Well here is the beginning of getting my roughly 55 year old Triang train set running again. Most of the original track has gone and what's left is not enough to do what I wanted so I decided to start again. Back when this was new it was just a track on the table or floor and go for it. Now after looking around I found a 2nd hand track layout again incomplete of track and although it is HO scale the tracks do not match. The old track has a higher profile than the new track. The new track is also flexible so I bought 900 mm lengths and shaped it to the curves on this layout/\. I removed the older bit of track in these pictures and have more than enough new track to do the lot. There was one turn out (points) that came with this layout and I needed another so recently went back to Newcastle for a few days and bought the track, a turn out and a few other bits to get this running again.
Now the orange loco was done by me at the tender age of around 10, now I hate it being that colour so I carefully removed all traces of the orange paint using brake fluid to bring back the nice yellow colour. Then you can see the broken insulator that took some finding but thanks to a collector in the UK he sent this 'used' one over to me so it is ready to go now. At the bottom is the old steamer called a Jinty, don't know why but it is.

Next are some views of the layout where I have started to paint parts up even using the black as an undercoat to cover the crap that was there. It is a basic figure 8 layout that goes over and under itself. The timber bridge I built and painted and I am pleased with it. A while ago I bought the model farm house with the water tower and have since painted and assembled it.

The path design is unacceptable as here is no safety rail to stop the plastic people falling into the lake.

The homestead is painted and assembled and roughly sitting where I want it to be. There will be a lot of grass laid down around the homestead and a strip down the ramp plus some grass needs replacing or adding to but the snowy tops will be staying. This bussiness of painting and assembling models never was something I was good at but with a different approach it seems to look alright for a blind man to look at.

Nice one cobbadog, you’ve done great job so far.
This hobby can get way out of control (a bit like vehicle Restos), I know guys who have knocked holes in house walls & had them running from room to room.

Is there much Triang stuff out there these days?

Keep us posted on progress (young man) he he.

Cheers
Pierre

We had an Air Traffic Controller in the Army who designed a layout that went through the walls of every room in his Army married quarter. I believe he could have taken his family on a world cruise for the cost of rebuilding the walls and repainting the whole house when he was posted to a new base. The usual run around with a tube of toothpaste to fill the picture hook nail holes on the walls before inspection just did not cut it. Very intelligent bloke but smart was not in his CV.

To find original Triang stuff is hard but they are now Hornby which some things you can get. The main players are Peco and Bachman which are UK based then the usual German train stuff which is unbelievably lovely to look at with an equally unbelievable price to match. Ned Kelly is still alive and well.
About the only time Triang stuff comes up is as a complete train set but are few and far between.
Thanks for the compliment. As this progresses I will post more if anyone is interested.

Lang wrote:

The path design is unacceptable as here is no safety rail to stop the plastic people falling into the lake.

Sorry Lang, I disagree. The setting is fifty odd years ago, when common sense and self responsibility predominated, not modern time when people expect others to think for them and are looking for others, to blame for their own poor decisions.

cobbadog wrote:

To find original Triang stuff is hard but they are now Hornby which some things you can get. The main players are Peco and Bachman which are UK based then the usual German train stuff which is unbelievably lovely to look at with an equally unbelievable price to match. Ned Kelly is still alive and well.
About the only time Triang stuff comes up is as a complete train set but are few and far between.
Thanks for the compliment. As this progresses I will post more if anyone is interested.

You reckon the Europeans are expensive. Try the locals!
www.cglmodels.com.au/1502.aspx
In their defense, trying to make a living from a time consuming product, appealing to a small group, cannot come cheap.

Cobbadog You have done well to find a complex layout on a 4 x 3 base. I suppose if you have to move that farmhouse, you will have to get quotes from both Swishy and Rex.
When I was in highschool I had the basis of an HO (half ''O' gauge) that was, I think half a millimetre different in scale from 'OO' gauge. I guess the manufacterers had not decided which gauge was to be their standard. I remember the catalogue said OO/HO gauge. I showed the catalogue to a school chum who read it as ooh/hoo. I think my stuff was Tri-ang and Hornby may have owned it at that early stage. They had just gone from three rail with a live rail down the centre of the track) to their proudly proclaimed Hornby Dublo with one live rail and one return rail, as every other manufacturer used. I only had one saddle-tank loco which I think was the same as your black loco, and two wagons, a transformer and a controller. I think I must have had a few straight and enough curves of track to connect up a small oval. as I seem to remember joining them.
For my 14th Birthday, my Mother bought me a packet of rail profiles and with a packet of dressmakers short pins, I made a crude layout on pieces of soft board that I scrounged. I had mounted the board on a framework of 2inch by 2inch dressed pine that I saved up for. I believe my younger Sister threw it all out with most of my other belongings when I was doing National Service in the Army.