Farish GWR Castle Class

[HRH_Dan_Hull]

Because this stuff is horrendous!

 

Cheers,

Alan

 

What stuff?

[Dr Al]

What stuff?

Bullfrog snot.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[HRH_Dan_Hull]

Bullfrog snot.

 

Cheers,

Alan

 

In what way exactly is it 'horrendous'? From my own experience it has made quite a few N gauge locomotives actually useful and able to run with scale length trains and has proved far more reliable than traction tyres, however I will concede that it can be tricky to apply initially before you get used to it.

[dpgibbons]

Any thoughts on Next18 decoders for the Castle?  I have ordered a Zimo MX618N18 which seems to tick all the boxes on fit and features and is only GBP18.

[Mike at C&M]

GWR version (372-030) now being sent out to retailers.

[Dr Al]

In what way exactly is it 'horrendous'? From my own experience it has made quite a few N gauge locomotives actually useful and able to run with scale length trains and has proved far more reliable than traction tyres, however I will concede that it can be tricky to apply initially before you get used to it.

 

To me it seems a crude solution to any problem - the metal wheel tyres should have a groove in them to accept this (or a traction tyre) so the loco sits correctly - otherwise you risk lifting other pickup wheels off the track, adding to the loss in pickup footprint already introduced by sticking snot on wheels that almost always would be pickup wheels otherwise.

 

Add to that the likely inability to get a uniform thickness layer, then you'll have risk of wobbles galore (sounds like a Bond villian......). This is something I work to remove on so many N gauge models - wobbles and poor pickup! Dapol tyres are a good example - many a wobbly Britannia , A3 or A4 is all down to a wonky set of traction tyres. I've changed litereally 10's of these on countless locos.

 

Bullfrog snot is an ideal way to introduce all those problems back to the table. No thanks, I'd hope there are far better engineering solutions!

 

I'm not sure what locos need this either - I've yet to encounter anything other than the Farish V2 that is really on the edge of having enough traction - and the V2 can be made superior with simple weighting.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[queensquare]

To me it seems a crude solution to any problem - the metal wheel tyres should have a groove in them to accept this (or a traction tyre) so the loco sits correctly - otherwise you risk lifting other pickup wheels off the track, adding to the loss in pickup footprint already introduced by sticking snot on wheels that almost always would be pickup wheels otherwise.

 

Add to that the likely inability to get a uniform thickness layer, then you'll have risk of wobbles galore (sounds like a Bond villian......). This is something I work to remove on so many N gauge models - wobbles and poor pickup! Dapol tyres are a good example - many a wobbly Britannia , A3 or A4 is all down to a wonky set of traction tyres. I've changed litereally 10's of these on countless locos.

 

Bullfrog snot is an ideal way to introduce all those problems back to the table. No thanks, I'd hope there are far better engineering solutions!

 

I'm not sure what locos need this either - I've yet to encounter anything other than the Farish V2 that is really on the edge of having enough traction - and the V2 can be made superior with simple weighting.

 

Cheers,

Alan

I'd agree with everything Alan has said - except that Wobbles Galore sounds more like a Bond girl than a villain:-))

 

Jerry

[Ed-farms]

The new Hornby Magazine has a review of Nunney Castle and really praises the sound, however I could see no mention of the haulage capability of the model. Not sure if that is good news or not.

[dpgibbons]

The June RM review of the late-crest Castle reports haulage capacity of 4xMk1 on a curved 1 in 30 and at least twice that on the level. 

[Ed-farms]

Hornby magazine has put a video out to show off the osund - seems to cope with 7 Mark 1's on the level, including a standing start

 

[Chris M]

As I said a while ago, they are fine on the flat pulling full length trains with no problem but not great on gradients.

[Crumplezone]

Well I had Tiverton Castle delivered today and its a very nice loco indeed, the detail is pretty amazing just how small this loco is and the livery application looks great, they seem to have got the green atleast right to my eyes.

I won't comment on haulage, since I don't have access to the layout at the moment but I did pop it on a dcc concepts rolling road and ran it in for abit. I did note it seem to be abit louder than previous new releases, e.g. southern N class and the 64xx pannier, there seems to be more noise from the motor compared to those ones and the connection rods and slide bar seem to create slightly more noise than other locos I have, its actually more on the level of my duchess of hamilton which wasn't whisper quiet.

I did note abit of a wobble in reverse but I suspect its down to the rolling road and the loco being supported on tender, 2 drive wheels and the front bogie, I did pull out abit of spare straight track and it seem to be quieter and not as noticable wobble to it, so I might chalk this down to the rolling road rather than the castle being the issue.

I did oil the motor bearing and the bits is says for lubrication encase it had all turned googey and ran it a hour in each direction and it was kinda the same noise level and wobble on the rolling road, lifting the castle off its drivers and just power through the tender just created the connection rod and slide bar movement sound, so I think the loco is ok.

Does anyone believe I should maybe return the loco to the retailer and have it replaced, encase its abit of a duff, or is the sound level you get from yours about the same?

Edit Update: I popped down 2 metres of flexi-track on the kitchen work tops and gave Tiverton Castle afew back and forwards at slow and medium and high burst speeds, its noise level certainly doesn't reflect what I heard on the rolling road, its slightly noiser going forward than it is reverse ( e.g. you hear the motor groan but not accessive) and there is no side to side wobble present when on actual track so maybe that was related to the rolling road and being suspended up, I would say the noise going forward is no worse than a farish diesel and it certainly isn't Dapol level of motor grind/growl, so might give it a 2-3hour run in forward and add abit more lubrication oil to have it abit more happy in forward. I think it will be unoticable when it has 5 mk1s behind it and moving at about 45-50% on a guagemaster combi anyway.

I did note the engine part of the loco feels abit light on the weight side to, so maybe the lack of weight is the reason its abit noiser, the duchess of hamilton I had felt the same, quite lightweight and that made a decent bit of noise in forward.

Edit 2: I picked up a Sir Daniel Gooch which had just come in to my  local model shop and have run it as per the Tiverton Castle. It doesn't have the wobble or tendency to push to its right side while on the rolling road or track and it certainly doesn't have what sound like a gear/motor grind when running between 30-50% on the combi controller in forward.

When I popped the loco body off and ran the loco like that on the rolling road Tiverton's forward drive wheel is wobbly quite abit, what I mean by wobble is not the drive wheels moving horizontal through the chassis left to right as it would around curves and such but the actual wheel looking from a vertical point of view down at the wheel from above its got a left to right wobble like the wheel hasn't been put on the rod straight.

I'm going to give the retailer a ring tomorrow and see if they will do a return and replace while checking the replacement to see if its got the same issues or not, certainly Sir Daniel Gooch doesn't have the issues and is whisper quiet compared to Tiverton castle. I'm hoping its not a batch issue and rather just my loco.

 

Edited May 13, 2017 by Crumplezone

[Crepello]

Very pleased with 'Sir Daniel Gooch' which arrived yesterday. No haulage problems (6 current mark 1s on a level layout) and the front bogie gap can be lived with. There's a answer for those with gradients--double-heading; plenty of pics around with Halls,Warships, 22s etc.

[Guest Midland Mole @ Footplate]

5044 Earl of Dunraven & 5070 Sir Daniel Gooch are now in stock with us.

 

Alex @ Footplate

[Stevelewis]

Sound on  Board  version  (GWR as Preserved)  now  flagged  as  Late  June/July

[Ed-farms]

Sound on  Board  version  (GWR as Preserved)  now  flagged  as  Late  June/July

 

I always thought it was down as June/July

[70021 Morning Star]

Replacing Graham Farish's horrible painted metal "coal" with a realistic REAL COAL load.
 
I don't know about you guys, but I as extremely dissatisfied that Graham Farish have fitted another of their painted lumps of metal (as a way of weighting the tender) to represent a coal load. It looks like the kind of thing I'd expect to see in a 1960s model, and the lumps of coal are far too small for anything other than a preserved locomotive. Period locomotives were coaled with large (often enormous!) lumps of Welsh Steam Coal!
 
So, as I'm a model designer, I immediately wanted to replace that painted lump with REAL COAL and do something about improving the shape of the hopper and detailing thereof.
 
This particular project proved a real faff. There's not much space inside the tender due to the way GF have mounted the DCC chip blanking plug on the analogue model. I wanted my coal load to be slightly higher at the back, and to slope downwards towards the locomotive cab, representing a partially depleted coal load. I also used period photographs to get the correct scale look of those enormous chunks of Welsh coal. Here's the result...


Not the best of photographs, but this is the replacement bunker with added depth --- to enable a downward slope --- at the front. There's actually a lip at the front, which isn't clear in the photographs, where the slope is actually deeper than it appears and some coal sits against the fireman's access doors.

In order to accommodate the greater depth of the bunker, it was necessary to make a small cut-out in the shelf at the front of the tender. Easy enough, I just ran a sharp modelling knife along the front wall and across the shelf, then snapped the bit of plastic off. No real modelling skills required. See below.



The original weight is approximately 7.5 grams. I tried fitting lead, but there's not much space in there, especially if you want to fit a DCC decoder. So I used Tungsten Putty from the fishing tackle shop. Tungsten Putty is 1.8 times heavier than lead and is easily fitted under the new Real Coal load and resin cast bunker.

The final result is a massive improvement. I do need to remove a little of the coal, to better show the slope down towards the fireman's access doors, otherwise I'm happy with the result.



You could make the resin bunker deeper, but this entails moving the DCC blanking plate (or DCC chip) by shortening the supporting legs and repositioning the blanking plate in a lower more horizontal position. Easy enough, and I may do this on the Mk.2 version.

As I thought others might like this upgrade --- manufacturing the new coal bunker is a real faff and fitting Real Coal isn't within everyone's modelling comfort zone, so, as I produced a few extra castings of the bunker, I'm offering these --- with people's choice of period or modern coal size and including the Tungsten Putty --- on that well known Internet site. ...if there's sufficient interest, I'll sell the design to a UK model manufacturing company so they can put the drop-in REAL COAL upgrade into production. I may also tackle a few more of Graham Farish's otherwise excellent steam locomotives.

Please "like" this post if you'd like to see this and similar upgrades being available from model shops.

Rick

 

P.S. have you ever wondered how the fireman got those enormous lumps of Dry Welsh Steam Coal out through that relatively tiny chute on the tender?

Edited May 28, 2017 by 70021 Morning Star

[dmeaden]

Looks to be a great improvement and the randomness of the coal lumps and the "shiny" steam coal adds to the realism.

I have had the same problem a number of times and have managed to complete the task on a Dapol Schools - not because the coal was too unsightly but I had to fit a sound decoder and speaker in the tender.

If I could work out how to post a picture I would show the results for comments!?

Not easy but achievable...

[Hailstone]

Welsh steam coal was very soft and was easy to break up, which was why they never built cenotaph type coaling stages on the western region - it wold have been dust by the time it reached the tenders!

I remember when I was part of a service crew for 5051 Drysllwyn caste going on a Hereford - Newport railtour, on a previous trip the fireman complained that there were no decent sized lumps on the tender, and as we had found out that he would be on the next one, we loaded a lump fully 2ft long and almost a foot square that we had discovered in one of the coal wagons delivered to us. it was carefully loaded on the tender with a crane so that he would reach it only after he had been shovelling for a while. at the end of the trip he said "you lot did that on purpose, I spent 10 minutes breaking it up" our reply was "but you said you wanted big lumps" needless to say he never complained again!

 

Regards,

 

Alex 

[Bomag]

Welsh steam coal was very soft and was easy to break up, which was why they never built cenotaph type coaling stages on the western region - it wold have been dust by the time it reached the tenders!

I remember when I was part of a service crew for 5051 Drysllwyn caste going on a Hereford - Newport railtour, on a previous trip the fireman complained that there were no decent sized lumps on the tender, and as we had found out that he would be on the next one, we loaded a lump fully 2ft long and almost a foot square that we had discovered in one of the coal wagons delivered to us. it was carefully loaded on the tender with a crane so that he would reach it only after he had been shovelling for a while. at the end of the trip he said "you lot did that on purpose, I spent 10 minutes breaking it up" our reply was "but you said you wanted big lumps" needless to say he never complained again!

 

Regards,

 

Alex 

 

I think this says more about your juvenile sense of humour than whether the fireman was being slightly over picky.

[Hailstone]

I think this says more about your juvenile sense of humour than whether the fireman was being slightly over picky.

 

At least we had a sense of humour in those days

[TomE]

Anyone have any intel on when the sound fitted version might arrive on our shores, other than the usual vagueness from the Bachmann site?

 

Cheers, 

 

Tom. 

Edited June 5, 2017 by TomE

[dmeaden]

Latest I heard from Bachmann source was July.

[Crumplezone]

Rails newsletter saying the getting the sound fitted castle shortly (normally within the next week when they send them) so suspect other retails are due them very shortly to.

[Ed-farms]

Rails of Sheffield are reporting Nunney Castle as in stock, also Tennants Trains in Halesowen have 3 showing so they are starting to land.