davebem

Its great to see farish invest in new wagon and loco toolings. I think they are missing a trick not mentioning the previous announced models due in the same quarter though? I guess the twins must of made commercial sense, but cant help but think we havnt had a restyled body 25/2,25/3 tooled since 1983 and this would of been higher up the list.. I also agree with Ben that the choice is great in N these days, even from the last 2-3 years as during the covid lockdowns you could hardly find any locos or rolling stock and ebay prices went up. Although I appreciate not to everyone's preferences, era and region maybe.

For those that wanted a green one, the fuel tanks are available too I can confirm are interchangeable! https://Bachmann-spares.co.uk/category/5-graham-farish-diesel-loco-spares/class-47/body-parts

Yes, the chassis is just a lower profile block and entirely new pcb for next 18 and speaker, the bogie tower is also lower. This means the new ones are a few grams lighter ( I had a touch of wheel slip on a 10 coach rake - nothing serious though). The light pcb now includes cab light at the top shown below. The only minor issue with swapping bodies is the cab interior moulding has been changed for the cab light to pass through, if you can live without cab lights or also swap the cab interior then its fine.

The buffer beam is a separate moulding that plugs into the bodyshell on the old and new releases. So the rails exclusive as well as the kernow and locomotion exclusives have the original valence but new chassis, the general releases all have the new Crewe cut buffer beam separate moulding along with the new chassis. The body shells on the Crewe cut ones have been slightly retooled so the bottom of the cab front runs flush with the cutaway. Rails have said the 158s are due in next 30 days.

Ive just ran in my new rails of sheffield exclusive 47628 and very impressed with it, looks great on my mk2f rake. The paint job is fantastic with a slight sheen to it and a smooth runner straight from the box. Its worth pointing out a few other changes theyve made to the 47s: - The chassis is a lower profile to fit the 1watt 8ohm speaker and next18 interface - The bogies have also been retooled to suit (note they are not interchangeable with the old tooling). - They now include a decent representation of snowploughs that plug into buffer beam moulding (although as 628 uses the original buffer beam tooling which has no holes for them, im assuming the crewe cut does?). - The lighting, all forward lights are a warm white (like the 31), there is switches inside for dc users to turn off the rear lights on dcc function 1 and 3 can control each end. Function 2 controls brake and cab lights are function 4 and 5. - Coreless motor. I really hope more colour schemes are released, I need a plain late 80s BR blue (with headlight and orange stripe).

Farish also did 47535 which had flush front at both ends, kernow have said the tooling doesn’t allow for one end only.

They still randomly uncouple or derail when coupled up to certain wagons or locos in long formations. They couple up well to Farish HEAs and Sonic VEAs, but not very well with TTAs, Polybulks, VDAs, and Ferry wagons, so Im having to use barrier wagons! Im going to fit NEM sockets soon.

The review in Rail Express magazine includes a tip to improve the running: loosen the 2 body to chassis screws so they are backed off enough to not be too tight, it stops the buffers bowing down which catches on the rapidos.

Excellent news about the 47s, think im going to pick up one of the exclusives, they are also down as Nov/Dec release so should be here for chistmas.

Excellent news, i hope theres a rerun of the loco hauled mk3s, although I think i can get away with putting the DVT on the end of a farish mk2f rake.

They look great, its still £7.46 cheaper than the graham farish version, so with that detail its a bit of a bargain.

Doh, missed the boat on these and didnt pre order. They look excellent, if anyone knows where 55992 (Red with gangways) is still in stock please let me know, tried all the usual places!

Ive just got around to detailing my Dapol Intercity Executive HST, the mk3s are fitted with light bars so the interiors are standing out but im not sure the seat colours are correct, can anyone recall what they should be for this era? TF - Blue seats 2+1 TRUB - Red seats 2+1 3X TS - Red seats 2+2 TGS - Blue seats 2+2

I think the quality of Bachmann/farish has been consistently good. I did have pickup issues with my grey 08 and started a thread on stay alive, but in the end I resolved my issues as the wiper contacts were contaminated with grease, cleaned and run it in and its fine now. Ive experienced pickup issues with farish 37s though, stay alive would be a good feature to have as standard (Id rather have it than a speaker!). Ive not had wheel back to back issues on any locos, although Ive had it on other manufacturers wagons. As someone else pointed out not all the track is the same, i recall the Kato unitrack is about 0.XX mm slightly wider than peco for example.

I think Dapol could use the same bogie tooling for the rear bogie (with the rapido coupling pocket attached) but turned to face the other way for the front.