Old Minitrix N Gauge BR Mk 1s

[justin1985]

I recently got a pack of etched sides from Hurst models to adapt standard Farish Mk1s into Network SouthEast EMU barrier coaches. I had been assuming that with the new Farish Mk1s out now, the eBay price for the old ones would fall through the floor ... which it hasn't (yet)

 

However I noticed on eBay that the old Minitrix Mk1s look like they might actually have a better roof and underframe than the old Farish model, despite their awful attempt at glazing. Considering that the sides I've got entirely cover the sides of the coach, with no glazing, this should be OK

 

But, not having seen one of these "in the flesh", I don't know if they are generally to scale otherwise? The critical dimensions would be the height and length of the bodyside and the overall height. Does any kind soul have one to hand that they could compare to (an old) Farish Mk 1?

 

Thanks!

 

Justin

[edcayton]

IIRC they were fitted with B4 bogies which always looked wrong to me. No doubt someone here will know if any were so fitted, but to my eyes they don't look right.

 

Ed

[Kris]

Some of the last MK1's were fitted with B4's from new and others were fitted with them at later points in their lives. Since going into preservation more MK1's have received B4's.

[Kris]

I recently got a pack of etched sides from Hurst models to adapt standard Farish Mk1s into Network SouthEast EMU barrier coaches. I had been assuming that with the new Farish Mk1s out now, the eBay price for the old ones would fall through the floor ... which it hasn't (yet)

 

However I noticed on eBay that the old Minitrix Mk1s look like they might actually have a better roof and underframe than the old Farish model, despite their awful attempt at glazing. Considering that the sides I've got entirely cover the sides of the coach, with no glazing, this should be OK

 

But, not having seen one of these "in the flesh", I don't know if they are generally to scale otherwise? The critical dimensions would be the height and length of the bodyside and the overall height. Does any kind soul have one to hand that they could compare to (an old) Farish Mk 1?

 

Thanks!

 

Justin

 

 

I have some I can get pictures of side by side tomorrow with old Farish Mk1's if no one else sorts you out first. The Minitrix ones are much heavier coaches than the Farish ones and I always felt that they ran better.

 

 

[frobisher]

IIRC they were fitted with B4 bogies which always looked wrong to me. No doubt someone here will know if any were so fitted, but to my eyes they don't look right.

 

The Minitrix B4's were pretty awful - the Farish ones look much better to my mind. There's a something not quite right about the Minitrix MK1's over all as well which I can't quite put my finger on - possibly lack of "weight" in an appearance sense. They were similar to the Lima MK1's in that regard.

[BernardTPM]

The Minitrix Mk.1s were generally quite close to scale, though I feel the sides are perhaps a little too curved and possibly shallow, though if you were fitting new sides over them a simple strip of plasticard would solve that. It would be more instructive to compare them to the new Farish Mk.1s than the old in that respect, since the latter certainly had side height issues*. The underframe is much better than the old Farish Mk.1s as it correctly represents the centre trussed nature of the underframe, though nowhere near as good as either the new Mk.1s or the Ultima etched replacement trussing. The B4s possibly looked odd because they had no brake block details. In real life the most obvious place to find disc braked B4s was either on 310/312 EMUs or the Mk.2s used for the 1970s Edinburgh-Glasgow push-pulls (the top and tailed 27 version).

 

* in my opinion the roof on the old Farish Mk.1s needs to come further down the side - the easiest way to do this is to file down the moulded gutter and put a new one along the top of the side.

[Kris]

As promised a couple of quick photo's of the old GF and Minitrix mk1's. The GF ones are on the left in chocolate and cream the Minitrix ones are in maroon. Unfortunately the roof detail of the brake's has not come out very well and at the moment I don't have time to re do the photo. The details are rather different.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The GF coaches have modified couplings to give closer coupling.

[justin1985]

Thanks Kris, thats perfect!

 

The Minitrix Mk1s do even look a little more "Mk1 like" to me (apart from the awful glazing). However the height of the bodysides is dramatically different - it looks like 2 or 3mm or even more, despite the solebars being more or less the same level (so it isn't the wheels causing the difference). Having seen pics on another thread of the new and old Farish Mk1s next to each other, it looks like the old Farish Mk1 is actually a bit too tall itself, but it also looks like the Minitrix Mk1 is too low as well.

 

As I'm working with sides designed for the Farish Mk1, it doesn't look like a good idea to try a Minitrix instead afterall. I'll wait a bit longer to see if prices drop a bit more, and use an Ultima underframe

[Kris]

I'll get the micrometer later and measure the difference but I feel it's only about 1mm in height. The vast difference is in the height of the corridor connectors. As to the glazing, I feel that if you were to fill in the glazed area the appearance would be significantly improved. These do have the lumps and bumps on the side that the old farish stuff was so obviously missing.

[Kris]

Right some more images of the coaches to help you compare. I have also added in a masterclass models 2mm mk1 (available from the 2mm soc) I looked at the new Farish models earlier today but resisted. The 2mm one is an unfinished kit and is just there for comparison.

Right First shot is a roof comparison with the Minitrix (left) and Old GF (right) I have played with the colours to help highlight the differences between the 2.

 

 

 

Second shot is a comparison of the coach underframes. This shows how primitive the Farish version is on this version of their mk1 coach.

 

 

 

 

I have also measured the coaches

 

Length Width Height from top of solebar to base to roofline.

Graham Farish 131mm 18.77mm 13.05mm

 

Minitrix 130mm 18.16mm 12.25mm

 

Neither are quite right on the length, it should be 130.6mm

 

Edit to make measurements a little clearer.

[justin1985]

Thanks for taking the time to do these measurements Kris!

 

Great info, I think it looks like there would be a bit too much extra work to use the Minitrix coaches for the Hurst sides. Its good to know the score with them though

[BernardTPM]

The reason the roof detail is different is because the Farish mk.1s are based on the original staggered pattern of roof vents for compartment stock while the Minitrix Mk.1s have the later in-line style; both are correct.