Early attempts at three railing

You have to break a few eggs to make a good omelette.

Here are a few of the "eggs" from my first attempts...

Dapol class 155

I travelled on these during their very brief appearance before being sent for conversion into 153s and wanted one for the layout. Sadly there isn't really enough room under the bogies for a proper skate so flattened brass paper fasteners were used. It didn't really work and while it will still run in a straight line, it doesn't do points or corners due to the down-force exerted by the pick-ups. Maybe one day I'll get it running.

Lima class 33

I wanted a 33/1 due to my Southern region upbringing and this is the closest I've got so far.

Again clearance underneath was an issue, this has two small copper strips that were originally the two rail pick-ups from a hornby pacer. It runs but won't pull much more than its own weight. Possibly can be resolved by adding ballast.

 

Class 142 Pacer

The only three rail pacer in existence? - ironic really considering that in real life these things are banned from third rail areas!

My first three rail attempt of modern-ish stock. Bought cheap on eBay with broken couplings. These two carriages are joined together by connecting wires with a single Castle class plunger at each end. Although the springiness of the plungers reduces the downward force, this actually runs quite well and was used a fair bit on the portable layout when I first built it and had very little running stock. 

These days it's hardly used and I couldn't bring myself to exhibit this in public!

HST

Just about runs but won't pull more than three coaches. Another conversion using brass paper fasteners and there isn't much clearance under the bogies. Fine on track without too many points, so doesn't get much use now.