Tri-ang Railways 1950-1965
Greetings, and welcome to my site.
The site is just over a year old, having been first created in March 1999 ( My original introduction is still shown below). It and I have come a long way since then. It has grown out of all proportion and now consists of nearly 300 pages and is made up of four main sections. Tri-ang OO, Tri-ang TT, Tri-ang Big Big Trains (something that I and many others did not realise were Tri-ang products) and Tri-ang Minic Motorways.
The Site is completely my own, and is done for no commercial gain what so ever. It is my attempt to share my hobby and interest with others. During the last year I have had over 15,000 visits to the site from all over the world. It is staggering to me to find that I have had nearly 1,000 from Australia, and many from Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, all places that Tri-ang / Lines Bros. had factories, and where the memories are obviously still there, as well as over 35 other countries. To all of you I say WELCOME and THANKS for visiting the site, it gives me great encouragement to continue.
Tri-ang.co.uk domain name was purchased during the year as I was encouraged that I was doing something that was receiving a good response. Many people contacted me. Unfortunately, so many that I fail to reply to a lot of them. MY APOLOGIES TO YOU ALL, but a large family and a busy job are competing demands!! I think the recently introduced Guest Book has been a help in this.
I have made many new friends and acquaintances through the site, many, too many for me to mention, have helped me develop techniques and ideas for improvements. I am always looking out for ideas, so if you have any, please let me know.
Whilst the original Computer still struggles on, my purchase of a Digital Camera has made all the difference. Many people have been very kind and let me photograph items for the site, in fact many people have brought along items for me to include. I have also been sent images over the internet for me to include. Again thanks to all.
The bringing together of all my sites has been one of my aims. I have to record a BIG BIG THANK YOU to DEREK GARDNER in Australia, the owner of Tri-ang.com, who has provided me with the facilities to Host my site and develop it.
Thanks for now, Dave.
Original introduction:-
This is my first attempt at creating a Web Site, thus combining two of my interests, Collecting Tri-ang Railways and computing. The Tri-ang Railways side of the interest (obsession!) started with a ubiquitous Princess train set for Christmas 1960. Then followed long periods of Catalogue thumbing, unfortunately without the finance to do anything about it. Then I grew up, or so I thought at the time, the train set vanished, fortunately only to the loft.
Pat Hammond's excellent book, "The Story of Rovex, Volume 1 1950-1965", then became my downfall. As soon as I picked it up I was hooked. 30+ years just disappeared. I was back to "Catalogue thumbing" in a big way. I had always gone to Swapmeets being interested in a variety of Die-cast toys. Some how, although the Tri-ang items had always been there, I suddenly saw them.
Now two to three years later, I am into Tri-ang Railways in a big way. Finance whilst being better than in the 60's is still limited so I don't collect Mint Boxed, but scour the swapmeets for good condition items. I enjoy this much more than having enough money to buy it when I see it and usually if I wait long enough one will turn up in fair condition at a reasonable price.
Pat Hammond's book is invaluable as a source for reference for all the variations, and the other items as well as rolling stock. So much so that his details of the Tri-ang layouts for shops lead me to building my own. (pictures attached) I decided to build it using standard track throughout, rather than the mix of standard and series 3 as in the original. The search to make it totally accurate led me to spend a long time looking for items not usually prized. The missing items in the pictures, Early Engine Shed, and original Curved Sidewalls have now been found and the layout is now Exhibited complete.
My interest in computers has lead to me using the scanner to intake pages from rather tatty originals and photo retouch. Some samples are attached, unfortunately to make them small enough for the Site the quality is rather poor, but reducing from 20+ Megs to 50k is bound to take its toll.
Enough of an introduction, I hope if you find this you may find it interesting, any feedback/advice would be appreciated.