Farish Due Soon

[grahame]

8 minutes ago, Stefen1988 said:

There is so much of a "core" range which isn't available...

 

I guess most people will have their own idea of what constitutes a 'core' range. The problem is it is exacerbated by the overall large range, the batch production system, the distance to market, competition and the small size of the N gauge market. 

 

 

[Solo]

3 hours ago, John M Upton said:

It is the big glossy publicity circus that most manufacturers are most interested in attracting.

Not sure that's entirely true - whilst publicity is always a good thing you only have to look at how quickly the 'mundane' ie 'most needed/useful' stuff sells out to see that all those standard class coaches and workaday locos must make a tidy sum for the manufacturers and would do more so were the runs larger.  Usurpers such as Accurascale (albeit in 4mm) have done well publicising - and selling - high spec models of the mundane, particularly wagons and forthcoming coaches.  Farish have quite a bit of non-glamourous stuff being released/re-released in the future, it's just the time getting it to market which is the issue these days.  If only we had even limited capacity for production on these shores I'm sure the stuff we all want would be more-or-less in continuous supply.

[Davexoc]

35 minutes ago, Solo said:

 If only we had even limited capacity for production on these shores I'm sure the stuff we all want would be more-or-less in continuous supply.

 

If you could recruit and retain a workforce to do that in this country, I think even the most affluent of railway modellers would probably cringe at the prices.

The machinery and materials aren't too bad, but the labour intensive decorating, assembly and packing costs would be prohibitive.

[John M Upton]

Indeed, UK production would be probably be half the detail at four or five times the price, this country simply is no longer geared up to make anything anymore except dustbin lorries and buses.  90% of our manufacturing indistries shipped out to China or just died out decades ago and there is no qualified workforce of sufficient numbers available anymore, we have become a nation of coffee shops instead.

[Chris M]

16 hours ago, Kris said:

 

I believe that the accountants at Kader recognise that other scales are more profitable so n gauge models do not get many production spots.  

To be fair, every business in the world has to invest where it is most likely to get the best return on that investment.

[Chris M]

8 hours ago, John M Upton said:

Indeed, UK production would be probably be half the detail at four or five times the price, this country simply is no longer geared up to make anything anymore except dustbin lorries and buses.  90% of our manufacturing indistries shipped out to China or just died out decades ago and there is no qualified workforce of sufficient numbers available anymore, we have become a nation of coffee shops instead.

Could I just mention Peco wagons? Designed and made in the UK. Take the humble box van as a comparison. Ok the British made Peco wagon is not so well detailed as a Farish van but not really noticeable when next to each other rumbling past in a freight train. British made Peco van £10.30, Chinese made Farish van £18.50. The availability of the Peco range is generally good albeit they did have a major issue a few years ago when they had to rebuild all their graphics files. Peco tend to run small batches to keep the model shops well supplied with the whole range.

 

On this freight the vans are mostly Farish but there are some Peco as well, along with a few Revolution tanks. The clay wagons are almost all Peco but one is Farish. Whilst the Farish wagons do have a better underframe its kind of hard to tell which is which while they are running. So, in my view, UK production can work very well indeed.

 

 

Edited October 28, 2022 by Chris M

[fezza]

1 hour ago, Chris M said:

Could I just mention Peco wagons? Designed and made in the UK. Take the humble box van as a comparison. Ok the British made Peco wagon is not so well detailed as a Farish van but not really noticeable when next to each other rumbling past in a freight train. British made Peco van £10.30, Chinese made Farish van £18.50. The availability of the Peco range is generally good albeit they did have a major issue a few years ago when they had to rebuild all their graphics files. Peco tend to run small batches to keep the model shops well supplied with the whole range.

 

On this freight the vans are mostly Farish but there are some Peco as well, along with a few Revolution tanks. The clay wagons are almost all Peco but one is Farish. Whilst the Farish wagons do have a better underframe its kind of hard to tell which is which while they are running. So, in my view, UK production can work very well indeed.

 

 

 

I agree Chris - I think almost all my 70s era vans and minerals are Peco and look absolutely fine in a long train. They work out about half the Farish price suggesting British production in the right circumstances can be competitive.

 

Dapol have also produced good and affordable products in Britain in recent memory - indeed their Voyager produced in Britain was better quality than recent products from China.

 

 

[D9020 Nimbus]

The Peco wagons are mostly old tooling, 50 years old or so. They sometimes suffer by being forced on to a chassis of either 10ft or 15ft. The "Blue Spot" fish van looks wrong compared to the more recent Dapol model, while the BR standard brake van compares poorly not only with current Farish but with the Minitrix model of the same era.

 

They're making a start with retooling the range, starting with the 7-plank wagon, but these are £16.95 — still quite reasonable.

[D9020 Nimbus]

23 hours ago, grahame said:

 

I guess most people will have their own idea of what constitutes a 'core' range. The problem is it is exacerbated by the overall large range, the batch production system, the distance to market, competition and the small size of the N gauge market. 

 

 

This seems to have got worse. Ten years or so ago, I used to get most of my models from Townfoot Models on Hexham station. At that time you could purchase most of the mark 1 Farish coaches off the shelf. Mind you, the coaches might have been recently released at that time. You couldn’t do that anywhere now, I suspect.

 

Townfoot Models was owned by Mike Le Marie, a well-known N gauge personality. The shop closed — like others — when Mike wanted to retire and couldn’t find a purchaser. I see he's now working for KMRC at Guildford. Best of luck to him.

[fezza]

I was at the Gaydon show today and it was very noticeable that there was little Farish or Dapol modern image coaching available, although there were plenty of shiny new locos.

 

I wonder how many new modellers will be tempted to buy new N gauge locos if they can't find appropriate coaching stock to haul?

[Stefen1988]

Mk1 & Mk2 in Sets would be nice.

[acourtrail]

3 hours ago, Stefen1988 said:

Mk1 & Mk2 in Sets would be nice.

They would be nice, and they would sell, but everyone will have different needs in terms of what they want/need in each set.

 

An obvious set would be 4x Regional Railways MK2a for the North Wales Coast.  That would be a complete train (just add a class 37).  While not something I would want, plenty of other people who do modern image would snap those up!

 

Farish have done 2x pairs of MK1s in the West Highland Line green & cream livery.  Those are a bit of a niche thing really to be fair (and they need to do another pair of TSOs, so that people could then make the full six coach train).

 

Sets of MK1s in B.R Southern Region green would work, because a lot of their MK1s ran in fixed sets.  I wanted to make a K set (BSK+CK+BSK), but while Farish made all the correct coaches to form set 525 (BSK 34641 + CK 15567 + BSK 34642), they were released separately, and it took me ages to find them all!

[steve1023]

9 hours ago, acourtrail said:

Sets of MK1s in B.R Southern Region green would work, because a lot of their MK1s ran in fixed sets.  I wanted to make a K set (BSK+CK+BSK), but while Farish made all the correct coaches to form set 525 (BSK 34641 + CK 15567 + BSK 34642), they were released separately, and it took me ages to find them all!

Taking that thought a step further - set 525 was a 6 set - add in 2 additional TSO S3824 & S3825, both released by Farish and additional CK S15915 - never done by Farish. That's the coach I want to complete my 6 set 525. Generalizing, I think it must be a least 10 years ago since Farish last released the more common types (BSK/CK) in green and if anybody at Farish is reading this, please do a RBR, please. 

[Padishar Creel]

On 30/10/2022 at 09:43, steve1023 said:

.....and if anybody at Farish is reading this, please do a RBR, please. 

Hallo,

A very good friend of mine is an excellent modeller and converted an RU to an RBR for me, in the same way that BR did.

I have found that if you remove the CW sized wheelsets from the bogies and replace with B4 sized wheelsets, the height of the roof matches the MK2Fs. Another RU was also converted and resprayed to IC livery.

To say I am very pleased with the result is an understatement

 

es grüßt

pc 

[scottystitch]

48 minutes ago, Padishar Creel said:

Hallo,

A very good friend of mine is an excellent modeller and converted an RU to an RBR for me, in the same way that BR did.

I have found that if you remove the CW sized wheelsets from the bogies and replace with B4 sized wheelsets, the height of the roof matches the MK2Fs. Another RU was also converted and resprayed to IC livery.

To say I am very pleased with the result is an understatement

 

es grüßt

pc 

That really does look like excellent modelling. 
 

Best

 

Scott. 

[John M Upton]

Confirmed next announcement is Wednesday 2nd November at 09:30.

 

After quite an unusually bumper selection last time I am not holding up any hope for much beyone another low relief toilet this time around....

[Chris M]

Or, following the announcement of the Rapido 44/45/46 Farish might suddenly have one being tooled up as we speak.

[03060]

2 hours ago, Chris M said:

Or, following the announcement of the Rapido 44/45/46 Farish might suddenly have one being tooled up as we speak.

 

I hope not .... my wallet hasn't recovered yet from the 'umpteen' 37s that all arrived together in my 'to collect' tray at my local model shop .... along with a trio of gronks .... all gratefully received mind you.

 

I'd like to see something arrive for other people to drool after and give me some respite ! LoL

[acourtrail]

On 30/10/2022 at 08:43, steve1023 said:

Taking that thought a step further - set 525 was a 6 set - add in 2 additional TSO S3824 & S3825, both released by Farish and additional CK S15915 - never done by Farish. That's the coach I want to complete my 6 set 525. Generalizing, I think it must be a least 10 years ago since Farish last released the more common types (BSK/CK) in green and if anybody at Farish is reading this, please do a RBR, please. 

Yes - set 525 became a 6 set later on.  Farish did do both of the TSOs for that set (and I have both of those), but as you said, they didn't do CK 15915.  I am not too worried about not having the extra CK (I run my set 525 as a 3 set, so don't need the second CK, and I use the 2 TSOs for when I am having a preserved railway day).

 

Yes, a diagram 24 RB/RBR would be nice, I would want one in green (so that I could represent a (Warship hauled) Brighton - Plymouth train, by adding the 2 TSOs and RB to my set 525 to get the Brighton portion (ignoring the fact that 525 wasn't one of the two actual sets), and using my Bulleid L set 830 for the Portsmouth portion).  While I have a chocolate & cream RU, an RB would also be nice (plus another FK), then I could represent the Bristolian (ignoring the fact that the set of coaches used on that train had B4 bogies).

[Padishar Creel]

19 hours ago, acourtrail said:

...then I could represent the Bristolian (ignoring the fact that the set of coaches used on that train had B4 bogies).

 

...which are now finally available as spares

 

es grüßt

pc 

[jpendle]

On 29/10/2022 at 17:22, acourtrail said:

An obvious set would be 4x Regional Railways MK2a for the North Wales Coast.  That would be a complete train (just add a class 37).  While not something I would want, plenty of other people who do modern image would snap those up!

Regional Railways ceased to be 25 years ago so not really modern image. That's longer than it took BR to get rid of steam (19 years, 48 to 67).

 

Anyone modelling the past 10 years needs lots of Units an almost no LHCS!

 

Regards,

 

John P

[fezza]

4 minutes ago, jpendle said:

Regional Railways ceased to be 25 years ago so not really modern image. That's longer than it took BR to get rid of steam (19 years, 48 to 67).

 

Anyone modelling the past 10 years needs lots of Units an almost no LHCS!

 

Regards,

 

John P

 

Trouble is there aren't huge numbers of interesting post-2000 diesel locos on regular hauled passenger trains so what LHCS is wanted? The 67s and 68s are being done by Dapol with bookcase sets planned. Almost everything that remains in the 2020s is fixed formations which are far less interesting.

 

A 37 Colas on a Riviera trains blue grey short rake would be good, but it wouldn't be seen outside South Wales. Is there much else? Maybe a 37 on a Network rail test train? In the early 2000s there were some 47s on interesting North Wales coast rakes, 31s to Minehead and 37s on Weymouth trains, but that was almost twenty years ago... 

 

 

[Stefen1988]

I hope a BR Standard 5MT in Green Livery comes not only as digital but also as analog when they announce this class' releases finally next year.

Edited November 1, 2022 by Stefen1988

[acourtrail]

5 hours ago, Padishar Creel said:

 

...which are now finally available as spares

 

es grüßt

pc 

Yes, and I have bought some.  Trouble is, my fleet of chocolate & cream MK1s are used to represent several different named trains as I feel like on the day, so they need to stay on BR1 bogies (bar the FO, which I put on B4 bogies years ago, because W3085 was like that in real life) to be accurate for most of those trains.  Those spare bogies are useful, I have used some under my fleet of maroon "charter train" MK1s.

[acourtrail]

4 hours ago, jpendle said:

Regional Railways ceased to be 25 years ago so not really modern image. That's longer than it took BR to get rid of steam (19 years, 48 to 67).

 

Anyone modelling the past 10 years needs lots of Units an almost no LHCS!

 

Regards,

 

John P

I agree, 25 years ago is hardly actual modern image (given how much has changed in that time), but people often have their own definition of what modern image is, a lot of people I know would define anything post steam as modern image!  Personally, I consider anything post privatisation as modern image, but I know that most people will say I am stretching that term a bit!