Another one with the images all from Jon Attwood, as mine are in storage, we've looked at them before, but they are rather all over the place, with more in a follow-up than the original articles, and they are a bit far back on the Tag, but you can find them! Although, thanks are also due to Bernard Taylor for his help, previously.
Really nice to see all six in their Tri-Ang Railways guise, although I'm not sure if we've even seen the Minic Motorway versions? I have three sets, somewhere, or one? But don't seem to have shot them/it despite seeing them in passing several times since the original posts.
The mechanics, second up, were issued in white overalls/plastic as motor-racing personnel, in the Minic Motorway series, but - here - in blue as locomotive engineers.
The set of diminutive peeps for fitting into coaches, I can't remember if you had to unscrew the whole assembly, or if the roofs popped-off, they certainly popped-off some of the rolling-stock as I remember filling the container wagons with 'stuff'!
And when I say 'diminutive' I mean it, the restaurant-car's waiter has short legs to fit realistically, while the passengers are simply torsos, as the seats were simplified, presumably before someone thought about a set of figures! And the platform figures.
Ah-Ha! Rare as hen's teeth in rocking-horse droppings! The factory-painted crew from the boxed-set of Stevenson's 'Rocket', the first proper train with commercial pretensions, but not the first 'locomotive steam engine', Stevenson himself had built several, prior to Rocket.
The coach sets got a late issue in pink, or at least that used to be the 'received wisdom', having failed to find them in any packaging, I now have my doubts on what they were or who/how they were issued as/by?
They may have been supplied to someone else, or issued with one of the clockwork starter-sets, possibly as a generic, released through/under a chain's branding, one of the bigger department stores maybe? Not a vast question-mark, as we know they are the Tri-Ang sculpts, but something which might benefit from a little more digging?
To the far right of the line-up is one which may be a Hong Kong copy, it's hard to tell, but I have a set (we'll see later in this series of articles) of Airfix piracies which look very similar, an odd colour, whatever she is? Thanks, as always, to Jon for his contributions to all this.
Pics of unpainted set in packaging and the Minic motorway mechanics sent.
ReplyDeleteJ
I've just found them, Jon, thank you very much! I'll eMail you!
ReplyDeleteH
The 'odd coloured' seated woman appears to be from the Airfix Civilians set, or a copy of her.
ReplyDeleteI thought the same thing Gisby, and we will see those Airfix copies (they may be on the Airfix blog already?), but it's not clear if she's the Airfix pose or the Tri-ang pose, and the two are just women in pill-box hats and coats sitting with their legs together, so there are very similar anyway!
ReplyDeleteH
The two women are very similar, but not identical. The Airfix civilian lady has her hands separate, and resting on her thighs, Triang lady has her hands joined across her lap.
ReplyDeleteThat particular plastic really doesn't show details well in the pic, I'll try and dig out comparison shots with the factory painted Triangs and Airfix to send to the blog sometime in the week.
J
Cheers Jon, I wasn't going to call it until I'd checked it, and of course - all mine are in storage! I have a lead set of the Airfix, as well, which probably had a 'brand' at some point, they are on the Airfix post I think?
ReplyDeleteH