Monday, August 6, 2018

TT Station

Each system of model railways has it's own distinct character, and this is what I hope to show with each of the layouts in the Trainbarn.  With the Tri-ang TT layout that I'm focusing on at the moment the locomotives and rolling stock are mostly smaller sized versions of Tri-ang's OO system, however the buildings and accessories are completely different.  Apart from the smaller size it's these features that really identify this as a Tri-ang TT layout.


This iconic Tri-ang TT art-deco style station arrived today, and I had great fun placing it on the layout.  It's approximately 60 years old, virtually 'as-new' and didn't cost an arm and a leg.  Some TT items are quite expensive, but the station is relatively common, so you can just wait until you find one in the right condition and a favourable price.  My (invisible) TT passengers are still in danger of falling off the non-track side of the platform, so the search continues for the attractive platform walls.  Also, the station remains anonymous, so one or more seat units with the station name needs to be sourced.  There was a considerable choice of station names, I'm not fussy at the moment, whatever I can find first!

Being a fairly short-lived system there aren't the wide choices of other non-train accessory items that there are with OO scale.  Wherever possible I try to only incorporate items that would have been available during the period the trains were being produced, which with British TT is quite limiting!  Researching old magazines to learn what was around in the appropriate period is great fun, but very time consuming!  Then you have to actually find the item!  For example, TT scale cars from that era are very few, but some of the smaller Matchbox and Minix cars can be used successfully.