Still more Farish questions

"Jim M" wrote

The old Farish didn't produce these and they may well be some way off from production by the Bachmann owned company.

John.

Hi Jim,

There's no word on delivery dates as yet but these will be totally new locos, probably scaled down from their OO cousins.

The first totally new product, the class 170 should be out in the spring, followed by the V2. These have been probised for the last couple of years but look to be worth the wait. I think after that it's the 60 and 66, then probably the Peak and Warship.

With Bachmanns rather flexible attitude to delivery times, who can say?

Thanks for the info, gents. I've been waiting months for a Class 25 to materialise so nothing changes! :o\

My Japanese outline stuff is produced in exactly the same factories, in exactly the same quantities and costs 40-50 quid depending on the loco.

Pete

"mutley" wrote

Small market in which to recoup tooling costs I'm afraid, and also bear in mind that all of the big Farish diesels were over the GBP70 mark when Farish was purchased by Bachmann two or three years ago.

John.

I understand the smaller market bit, but I can't see the tooling costs amounting to much. All the donkey work has been done in producing the OO versions and the chassis is going to be shared with the Class 40.

I think it would be interesting to see how they came to the price they have. I think your bit about Farish previously costing £70 has a lot more to do with it than the actual production costs, it's simply what they think the market will pay.

Pete

In news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, mutley sprayed:

Huh? Absolutely none of the 00 tooling will be usable @ N.

You might as well say buy a 00 scale loco and use it on N!

Tooling refers to the process of making a model, not just the moulds. The tooling process consists of drawings and CAD programmes which are then fed into the computer that makes the moulds. Almost all of the tooling costs in the Farish Peaks have already been incurred with the OO variant of the model. I doubt whether it costs very much to make a mould otherwise I wouldn't be able to buy radio controlled cars or tanks, with just as many bumps and curves, from a fiver to a tenner. I daresay the manufacturers would prefer me to believe otherwise though.

The forthcoming Class 66 is going to be produced in three scales. OO, HO and N. Why should the N gauge version cost far more than the OO (if it ends up doing so) when the cost to produce it has been spread over three variants that will be sold in huge numbers? Indeed, the N gauge version should be cheaper because it costs less in raw material and probably won't have hand-fitted items such as handrails etc.

Pete

Farish are a bunch of thieving money-grabbing s!*!fiends and I would burn them to death tomorrow and stamp on their still-smouldering remains if I could, but I try not to let that cloud my judgement...

I will still buy two of these sodding class 25's when they come along, purely because I have no alternative.

(this is where you all jump in with loads of alternatives... :o)

In news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, mutley sprayed:

Oh sorry, there was me thinking tooling is the process of making the tools, silly me, must be different if it is models.

Think yourself lucky. I want a class 25/0 (ie class 25 based on class 24 body shape) - don't expect I'll ever get one though.

Tooling is clearly defined in a dictionary. Take it up with Oxford, Penguin and the rest of 'em if you don't like it. A computer is as much a tool as a hammer is.

Pete

Agreed. With modern CAD/CAM systems used for producing tooling the cost of new models when produced say in one of more scales should be a shared cost, hence the development costs are spread. But sadly this does not seem to be the case with Bachmann.

I'd love a Class 31 (any livery, BR Blue, RF, 3TG, Fragonset, Regional Railways, Dutch . . . . ) but nothing. I missed the Farish UK model, as I have only come back to model rail over the last year or so. I do have BR Blue Farish 25, but its not a model that fits with the period I wish to model.

The best UK Farish models where the once from the early 80's with the brass gears. I have an old 37, which after servicing runs far sweeter than the late UK Farish 37.

TTFN

-- Richard Adkins

This is very true - I have several Farish engines from the 1980's that run well and (annoyingly) several Farish 'ornaments' (look nice but don't work reliably if at all) from the 1990's

I am even considering switching to US outline or possibly O-16.5

All on EBay just now N Gauge

Picture hide Item Title Price Bids Time Left n gauge Lima CL 31 with dummy for doublehead £21.01 7 14h 40m Lima N gauge Class 31 diesel loco BR blue £7.50 3 15h 40m LIMA - N Scale - Green Class 31 Boxed £15.00 7 17h 52m Farish class 31 SPEC. ED. Civil Engineering £36.00 7 22h 43m Lima Class 31 Brush Type 2 BR Green NMIB £11.00 3 23h 27m Lima N gauge Class 31 BR blue £8.70 4 1d 02h 32m Lima N gauge Class 31 diesel loco BR green £8.50 3 4d 23h 09m LIMA RAILWAYS 'N' CL 31 DIESEL LOCOMOTIVE £12.50

Presumably with the bogie frame tooling slightly 'tweaked'; the 40 and

David E. Belcher

That depends whether new Bachmann-Farish have a different attitude to accuracy than old-Farish. Under the previous regime, if it had the correct number of wheels, that was good enough for the UK N gauge consumer. The previous Farish MD was on record as saying that the UK N customers would not pay enough for locos to have correct bogies fitted to their models, unlike, say, typical German N customers. He assessed the market as one where the typical customer was more bothered about price than accuracy. It will be interesting to see whether that opinion of the UK market is shared by the new management.

NC.

I think that says more about the attitude of the old Farish MD rather than UK N gauge modellers.

Certainly in OO there are lots of people, me included, who want more accuracy and better mechanisms, and we know that we may have to pay more for that accuracy. There are also people who seem to think that whatever price the retailer asks for is too much.

I assume that the same applies amongst the N gauge community, i.e. there are those who want better quality and will pay for it, and there are those that want their models to be as cheap as possible, and don't care about accuracy. I would have thought that the old MD should have found out about all his customers, not just one type.

You assume correctly John, but there are also those of us who want beautifully produced *and* cheap! I'm thinking Kato, Tomix and MicroTrains. (yeah I know MT are not that cheap, but still).

I sometimes look at my Tomix DE10, a JR outline diesel with its crisply molded detail, flush glazing, working lights, compesated all-wheel drive, beautifully smooth running and £38 price tag.

Then I look at my Farish Class 20, which was £50...

I should stop doing that, really. It upsets me, you know?