Evanelpus

Nice video! Once you get them going, they can run quite nicely as long as the wheels are true, I've got a couple of locos with seriously out of round wheels, especially pony truck wheels. The main problem is getting them started! A rapid number of flicks of the contoller throttle can fire them up, My solution was to get a Hornby controller and wire in a button that bypasses the throttle control to send a pulse of 12 volts straight into the track. Set the throttle at about half way, then hit the button and said loco lurches into life!

I have 8 early Prairies, 5 in working condition. One is the earliest incarnation in that it was originally in kit form and has GP5 style wheels that are friction fit onto the axles. The next version had King style wheels attached by screws into the axles as shown in the video. 3 of the other working models have repro white-metal chassis produced by Weico models in Australia at one stage. The axle bearings were quite crude and the models have excessive clearance which can make them seize up when test-running whilst stationary. The last running model is 3-rail, I have posted a photo of this loco in an earlier post. I'd probably have enough bits to make several more static models but as all the chassis are affected by zinc pest I feel it's pointess making any more.

The switch mechanism behind the motor needs to be set up correctly in order for the motor to start running from rest. There is obviously enough clearance between the contact pieces or else the motor wouldn't turn over at all. Make sure that at rest, both contact springs are resting on the contact points on the same side, that is, at rest left, both contact springs touching left point. At rest right, both contact springs touching right. Also, once the crank arm is mid way between the two points, none should be touching. Also, check the clutch. It shouldn't engage until the motor has done at least 2 or more revolutions. I hope that all makes sense. If not, perhaps I'll draw some diagrams. I've spent the last 30 odd years maintaining Farish motors so I've got a good idea of what's required to get them operating correctly.

Thanks to all those who commented. It had been suggested that the cab walls and roof may have been cream, but the light green colour makes more sense being SR practise to begin with. I can certainly attest to the calming effects of light green on the eyes, being a watchmaker for over 35 years and working with light green workmats all that time!

That and the prohibitively high price.

I just recently purchased a Golden Arrow kit of the Bulleid Leader. The kit comes with cab interiors for both driving cabs and the fireman's cab. I intend to make all the cabs visible so I'm wondering if there are any photos of the cab interiors other than the photo in the Kevin Robertson book and if anyone knows what the colour scheme was. I was told that all the hot surfaces (smokebox, firebox etc) were most likely black but what about the walls and ceiling etc? Plus, the moulding of the firebox interior shows it having a wooden floor. Would this have been painted or bare wood? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The Hudson used the same 2 pole motor that all the early locos used. Even the early Prairie had it. Can supply photos if required.

I have one as well and the last time I tried it out, it seemed to work fine. Not overly noisy but the motor whine is noticeable. As I'm in Australia it's unlikely one would want to pay the postage to get mine.

Yes, the Pullmans suffered quite a bit with both metal fatigue and cellulose acetate warping. If the bogies didn't fall apart, then the body shrinkage would bow the chassis if the chassis casting didn't expand anyway! Best pullmans to get for operational purposes are the 60's all-plastic ones. The bodies are polystyrene so no warping and the ones with metal bogies are free of fatigue due to less impuities in the casting metal. These pullmans were always rather expensive to get second hand because at the time they were the only ready to run examples of match-board sided stock available. Since the advent of modern image versions, one could wonder if the price may go down?

Hutchinson Roe were one of the MANY sub-companies owned and run by Graham Farish. They seemed to have companies for every facet of their operation! Seems a very "modern" idea by today's standards!

Il Grifone: Yes, the expense would have been a major inhibitor. Why buy one Farish Loco when you could buy a Dublo set for the same price! Not even mentioning the Hudson which would have sent you back a whopping £9/11! As for Farish agencies, I'm not that knowledgable on the subject. Period promotional infomation suggested that certain retailers in the UK were supposed to be Farish service agents, whether this was actually the case in reality is unknown to me. I do own a (alleged) Farish service agent's spares box that contains a varied assortment of spare parts in cute little stiff card boxes, each with hand-typed labels. The box also contains several obviously used and damaged parts, which suggests to me that it was actually used by someone to do repairs. How many of these went into circulation I'd love to find out. As for the inability to negotiate curves, I'm not so sure. I guess it would depend on the quality of the trackwork. I've had all manner of Farish locos running on friend's layouts using modern code 100 trackwork without incident. The GP5 with the 23 Tri-ang coaches as mentioned before was of particular note, the only real problem it experienced on that day was it tended to pull the coaches over when going around the tighter curves!

5050: If you buy yourself a Dapol/Airfix/Kitmaster Battle of Britain kit, a Tri-ang/Hornby version of the Flying Scotsman chassis, and a Tri-ang Winston Churchill (or just the driving wheels!) and a little kit-bashing later, you could have yourself a rather nice working Merchant Navy Port Line! The Scotsman chassis is the corrct wheelbase length for the MN, and gives you a pair of connecting rods too. Here's a nice conversion I saw on eBay recently, pity I missed it!

Hi spet0114, Farish OO locos did suffer from the dreaded zinc-pest, probably moreso than Tri-ang and Hornby but much the same as Trix. (common casting company perhaps?) There are few locos in my collection that have been completely spared in one way or another. It's strange, but certain parts seem to be more prone to failure than others. GP5's seem to suffer the least with fatigue, although I do have some failed chassis in my spares box and one body showing fatigue, though this is unusual in my experience. The Kings and Spam Cans suffer a lot in the tender gearbox and loco chassis, and the Spam Can trailing truck is also commonly fatigued. Once again I have seen bodies with fatigue, and it is common to see the tender sideframes bent with fatigue, but still usable. The early prairie chassis and gearbox were particularly susceptible, but being a watch repairer, I have access to fine casting equipment and have produced a number of reproduction castings for the tender and prairie gearboxes in silver for myself. I used silver because it is much harder than white metal and once oxidised it looks exactly like the original mazak castings, although a little expensive to produce on a large scale. I have 3 Hudsons and only one shows some fatigue in one side of the tender chassis casting. I am one who believes that once fatigue has taken hold, it will run its course fairly quickly, and mildly fatigued castings that are over 50 years old have gotten as bad as they will ever get and with careful handling, will not deteriorate further. I have filled the cracks of many Spam Can trailing trucks with araldite and they seem strong and able to take reasonable handling without difficulty. The problems really arise when the castings warp or expand, and chassis are rendered useless when this happens. I have a few "Modern" locos (Lima especially) in my collection that are already showing metal fatigue problems after 20 years!

....And here's a picture of the Farish motor. Note that this is the early version with the centrifical clutch mounted just after the gearbox. Most Spam Cans had the later arrangement of the coiled spring type clutch. These early Spam Cans are extremely rare.

Hi 5050. Yes, you are right. The wheels were quartered using a flat cut into the end of the axle, but unlike the K's wheels, the "D" shape didn't go all the way through the wheel. The outside centre of the wheel was a small countersunk hole in which the screw head fit. The only difference was the early prairie and Spam Can (as pictured above) which all used the same design of wheel as the GP5, just friction fit onto the shaft. The early BR Spam Cans had the crest much lower, and not as finely detailed as the later crests. I've seen a few oddities as well, like a Brocklebank Line in Southern Green, but with BR cabside numbers. Yet, the tender still had "Southern" on it! This also seems to be limited to the early models. I have a very poor condition body only in this colour scheme, I'll try and post a photo soon. The strange Farish 2-pole motors were the main reason for the failure of OO Farish in my opinion. They have no brushes, relying instead on a pair of switches mounted on an eccentric cam to control the polarity of the wound field. The central core was a large cylindrical magnet which acted like a fly-wheel and made the motors immensely powerful, I've had a GP-5 pulling 23 Tri-ang Mk 1 coaches (no pin-point axles here!) with no hesitation on a friend's layout many years ago. The main problemwas they were so unreliable. The earlier versions in the GP-5 and the Prairie kit used a centrifical clutch which allowed the motor to start spinning before engaging the wheels, this seemed to work OK but the locos did start with an almighty "Clunk"! Later versions of the motor used in the Spam Can, King, Prairie and Hudson depensed with the clutch in favor of a coiled spring, which was supposed to flex a little and help the motor to kick over a little before taking on the load. This design failed miserably as the motors often would sit there and vibrate whilst not actually engaging until a violent toggle of the controller would kick them over (sometimes!) Also, if the loco was running and for some reason lost power, or became derailed, the motor had so much momentum that it would tangle the spring into a knotted mess before the motor came to a stop. This is why so many Farish locos have been re-motored, they just weren't reliable. I've included a close -up of the Spam Can crest, you may be able to make out it says "Belgium Marine" rather than "Belgian Marine"! I have never seen a Port Line or Exeter in the earlier version.