The 59 cat was Mr first I was a mere 6 and I got R3M set for Christmas, the DMU and battery controller. I was ecstatic on Christmas morning. I can still smell the box and the newness of it. Protected by mum and dad and living in a juvenile bubble. Wonderful days

Even though it is a fictional model, this loco in green has to be one of the most beautiful model trains every produced. That colour scheme is just glorious.

One of my favorite locomotives,, again sold it 30 years ago ,, but just bought another through Ebay

I must add, for vintage collectors, your site is an invaluable contribution. Your detailed analysis and review is found no where else.

Wonderful working time capsules

Hi Oscar As I said last time I had not had much to do with triang tc but that you had give me the nudge, well at a show today I bought my first set its the silver and red 3 set loco @2 driving cars with centre unit plus 4 coaches, all works fine and all for a princely sum of 30.00 what a bargain. Thanks Paul.

Great video Oscar. Really interesting to watch your video's, you have a wide range of model's in your collection.

Your collection of trains is truly amazing Oscar , love watching your videos .........Peter

Oscar, I do enjoy your videos, and I'm particularly enjoying this one, as I've recently picked up a pristine set of green Transcontinental coaches in boxes, as well as a play-worn set and loco which well be a restoration project in the near future. Thank you for what you do.

Hello, I always enjoy watching your interesting videos. very nice locos and passenger cars could be seen again today. the catenary looks great on your layout. cheers martin

What a great looking train.Thanks Oscar.!

The Real Budd Train Consist which was Operated by Canadian Pacific Railways , CP Rail, ( Train # 1 The Canadian ) which travels from Toronto to Vancouver ,, is Now Owned and Operated by Via Rail ,,, Budd Coaches restored to their Original , or first class state which i used to travel across Canada many times ,,, Wonderful Video

Absolutely wonderful presented beautiful models. Excellent as always.

Your videos are very informative as a Tri-ang collector myself from New Zealand I find them very helpfull. The duo tone livery I quite like I just need to find the baggage car and a locco to pull them

Hello Oscar. Well you've added to my knowledge of my models again. I have 3 of the coaches (not the observation dome though) but I really didn't know anything about them. I took them down from the display case this morning and ran them behind one of my R54 4-6-2 locos. I think it is a good match. I have a video coming out this Wed. showing the blue diesel stripped down to look like your service sheet at 5.19 in your video. Thank you as always for another fabulous video. Regards, David.

Thanks very much Oscar. I once got the green and orange version for Christmas many years ago.

My favourite locomotive R.159

Thanks for showing the items.

The transcontinental range certainly added glamour to the Triang range in the 60s, none more so than these green liveried items. Great video Oscar, really lovely models. In NZ the green livery was listed till the late sixties, but in saying that they are pretty rare here. We never got the pantograph loco, Only our red and blue diesel versions. Many thanks! Your videos are much appreciated.

Lovely video.

Didn’t a similar locomotive work the north east corridor between New York and Washington DC ,you lucky man Oscar my best friend had one well it was on his dad layout in his attic great memories again for a few minutes I’m 7 in the then new West Kensington estate and its 1975 my chopper sitting in his garden wish I was back there ,cheers Oscar 👍🏻😊

Ah the very rare green set ,, used to have the locomotive ,, on my bucket list again ,, only seen acouple greens in Canada , i had the only colours of the locomotive model , a wonderful performer,, i notice from the catalog ,, the coaches have the older bogies ,, never seen that before

The doble ended deisel loco is based on a Victorian Railways B class locomotive. nice vid mate

The skirts that I mentioned are also listed with different part numbers S 5436 for the R 357 and S 5377 for the R 159 locos

Great video Oscar she looks like a great loco

The coaches are really nice. A colour scheme like no other and so effective. I love that you can see the staircase in the observation car leading up to the dome on top. The locomotive is sort of like (inspired by) the Victorian Railways L class electric locomotive. Thanks for the fantasy and imagination. Cheers

A very nice set Oscar.

Looking in those catalogs and dreaming of all the locomotives I wanted.Memories Memories.

Hi Oscar, The diesel looks similar to an AC Gilbert American Flyer Newhaven diesel electric produced in the 50s. I don't have any of these examples, they are quite rare in Australia. And bring huge money as well. Just like the Mallard, another for my wish list. Thanks again for the production history, excellent.

Nice one . They certainly made max use of mouldings to deliver many different models .

That's great Oscar. I had the green and orange version..

Lovely video Oscar & Thank you! I would love for you to take a couple of minutes to show us which parts of the motor require lubricating, as I have have no idea with my models. The last time I had a go with the oiling pen I had oil spraying all over the track. Regards Kev

I model railways now in a variety of scales and nationalities, and use much too much money, entirely due to my fond memories of my first train set with the Triang black Princess Elizabeth R1X with grey ballasted track. I have even pre-ordered the memorial train set that celebrates this first Triang success. What was impossible to get as a child we sometimes overcompensate for later.

I love the sound that the loco makes and I have had a little bit of sucess with my single ended Transcontinental by replacing the original magnet with a neo magnet

Interesting video again Oscar. These coaches ended up being sold by the American company Model Power in various USA Railroad liveries. ( they were also available in Canada in CNR and CP liveries issued by Hornby

There is a difference between the two that I had never noticed before... The pilot skirts attached to the bogies are not the same, Their molded detail is quite different, even though the skirt is the same shape.. I think that the inspiration for this loco came from a Milwaukee Road "Little Joe"........ A group of locos originally built for Russia but remained in the USA..

Thanks for a relaxing video as the antidote to all that Covid-19 insanity which is on the television. R257 makes a good sound accelerating up the incline. It is great you have got it all working off the catenary. I have discovered you can't have two controllers operating the catenary as indicated in the Hornby manual. That's where the 'neutral' switch comes in!

I don't have room to re-start collecting the models yet but I might have to try and find some of the old catalogues in the interim, lovely things in their own right and they take up a lot less space.

I love the Transcontinental range. I run the locos and coaches mixed n' match as a generic US/Canada passenger train on my layout. There is something really satisfying about their design and construction.

Those diesels are very strong runners

Super video Oscar those Transcontinental carriages look really substantial but I suppose Transcontinental journeys were very long and the travellers would need comfort.

Oscar, From 14:06 , a very good power bogie for its time and still much to recommend it today. The list of model types using this bogie got very long as I thought about and looked up variations of this four wheeled power bogie. Used in the following models if you include the variations with different side frames, as Tri-ang did in the service sheets : R 55 Single ended Diesel from 1955 or 1956 with the introduction of this power bogie I think R 155 Diesel Switcher - 1957 R 156 SR Suburban Motor Coach -1957 R 157 Diesel Power Car (later 101 DMU) -1958 R 159 Double Ended Diesel - 1958 R 253 Dock Shunter - 1958 R 257 Double Ended Diesel with operating pantographs - 1959 (as originally described in some sources and the Australian instruction leaflet coming with locomotives and sets. So a lack of knowledge at Tri-ang Moldex about what a diesel was. ) R 450 NSW Suburban Motor Car with operating pantograph - 1960 ( a very rare semi scale Australia only production, but possibly too "suburban" to be popular even in Australia. ) R 555 Blue Pullman Power Car - 1963 R 753 AL1 Electric - 1964 or 1965 (After Tri-ang ditched the Hornby Dublo single axle drive unit after the 1964 Hornby-Dublo collapse and clear out) This is not counting many colour scheme and detail variations such as the R 353 Transcontinental version of the Dock Shunter. So ten body toolings used variations of this power bogie. Have I missed any? I think the key to it's quality is the use of ball bearings at each end of the shaft to deal with the thrust of the armature shaft and gearing. The robustness and high quality of the ball bearing design has made this such a long lasting bogie. The later Tri-ang bogies with the "bronze spider" wireless pickup, nylon axles and gears etc and no ball bearings do not give any where near as good service. Johns Amazing Trains went in to some useful detail of the problems that can occur with these late bogies and the difficulty repairing them. I recall the Model Railway Constructor Magazine, in the late 1970s, ran a series of articles on a very impressive large outdoor railway modelling the WCML in OO. The owner described how the Tri-ang motor bogie was the preferred bogie that he had found was up to the difficult task he had asked the models to perform with scale length trains outdoors under the overhead wiring.

The early version with orange and green was one of the most characterful locos ever made by Triang and the one I had would pull well and was very robust indeed. Amazing to think that electric locos made in this scale currently no longer operate on the overhead like the Triang (and Trix too). Have we gone backwards?

I have seen this locos in photos in contemporary literature ever since I have been interested in model railways and I have often wondered about it.

Brilliant video as always, just love your enthusiasm and your remarkable ability to judge what looks great not based on needing to be a photo replica. That long shot with the electric going over the grand victorian is a real pleaser. On a different note when you took the roof off the double cabbed diesel it answered why triang used four roof screws: it looks like they've used the existing wiring holes and just put the threaded washers into those, whilst keeping the diesel roof screws clear for the pantagraphs as you observed. The comparison was interesting: the bodies are identical, however the pilot aprons are different though. observe the change to the little "pockets" beside the coupling. strange triang should've changed the tooling for such a minor thing I would've thought

At 5:22 you ask why a set was not made with R 257 and the green coaches. I did see such a rare but uncatalogued set in about 1967 when very young. It was in the window of Edments store facing The Causeway in Melbourne Australia. Unusual for a jewelry, crockery and cutlery shop. Not only did the set have the R 257 duo tone green electric locomotive but also one of each of the four duo tone green coaches. As well as track it had a overhead catenary set included in the box. I paid particular attention to this as I had aspired to have the R257 locomotive and matching coaches as my appetite had been whetted by the edition 9 catalogue from 1963 but by 1965 was crest fallen that they were no longer in the price lists. This made me want them more. You always want what you can't have. However the price displayed, while not outrageous, was too much for me to contemplate asking to be added to my collection of second hand series 2 based (both couplers and track) Tria-ang. Extra competition for spending around this time for me was 1/24th scale slot cars. Doubt this was a documented set but likely a result of Edments interaction with the local Tri-ang Moldex factory to get rid of slow moving expensive stock. Had never come across Edments selling trains before or since as several of the then largest outlets for trains in Melbourne were within a few hundred metres. These being the Myer department store and the Model Dockyard. The Dockyard sold Tri-ang as the cheap option as well as imported Japanese brass equipment costing ten times as much with many other makes and parts in between. I wonder if anyone else in Melbourne around 1966 to 1968 had come across this set?

That Double Ended Electric loco seems to be based of the Victorian Railways L class

great video as usual.why dont they make these now.i had these as a child in the early 60s,

Thank you again for a very entertaining video. It must be very time consuming cleaning the overhead pantograph wires. Also do you get any sparking from the overhead contacts when viewed in the dark. Terry

Hi I wonder if you could help with information on wire size required when using a cdu.i am using the same type of points as yourself, but my points do not seem to snap over,I think I am using a wire size 7/.2 ,but I am being told in should be at least 16amg . Any advise would be appreciated. Thanks Pam

Love your videos. Look forward to every new episode. How did the shunter move on the same track as the loco but the loco didn't move? Do you have an isolated section?

I have R257. The wiring isn't that bad. I recently acquired the N2 clockwork loco as a birthday present and this prompted to look at my Triang collection again and to dig out the catenery. Perhaps you could talk about the catenery sets at some point

I usually do that both "bogie drive" upgrade on my old locos, even if I have to buy 3 of a similar or same model, to build one that is up to my expectations (on my class 31 I even had to cut and glue the top part, from one to the other, to mount the motor)!

Hi Oscar. In case you might want to know more about the prototype the R159 was likely to be based on, here is some more information on the likely prototype : Our local Victorian Railways B class here : kzfaq.info/get/bejne/i5ppgaeal56zh2Q.html (from a video covering VR locos from 1854 to about 1987) but with the Tri-ang cost saving approach of 1958 in going with the standard production 4 wheel bogie rather than develop a correct six axle power bogie. Was very a very popular model in Australia. A search for B74 Emd should show lots of vids of one of the preserved ones and perhaps others still in secondary service. The next class covered in the video is the L class double ended electric locomotive. This is the loco livery us Tri-ang minded early 60s kids wanted the R257 to have. I imagine some of the richer, senior and ambitious did a body swap so as to be more like an L class. We were largely resigned to the fact it was too unrealistic to expect a six wheel bogie. However about 50 years later we got our wish with the local Auscision L class model release. Some L class running on my club layout : kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rpOkjMSSsrq5Ymw.html filmed by a skilled club member.

Not sure about USA but I recently saw similar double ended Heritage locos on a video of Denmark railways.

Oscar, I have a similar model I can not run on the track I have tried everything. I thought the wheels were round the wrong way but still never worked. If I apply power to the engine coupling and the wires under the roof it works. I have tried everything still no pwr. Any ideas. Kind Regards Ken

Hi I like triang, I got some, but to buy parts, where can we contact ???? friendly Jacques

Is it not a Victorian Railways B Class loco, B72-B76 ? It looks almost identical.

Think this answers my question, my other question is does "Continental" reference the European or Australian continent, or neither??

How does British o or oo gauge compare with NA ho gauge?

Oscar the blind livered transcontinental diesel was. Based on the Victorian S class locos . However the Victorians railways also had L class electric locos which looked similar. For you edification here is a link to them kzfaq.info/get/bejne/f7V1p8V4yL3Tn6c.html

Hi Oscar, I've mentioned in another video some of the Tri-ang "Never Made" models. Those Duo-Tone green coaches look exactly like the Canadian National Railway's early paint scheme. Shame Tri-ang never offered those coaches with a single ended TC diesel in CNR two tone green colors. tri-ang.weebly.com/neverwazzas.html Even a R.55 with "Transcontinental" in duo-tone green would have been an interesting variation. I did find a picture of the Tri-ang green oil tanker car, www.hampshiremodels.co.uk/products/triang-r117-oo-gauge-bogie-oil-tanker-shell-green A very impressive looking model. Shame it's so hard to find one though. Lisa

What locomotive isis?