James May: The Reassembler - Hornby Train Set

[Suica]

In the Christmas episode, James May is reassembling his 1970s OO-gauge Hornby Flying Scotsman trainset.

 

Our UK friends can simply watch it on BBC iPlayer.

 

 

I actually don't know much about British model trains, so I was quite amazed at the glowing firebox feature and especially the chuffing tender. I think the chuffing sound it creates is fairly decent! I would like to have something like that in N-gauge.

[Welshbloke]

Triang were pretty innovative and realised that "play value" matters, they made a few other models with similar tricks.

 

Synchrosmoke involved a piston geared to the motor, pushing air through the smoke unit in time with the wheel rotations. So instead of the usual wisp of smoke you got distinct puffs.

 

They offered a boxcar containing a giraffe (who lowered his head in response to a trigger mechanism to avoid hitting bridges) and a flatbed which fired a helicopter into the air after being tripped by a similar trigger. Admittedly those and the "exploding" dynamite wagon (spring loaded to disintegrate if shunted roughly) were copies of older Lionel O gauge models but there was nothing like them in the British OO market at the time.

[gavino200]

In the Christmas episode, James May is reassembling his 1970s OO-gauge Hornby Flying Scotsman trainset.

 

Our UK friends can simply watch it on BBC iPlayer.

 

 

I actually don't know much about British model trains, so I was quite amazed at the glowing firebox feature and especially the chuffing tender. I think the chuffing sound it creates is fairly decent! I would like to have something like that in N-gauge.

 

I wonder if that was a modified set. My friend had a OO gauge Hornby Flying Scotsman set when I was a kid. Probably around 1980. It didn't have sound or a glowing firebox but it was nice. I was a bit jealous. My trains were mostly Lima.

Edited January 6, 2017 by gavino200

[Welshbloke]

There were versions with and without. I know they had to drop the chuffing sound later on as they switched to tender drive. At one point you could buy the glowing firebox parts from spares suppliers.

 

Interesting thing, if you look at the chassis block on some tender drive Hornby locos you can still see the notch for the old Triang motor. Hornby tooled a new plastic moulding to fill this and represent the underside of the boiler. I wouldn't be surprised if the mounting holes for the glowing firebox were also still present.

[gavino200]

In the Christmas episode, James May is reassembling his 1970s OO-gauge Hornby Flying Scotsman trainset.

 

Our UK friends can simply watch it on BBC iPlayer.

 

 

 

 

Can also watch it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdDfISvJbWk