Table Top

I've heard many retirees make the comment that they wonder when they ever had time to go to work!  While I'm not exactly retired as such, I've been incredibly busy these last few months, and find myself wondering the same thing.  Lots of things have been happening on many fronts, but the most relevant and interesting for this blog is of course the trains!

For many years I've been planning to build various layouts for different train systems when the space to do so became available.  One of these is the TT gauge system introduced by Tri-ang in Britain in 1957.  This was not really planned to be my 'first' layout in the Trainbarn, but the more I thought about it the more I realised 'why not'!  I have collected bits a pieces for this over the years but didn't really know what I had or what I still needed for this collection.  The obvious answer was to build a layout, which immediately showed up the gaps.

Tri-ang introduced TT, which stands for table-top, as a small sibling of it's very popular OO gauge system.  OO is 4mm to one foot scale, whereas Tri-ang TT is 3mm to one foot.  At the time it was released it was the smallest commercial scale, but was soon usurped by N scale which is smaller again.  The advantage of TT is that you can build a more comprehensive layout in the same space as compared to OO, or build a basic layout in a smaller space, ie a table-top.  Combined with the rise of N scale and the fact that many Tri-ang dealers disliked having to stock two complete systems instead of one, sales of TT soon declined.  It was finally abandoned by Tri-ang in 1968.  Incidentally, TT is still very popular indeed in the eastern part of Germany, though to a slightly smaller scale.

So, here is a 'classic' Tri-ang TT layout, built on a sheet of plywood 1200mm x 2400mm, though I would've preferred 4' x 8'!!

Of course it's not finished, how boring would that be!!  But it's a very good start and I can clearly see what I still need to look out for.  It is basically two ovals joined by points and will eventually have lots of sidings and an engine shed to display as much as possible of the TT range of rolling stock.

These little trains are amazing, they're so simple and well engineered.  I give everything a good check over and lubrication as necessary and they just go! And go, and go.  I really like this Southern Region 'Spam Can'!  It needs some more green carriages, the search is on!  One thing about Tri-ang TT generally that I'm finding is that being so shortlived - dare I say 'unpopular', there are lots of items available in either new or very good condition.  Many items seem not to have been played with very much.

For example this set:-

It has been carefully used, but not too much.

This 'Jinty' tank loco was probably the most common loco in the TT range.

The layout has been great fun to build and I've learnt a few lessons from it that I can apply to other layouts.  It is obviously still a work in progress, though even as it is now it's great fun to operate!  The contra-rotating trains don't seem to miss each other by very much on the parallel tracks, particularly the curves, but that's how it was designed.

As I develop this layout in the coming months I'll post some updates, meanwhile a start has been made on layout number two!