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Farish N - 50 years


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I always thought the turning point for GF was the HST , 47 and 37 introduced in 1981 . The Met Camm and 20 followed on . Before that time I never really looked at GF , to me that’s what established them as a serious possibility . Had plans , and even now still consider N for a layout in the office when I retire .  Never did make the transition though . 

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On 29/07/2020 at 14:45, AY Mod said:

 

What was the first 5-pole motored loco? I'm trying to recall the first blackened wheel loco too even though that's far more recent.


Hi Andy,

 

I had a Poole produced Class 33 with blackened wheels.  It was released just after Bachmann took over.  One can only assume they were “testing” this feature at the Poole factory.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Paddy

 

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The marketing of Farish was excellent and way ahead of its time, certainly in model railway terms.  You can tell that Peter GF had worked as a professional marketing person earlier in his career.  The adverts, packaging, presentation made GF look far larger than it actually was.

 

I was fortunate to visit the Poole factory in 1999 (if memory serves) with Chris Leigh and Nigel Harris from Model Rail.  We had a wonderful tour and pub lunch with Peter.  I came away impressed and also surprised as how small the factory actually was.

 

Kind regards 

 

Paddy

 

Edited by Paddy
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49 minutes ago, Paddy said:

The marketing of Farish was excellent and way ahead of its time, certainly in model railway terms.  You can tell that Peter GF had worked as a professional marketing person earlier in his career.  The adverts, packaging, presentation made GF look far larger than it actually was.

 

I was fortunate to visit the Poole factory in 1999 (if memory serves) with Chris Leigh and Nigel Harris from Model Rail.  We had a wonderful tour and pub lunch with Peter.  I came away impressed and also surprised as how small the factory actually was.

 

Kind regards 

 

Paddy

 

I always thought the boxes with the double yellow stripes always looked rather striking. They looked cool stacked up in the stock box. 

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Ok so I am fortunate to say that I worked for Graham Farish (Grafar) right up until the end and even helped pack the machines, moulds and tools in to the container to send them on there way to China.  I was one of 4  (from a workforce of 35 ish) that produced the entire range of products.  The print shop had a team of 4 ladies who printed everything.  I am proud to have made history in producing a British made product, I am also proud to have gone around the UK and helped promote N Gauge,  (yes I was the tall one who had his hair on fire from the lights of the stand!!).  Along with my Father Marten Richter, who was the agent for Grafar until the end, he travelled half the UK going in to Model Shops , getting the sales . It was Father Farish (Thomas Graham Farish) who gave my father a job and it was his son Peter who gave me the job.  I have to say it was the best company to work for, and the one time I only ever had to complain the matter was dealt with, while I was attending an exhibition.

 

Perhaps one day I may sit and write my own history of working for the company and give further insite in to how much extra work I did, apart from my job in the loco shop.  It is a shame that many of the people behind the product never got the thanks that they deserved.  if you have ever seen the Model Rail video I do appear on it, never has it taken so long to make one loco than it did with that take!!!

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For most people their first train set was probably a OO gauge Hornby.  But I can remember when I was about 12 my dad decided to build a trainset and we went to the signal box model shop in Coalville (now in anstey) and we came home with this beauty.  'Masterpieces in minature' they certainly were!

 

540x360.jpg

Edited by davebem
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4 hours ago, Matthew Richter said:

Ok so I am fortunate to say that I worked for Graham Farish (Grafar) right up until the end and even helped pack the machines, moulds and tools in to the container to send them on there way to China.  I was one of 4  (from a workforce of 35 ish) that produced the entire range of products.  The print shop had a team of 4 ladies who printed everything.  I am proud to have made history in producing a British made product, I am also proud to have gone around the UK and helped promote N Gauge,  (yes I was the tall one who had his hair on fire from the lights of the stand!!).  Along with my Father Marten Richter, who was the agent for Grafar until the end, he travelled half the UK going in to Model Shops , getting the sales . It was Father Farish (Thomas Graham Farish) who gave my father a job and it was his son Peter who gave me the job.  I have to say it was the best company to work for, and the one time I only ever had to complain the matter was dealt with, while I was attending an exhibition.

 

Perhaps one day I may sit and write my own history of working for the company and give further insite in to how much extra work I did, apart from my job in the loco shop.  It is a shame that many of the people behind the product never got the thanks that they deserved.  if you have ever seen the Model Rail video I do appear on it, never has it taken so long to make one loco than it did with that take!!!


Hi Michael 

 

Would love to hear more of your stories from Graham Farish.  I am surprised no one has written a book before now e.g. Peter Farish.

 

Kind regards 

 

Paddy

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9 minutes ago, Matthew Richter said:

Paddy,

 

As I said maybe one day, but even if I did write said book, I have no idea how to get it published, and the market for such a book would be very small.  But as I said one day it may happen.

 

Matthew

You can self publish via amazon now, it is very easy and in many situations free. 

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Maybe offer to do some articles for a modelling magazine to gauge interest. I'd certainly read them.

 

Even at the time I had mixed felling about Bachmann taking over. There have been some great models. but prices have shot up, supply has collapsed and all the jobs and profit goes to China... 

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1 hour ago, fezza said:

There have been some great models. but prices have shot up, supply has collapsed and all the jobs and profit goes to China... 

 

We know the reasons for price increases and not all jobs and profit have gone to China - mainly just the manufacturing. Specification, sales, marketing, after sales service support and so on have remained here. Bachmann Europe has a sizeable UK based operation with offices, workshops and warehousing with quite a few employees; sales staff, office admin, designers, warehouse workers, delivery drivers, exhibition staff, etc.

 

 

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2 hours ago, fezza said:

prices have shot up, supply has collapsed and all the jobs and profit goes to China... 

 

Grahame has more than adequately explained so I hope you can understand those facts any do not  repeat your misguided xenophobic perspectives again. Supply has far from collapsed as you will see in mag reviews of new products over the next few months.

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Blimey mate - I didn't mean any offence. I don't think it's xenophobic to want to retain jobs and profits in your own country. I think accusing me of xenophobia is really a bit off... 

 

Graham's news is welcome, but I think it is clear that a lot that what has been long promised has taken a while to appear. That's surely fair comment / opinion? If it is arriving soon then that's great and I'll be the first to welcome it. 

 

Again no offence intended. 

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Most of the cost comes from duty taxes and freight costs of shipping from China to the UK, If any of you still have an old 1997 pricelist, you can then work out the costs from that.

 

In answer to a couple of questions raised, the first 5 pole motor came in back in 1984/85, the blackened wheelsets did indeed come in to production towards the end of the Poole operation, around June 2000, the first locos to feature them were the Class 33, (FA83111) and the Virgin 47 named after the company.   I do know that there was a lot of design work being done by the Poole designers, no I will never let on what was in the design stages.

 

I will say this most of the train sets were actually thought through by myself and my father, it was both of us that persuaded Peter Farish to do the named locos that were in the trainsets, and also the named Pullmans, we did also put forward the idea of changing the running numbers on all of the coaching stock and freight stock, the PCA's and PGA's being the first ones that had different running numbers.  

 

 

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43 minutes ago, D9020 Nimbus said:

What surprises me is that Bachmann don't seem to be celebrating this in any way—quite unlike how Hornby mark their anniversaries.

 

Agreed; in theory, all the moulds for the older models should still exist, or at least they could do some retro packaging. I'd love a "collectors edition" old style tank loco or shunter for example. It's almost like Bachmann are embaressed by it.

 

That said, if they did a special model for this one, it might turn up into shops in time for the 100th anniversary ;)

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2 hours ago, Ben B said:

 

Agreed; in theory, all the moulds for the older models should still exist, or at least they could do some retro packaging. I'd love a "collectors edition" old style tank loco or shunter for example. It's almost like Bachmann are embaressed by it.

 

That said, if they did a special model for this one, it might turn up into shops in time for the 100th anniversary ;)

I doubt Bachmann would waste a slot for a good blue riband model to re-run an old 47, black 5 or 94xx model.

 

Hornby has plenty of collectors to soak up it's specials and none of their anniversary models are actually using old mouldings, they are all new but retro style where appropriate, the anniversay Duchess even though metal is a fine locomotive.

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3 hours ago, Ben B said:

 

Agreed; in theory, all the moulds for the older models should still exist, or at least they could do some retro packaging. 

 

Retro packaging could be interesting although TBH the style hasn't massively changed over the years and the corporate colours are still used.

 

I don't think models from old moulds would be an attractive proposition. Who'd want less detailed models that needed converting to DCC? They'd have to develop and produce suitable chassis to fit and I was under the impression that the old Poole Farish tooling/moulds were difficult to use in China as they didn't easily fit the machinery and wouldn't work well with the higher injection pressure used in China.

 

Some of that Poole retro range is still available on eBay for those interested. It was crude and basic by today's standards but was relatively bulletproof.

 

 

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I was thinking they might have done a 94xx — they have the research from the OO model, and it could possibly use the old 57xx chassis. Mind you, I'd prefer a J69 but it hasn't even been done in OO yet, and might be as tricky to do as a DCC-ready loco in N as was the J72…

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I don't think it would be possible anyway as I suspect most of the old Poole tooling that isn't still in production has probably been long since melted down and scrapped.

Edited by John M Upton
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