Farish N - 50 years

[John M Upton]

I have taken a punt and splashed out a tenner on a spares or repair old 0-6-0 tank. The "non runner" does after some cleaning of forty plus years of grot out of it actually run although the wheels need replacing, they are rotating on the axles, going out of quartering and sending the coupling rods flying across my desk!!

Edited October 8, 2020 by John M Upton

[Roy L S]

The wheels rotate out of synch due to split gears on the driven axles, this causing the rods to drop off, the design and execution of the chassis was so dreadful that this fate awaited a very high percentage of model, some after hardly any time at all. The warranty back then was one month!!

 

Good job the new chassis with integral motor followed not too long after these!

 

Roy

[BernardTPM]

That's the first series 'GP' tank, based on the GER J69 but without the toolboxes on the tanks and the dome repositioned. This would have a different tooling section for the top surface details, but the other surfaces would have been the same. This was produced to give something for LMS and Southern modellers. The GWR already had the 94xx, Farish's first N Gauge loco.

I do wonder though how many people were put off N Gauge by that awful chassis with it's self-destruct tendencies. The design was used for at least 5 years and can be found under Spam Cans and Halls too.

I believe the very first 94xxs from 1970 had a different design, but then it was altered to this style in 1971.

[Roy L S]

Yes, the original 94xx design was completely different, much better design and quality. 

 

Looking at the designs side by side, I would think that the change was about cost, the second version is truly cheap and nasty.

 

Roy

[CF MRC]

Before I made a model of the Lickey Banker, I used to use two of these for banking trains up my 1:37 gradient. The noise was deafening. 
 

Tim

[Hailstone]

My first experience of N gauge was in the early 70's when I bought a 94xx and a couple of Minitrix chocolate and cream coaches and an oval of track, to which was added a J69 when they first came out, bought at the Central hall exhibition in London and which promptly shed its coupling rods when I got it home! I returned to the exhibition the next day and got a replacement after the Farish staff embarsasingly had several failures straight out of the box while testing them on an adjacent layout!

wagons were added including 3 kits( by Coopercraft I think) all of which I still have with the exception of the coaches. ater a while I carried on with OO gauge until I got involved with full size steam locos at Didcot  and moved into a small flat, get married and have a family which saw all model railway activity cease until 2004 when Dapol brought out their 14xx which got me to dust off the N gauge stock and start again.

As for the model I most wanted - the Blue Pullman! it arrived whist I was laid in bed recovering from a broken ankle and so desperate was I to run it that I crawled to the wardrobe, got out the test track and ran it on the bed!     

 

Regards,

 

Alex

[BernardTPM]

Coopercraft never did N gauge wagon kits, but in the early 1970s the wagon kits could have been those by Westwater & Kirk (W&K).

[Hailstone]

I still have all 3 of them, they currently live on top of my tool cabinet

 

Regards,

 

Alex