Farish Class 150 Provincial 371-333

[cs233]

Purchased 150135 in Provincial livery despite its accuracy issues, certainly nosier than earlier Farish 150 units, the cog wheels at the base of the powered bogie are white plastic and on earlier units were black plastic, so something has been changed. Interestingly the documentation supplied with this unit states it has a three pole motor, thought it would have been a five pole unit, was it on earlier releases?

 

150135 is modelled without CAB roof mounted aerial and with 'cutaway' front cowling which I am not convinced it ever carried and there is no photographic evidence it did. 150135 was amongst 150137 in that these units were some of the last to carry this livery until around late 1992 but it had the aerial when the cowling was modified. Another issue is the grey seating this is a work of fiction when Class 150\1 units were built the seating was multi coloured stripes and no Class 150 unit was built with grey seating like the 155 and 156 units were. Overall despite the accuracy issues to the prototype and noisy operation it is aside of these a nice model. Anyone else have noisy operation?

[Davexoc]

If the cowling you refer to is the snowplough/obstacle deflector, it might just pull/prise off. I have a couple from the original run, and that was in the customer fit parts bag back then....

[cs233]

36 minutes ago, Davexoc said:

If the cowling you refer to is the snowplough/obstacle deflector, it might just pull/prise off. I have a couple from the original run, and that was in the customer fit parts bag back then....

This is the front cowling I am referring to. Class 150 units were modified due to corrosion issues resulting from the cheap poor quality steel that BREL used. The modification alters the front appearance of the unit quite significantly   

[Davexoc]

Ah, I see what you mean now. The tooling is for the cutaway version, but I reckon backdating wouldn't be too difficult to recreate.

[1977joey]

I agree, Mine are also noisier than my earlier 150's. I'm going to renumber a couple of mine & paint the seats red with black frames to reflect a bit more realistically the original colour scheme of the 150's, might even have a go at the strips with a fine marker. They're also modelled with 3+3 seating which is an error corrected on the OO model but not in N unfortunately!

Not sure how to go about recreating the cowling though... luckily my layout is set mainly in 1987 so before the radio signalling was introduced on the cambrian lines during October 1988 (when the aerials were fitted to the cab roof)

For those interested, here is a link to the original interior of the 150/1 Sprinter: 

 

 

Cheers,

Mark

Edited February 28, 2022 by 1977joey

[D9020 Nimbus]

The white nylon (rather than black plastic) gears appear to be intended to reduce/eliminate the problems with split gears which originated when (the original) Farish changed from white nylon to black plastic gears long ago and which have remained an issue from time to time ever since. Don't know whether they contribute to noise or not, but basically this is a welcome improvement IMHO.

[John M Upton]

Farish's original brass gears were the best though.  Shame they ever went over to plastic but I presume cost became a factor.

[Robert Shrives]

Mine ran ok but a Warley open day so noise not obvious above the show noise level.   What was said to be at work by former RR staff, controllers was that the upper light blue was rather too vivid, I recall it faded quickly  but hopefully some weathering and plasticard  car for the front end will make for an improved model.   

 

Robert  

[Robert Shrives]

As an offtopics aside the pic taken at BHM looking through the window.  The seats were a bit of a problem with top headrest falling out easily and the steel strip designed to locate them was razor sharp edged.  Sadly the "nare-do-wells" soon found the head rests fitted through the top windows.      

[Adam1701D]

19 hours ago, Robert Shrives said:

As an offtopics aside the pic taken at BHM looking through the window.  The seats were a bit of a problem with top headrest falling out easily and the steel strip designed to locate them was razor sharp edged.  Sadly the "nare-do-wells" soon found the head rests fitted through the top windows.      

Very common with BREL units. The Class 317s on the Great Northern and elsewhere had the same seating and the lineside was littered with 317 headrests.

 

Alan Williams of Modern Railways fame described the original 317 interior as having been designed by a "colourblind metalworker".

 

[Dr Al]

On 27/02/2022 at 20:17, cs233 said:

 Interestingly the documentation supplied with this unit states it has a three pole motor, thought it would have been a five pole unit, was it on earlier releases?

 

The Farish 150 has always had a 3 pole can motor - this is no change.

Cheers,
Alan

[cs233]

On 04/03/2022 at 09:27, Dr Al said:

 

The Farish 150 has always had a 3 pole can motor - this is no change.

Cheers,
Alan

Interesting Alan, is this universal throughout the Farish range generally that 3 pole motors are used? Quite sure some of the old Farish locos had 5 pole motors advertised on the box. Is this down to cost that the 150 had a 3 pole unit?

[woodenhead]

Farish have used a variety of motors to fit the situation, there is no standard motor.

 

The latest generation of locos use coreless and even here it is not one standard motor.

[fezza]

Oddly my Provincial 150 is very quiet - it's my Northern one that is still a little noisy. Farish quality control issues again?

[Dr Al]

On 06/03/2022 at 20:05, cs233 said:

Interesting Alan, is this universal throughout the Farish range generally that 3 pole motors are used? Quite sure some of the old Farish locos had 5 pole motors advertised on the box. Is this down to cost that the 150 had a 3 pole unit?

 

All the can motors (cored or coreless) are 3 pole. 

Older Poole era derived designs do have 5 pole disassemble-able open frame motors, and these did have 5 pole motor labels on the boxes in the 1980s, latterly this branding was dropped, but the motors remained 5 pole and evolved slightly through another English iteration (with a silver plated commutator) and Bachmann iteration (back to a copper commutator, sourced from other Bachmann motors) before eventually being dropped when Poole era designed models were dropped.

The replacement chassis Bachmann put under some of the Poole era diesels and electrics had their (at the time) standard 5 pole skew wound self contained open frame motor, usually with double brass flywheels (of a variety of sizes).

 

These have all now been dropped for 3 pole cans and 3 pole cylindrical coreless motor, so basically anything you buy new today will not have a 5 pole motor (unless super old shop stock!).

 

The 3 poles cored have only a few variations - one with carbon brushes, one with metallic wiper brushes, and a smaller version for tight locos like Class 20, 70, some single ended shafts used in steam, some double ended shafts used in diesels.

 

The 3 pole coreless only currently have 2 variations - single ended shaft and double ended shaft, so it's pretty standard. They can have different worms and suchlike, but the base motors are standard.

 

It is likely cost that has done this, albeit also sizes. Having said that, the 10x15 sized 3 pole can has been demonstrated as possible to be done as a 5 pole by Mashima in that form factor in the past. Certainly a Mashima 1015 runs much better than any of the equivalently sized Farish can motors.

Cheers,
Alan