For those amongst us who remember:- "When I was a boy"!

[Bob Tidbury]

My Dad worked on a farm my Mum was always in and out of Hospital so they didn't have a lot of money ,My sister and I ended up in a Childrens home in Banbury.
Imagine how excited I was when we went home for Christmas and Opened a big box to discover a Triang train set and my relations had all bought extra track and two points , after the holiday I was allowed to take the set to the home and as I was the oldest boy I used to play trains after the others had gone to bed.
We kept our own toys in drawers in a huge cupboard and one day one of the other kids opened my drawer and broke nearly all of the track .
Mr & Mrs Moore then bought me a new set of track even bigger than the old set .I was then given a key to the office and kept it in there,every birthday , Christmas and sometimes when Mum & Dad visited I had more little gifts a wagon or a bit of track I remember Mr &  Mrs Moore gave me a little yellow Shunter with a light on the front I also had the mail set from all the family one Christmas. When I left the home at age 16 I went home went to work and built a big layout in my bedroom I slept underneath it . Gave up railways for the usual hobby that we men go for .Then just got a bargain N gauge railway and my wife helped me personalise it we only lived in a maisonette so the layout  was in our bedroom .Inow have a 20ft x8ft layout in a shed at the bottom of the garden Val now has no interest in it at all but she does let me have new Locos  when I want something special so I don't do to bad .And she now goes to Hemel Hempstead skiing with my son and daughter while I run my railway.
Enough of my rambling but some happy memories.
Bob

[joe cassidy]

Every night I got home from school I had to go to the co-op and give the number for divi, hated the Co-op also

Can you still remember the Co-op divi number ?

Best regards,


Joe
[/quote]

4007 it was drummed into me 
[/quote]

Ours was 8079.

Going back to railways, the truth is that we're much better off today compared with the Tri-ang era as far as availability of rolling stock goes. What Tri-ang steam locos were available in the "good old days" ? For the LMS there was the Jinty, the Princess, and a 3F. For the GWR there was a big prairie and later a Hall. For the LNER a B12, then later Flying Scotsman. For the Southern a Battle of Britain, an L1 then later an M7.

Best regards,


Joe

[Geoff]

Every night I got home from school I had to go to the co-op and give the number for divi, hated the Co-op also

Can you still remember the Co-op divi number ?

Best regards,


Joe

4007 it was drummed into me 
[/quote]

Ours was 8079.

Going back to railways, the truth is that we're much better off today compared with the Tri-ang era as far as availability of rolling stock goes. What Tri-ang steam locos were available in the "good old days" ? For the LMS there was the Jinty, the Princess, and a 3F. For the GWR there was a big prairie and later a Hall. For the LNER a B12, then later Flying Scotsman. For the Southern a Battle of Britain, an L1 then later an M7.

Best regards,


Joe
[/quote]

The Tri-ang era, I can never remember which loco I had I think it was LMS but what I do remember is the controller it had a big rotary knob which went round in clicks, a bit prehistoric with today's controllers, one of the lads in the street had one of them clockwork engines and track it was much bigger than the 00 track, I bet that is worth a few bob today, I use to go to the station and take the numbers down of all the steam trains, trying to think what it cost for a platform ticket but it was only about a penny in old money and if I was lucky the driver would let me get up on the foot plate, wow grimy days do you think it was good that Steam Engines disappeared the way they did?

Another thing I remember seeing my first Deltic that was one beast as well the driver let off the horns when pulling away I will never forget that, also remember the first diesel DMU coming to the station there was a write up in the paper and there was quite a few people went to see it, never did like it steam engines were so on another planet they were magic just listen to this 62 year old fart chat.

[railsquid]

If it's not a stupid question, what's a divi number? 

[Geoff]

If it's not a stupid question, what's a divi number? 

Back in the 50's 60's and very early 70's if you had a Co-operative shop in your town you were allocated a dividend number and through the year your divi would tot up and at the end of year you would end up with free food, it came in handy at Christmas when folks would not have money to spend on luxury foods.

[Malc]

The Co-op still does divi, albeit with a swipe card instead of a divi number. Pay out is sometime this month.

[Ditape]

First of I will start with when I was a little un not boy, my first experience of model railways was my big brothers Tri-ang Silver and red Trans-continental set with I believe to be series 2 track (the grey stuff) which I started to show some interest in my big brother being 10 years my senior let me play with it and when he started work  he started to buy more stuff and we ended up out in the shed with quite a big layout with lots of track with electric points and I remember us having a Britannia,a Jinty, a Princess, a Dock shunter, a class 31? and a Electra with  overhead cables. This is where the model railway bug started it was my big brother Micheal's fault and as we all know once infected you suffer for life.

[daveg]

Every night I got home from school I had to go to the co-op and give the number for divi, hated the Co-op also

Can you still remember the Co-op divi number ?

Best regards,


Joe

1127 West Cornwall - circa 1956/7!

I had a Hornby oval; grey click-together track with 2 coaches and a loco - no idea what. I think it was battery powered.

We moved around quite a lot as dad was in the services. I don't remember it after leaving Northern Ireland for the West Country in 1956.

Dave G

[Jerry Howlett]

For the LMS there was the Jinty, the Princess, and a 3F. For the GWR there was a big prairie and later a Hall.

Splitting hairs, but the Triang "GWR" Prairie was 82002 a BR loco.  I know because I envied a friend of mine who had a GWR Prairie swapped it for 100 of my matchbox toys for it. All I had and a collection going back to the early 60's no boxes though.  A few days/ weeks / moments later I realised it was just the Airfix prairie with a cut up Princess chassis wedged into the body. The fact that I had a 4-6-2 prairie should have given me the clue...

Incidently my Jinty caused so much interference that the neighbours across the street (100 yards away) complained about the interference on their TV. A guy from the GPO appeared at our door with some fancy gear probably valves and made of Bakelite he plugged it all in put on his headphones and WINCED!!!   The official advice was NOT to run the Jinty during TV hours!!!

Jerry

[longbridge]

Ah Triang, it wasn't very pretty but plenty of people collect it these days, much of it still runs like a Swiss Watch, the only N gauge locos that stood the test of time was Minitrix, IMO both were a credit to their respective manufacturers they were built to last unlike some of the trash we get these days.

[Greybeema]

My first layout was a Hornby Triang 0-4-0, two opens and a toad brake.  I moved from there and was given by my brother 4-6-2 Pacific 6201 Princess Elizabeth which got repainted BR Green.  I also was given 70013 Oliver Cromwell and eventually Mallard. 

At some point I moved to modern traction and bought a few Lima Locos.  I aquired others but they got sold to fund N Gauge.

All that remain are here (sorry about the quality of the photo)

[Jerry Howlett]

It has been a long day but my final attack for the evening with all this modern technological stuff.  I had a Tri-ang RECORD !. It was a 45 (thats a black plastic round thing that old people put on things called record players).  It had a mixture of train noises as well as station announcements.  Don't think it ever made it into the charts though.  My failing memory thinks the cover was black white and red with a few trains pictured including a Brush A1A-A1A or a class 31 for the young uns.    Goodnight   Maa.

Jerry

[Trainfish]

You mean this one Jerry?

http://www.45cat.com/image/022/thumb/railway-rhythm-steam-locomotive-shunting-triang-railways-t.jpg

[silly moo]

I can remember going shopping with my mother accompanied by my little sister in the pram and stopping at the model railway shop which had a layout in the window. You could make the train go round by putting a penny in the slot.

I can also remember watching very grubby Q1 locos shunting at Feltham. After that we moved to Hayling Island which was even better because they had Terriers and two coach trains going across Langston bridge.

[Bealman]

I had Hornby tinplate 0 gauge clockwork at first. Then Lone Star 000 push along (which became N gauge.... yeah!).

Then I built a Kitmaster blue Deltic and bought a Triang guards van from the shop which is not there anymore (Bealman spur-of-the-moment UK adventure).

That was to give hints to me muther & fattha wot I wanted for Christmas 1962. I did not have any track, but the rails of the sliding doors on me mutha's sideboard were exactly 00 gauge!

That little van got pushed back and forwards heaps in the space of a foot or so, with a backscene of me Dad's beer glasses, but when I put the Deltic on with it there wasn't much room for movement!