time that even 00 was too small. "Electric mice" was the disparaging term used at the time, "Too small to even see". H0 would have been even smaller and less marketable. Remember that the vast majority of train sets in use at the time were still 0-gauge which Hornby promised to continue supporting but immediately dumped.

There's no reason to suppose H0 would have faired any better than TT.

(kim)

You only notice the "narrow gauge" of British models when viewing head-on whereas the pastry cutter flanges on foreign toys are prominent from every angle.

(kim)

"kim" wrote

Hornby O-gauge continued in production until the early 1960s. That hardly constitutes being immediately dropped.

John.

"kim" wrote

Got to agree with the latter comment - even the latest Fleischmann stuff has overstated flanges, but I can live with that and also the under-scale gauge of OO so I guess it's horses for courses.

John.

So your suggesting that a/ The "standard" was derived by someone who had no idea what he was doing as regard model railways. b/ The market place was awash with British made commercial bodies on continental made R-T-R chassis? Can you give any examples of these models? c/ I was under the impression that pre WW2 the British market was almost totally dominated by O gauge, with only a very small amount of 3.5mm or

Are your comments supposed to be *defending* OO or confirming my thoughts that OO should never have existed?

You and others have still not addressed the point I made that *no manufacturer has EVER produced half decent British HO models* . By half decent I mean to the standards of Athearn of the US or Fleischmann of Europe. Instead all that was ever offered to the British market in HO were wildly distorted efforts that were generally to 4mm scale width, but 3.5mm scale height. The worst possible combination IMHO ;-) Yet they seemed to be disappointed it never took off, I wonder why?

Forget the finescale argument for the moment, remember Athearn for decades made models on RP25 that ran vastly superior to any British made diesel model. Only very recently have any British models run to the same standards as some Athearn models of the 1960s even.

I agree with Paul, the finescale aspect is something that should only worry the minority who care enough to do something about it. Like lots of things there are various degrees of standards & I and almost certainly Paul, are not promoting the old pizza cutter wheels of some lesser continental brands of old. Its about overall impression. Something about 10% of the effort & 90% of the result comes to mind.

For the record I should point out that I have no interest in US or Continental prototypes & therefore no interest in modelling either. It has historically been frustrating to see say Hornby/Lima ringfield powered diesels staggering around the track, whilst Athearn locos with flywheel drives comparatively glide around the track. OK Hornby and Lima models can be made to run better, but why should this be required if others can do better out of the box?

I am also at a quandary at the moment, being between layouts, do I build a new one to my previous EM standards? Or do I just take the new standard models & plonk them on OO track and not have to worry about "will they ever run the same again"? Just about all the locos I converted years ago have got new versions available & are vastly superior to my modified ones.

Thinking about it now, I am at the same stage I was in the mid 70s, when Airfix and Mainline hit the market. If they had chosen HO then & gone about it properly I would have done so too. Because they didn't, I went EM and used some of their products which were superior to Hornby's. In fact it is only very recently that Hornby have caught up (and passed) the quality of the mouldings of Airfix/Mainline.

"Kevin Martin" wrote

There really was no such thing as 'model railways' at the time, the product was basically for the toy market.

John.

Where did I say any of your straw men?

Motors large, boilers small.

Look up "false dichotomy".

The point was irrelevant.

Once 4mm was established, 3.5mm had no chance.

And British manufactures built down to a price, which is why the mechanisms were poor. They would have been just as poor in HO.

If they'd made HO they would have still done it down to a cost. Athena was OK but eventually (the early stuff used rubber band drive). Cheaper manufacturers like Model Power, Lifelike, Bachmann, Pemco etc until recently were just as bad as the British. Using the same factory in China(or Hong Kong?).

RP25 isn't that good. It looks OK from the side but they're like steam-roller wheels from the front.

Athearn weren't ready-to-run until recently.

See above about Model Power, Lifelike, Pemco, Bachmann etc.

It's only recently that these manufacturers have improved. Even Athearn needed tweaking, and their mouldings weren't that good.

That's life.

Their market was already in OO, not HO.

Agreed, and Hornby has only recently recognised the difference when they moved production to China & have vastly improved their product range. Was it about 2002 that they modified their range to be compatible with Peco code 75 track? Code 75 is not that terrifc, but compared to Code

I give up, all British HO has always been very poor, the fact that that it *was* so bad, being the overriding reason why any existing modellers would not consider changing to HO. Why would any one in their right mind change from a model which looks narrow gauge, but is the right height (OO), to a model which looks right gauge width, but is too low height wise (HO). Both wrong, but the perceived advantage in changing, absolutely zero. Put them in the same train - yuck.

An example

The best ever HO offerings were the Rivarossi Royal Scot & LMS coaches which look squat. They came out around the same time as the Airfix varieties which at least were all to a consistent scale. As a result no comparison.

The sole reason Athearn was not RTR was for US tax reasons, a kit had a lower tax rate than a complete model. But they were made as simple as possible - all you had to do was clip fit handrails to locos & bogies to box cars, 10 minutes for the totally unskilled. Even Tri-ang's CKD models were harder than Athearn's.

Except for the fact that existing modellers were already in OO.

You complained about the lack of quality of British OO mechanisms.

If those same manufacturers had switched to HO they would still have had the same shoddy mechanisms etc.

But that would not have been the reason it wouldn't sell. Have you ever seen how ridiculous a OO train including an HO wagon, looks?

Of course, in fact this is why I wrote

But since your misquoting almost everything I'm writing, don't worry about it.

So how many _new_ items were added to the 0-gauge range once 00 had become established?

(kim)

"kim" wrote

I've no idea, probably very few, but there's a difference between dropping the range and not developing it further.

However, there was at least one significant 'late addition' or development to the O-gauge range, but I can't quote a specific date, and that was the inclusion of a plastic bodied (?) representation of 'Percy' from the Thomas-the-Tank Engine books. No doubt someone can tell more about this.

John.

One has to ask whether, after six years of war and in a country that was - in many respects - bankrupt, Meccano/Hornby (or anybody else for that matter) could have afforded the cost of dumping all their pre-war machinery and tools and re-equipping to different standards. I have always suspected that the main aim of what can loosely be called "leisure industries" was to actually get some production started and some cash - little though there was - trickling back into the tills. Just a thought!

David Costigan

However, there was at least one significant 'late addition' or development to the O-gauge range, but I can't quote a specific date, and that was the inclusion of a plastic bodied (?) representation of 'Percy' from the Thomas-the-Tank Engine books. No doubt someone can tell more about this.

John.

Funny you should mention that John. My parents bought me a clockwork Percy in around 1966 / 67 or 68. Obviously it is long gone and I always wondered which manufacturer it was made by. Guess now I know !

Cheers Phil

"Waldviertler" wrote

Not sure whether the Hornby O-gauge 'Percy' was clockwork or electric (or produced in both variations) but I suppose I'm now going to have to dig of Chris Graebe's book and check it out. :-)

I don't think they were produced as late as 1966-8 as Hornby ceased to operate as part of the Mecanno company in 1963-4 and became part of the Lines Bros empire. Certainly the former Tri-ange range was rebranded Tri-ang/Hornby from c. 1964.

John.

David,

As far as I recall, two of the post war manufacturers - Graham Farish and Rovex(Triang) were new product lines, but I can't remember when they started. I think Rovex started in the early 1950s, but I get the feeling that GF started a bit earlier.

I suspect that if the BRMSB had been more persuasive, they might have managed to persuade Meccano/Hornby to spend some time and money on re-vampling their products. It seems that the BRMSB was always a bit toothless and could never sustain an argument against anyone. However, my impression on reading about the situation at the time was that Hornby had waved two fingers in the air and started production.

Jim.

Which part of "didn't have any money" did you not understand?

Like every other company in Britain, Meccano Ltd was paid only for the labour and materials they used for war production. There was no compensation for wear & tear on machinery let alone any margin for new investment. The same was true for the Big Four railway companies which is why they were nationalised.

(kim)