Graham Farish - 372-260SF - Locomotive, Diesel, Class 47/7 - Virgin Trains - Totnes Castle - 47814

Specific Item Information: The popular BR Class 47 Diesel Locomotive returns to the Graham Farish range with models of the ‘Crewe-Cut’ locomotives available for the first time thanks to the development of new tooling that further expands the range of Class 47s that can be modelled in N scale. Many Class 47s had the cowling around their bufferbeams removed in later life, changing the appearance of the lower front end and with this work usually being undertaken at Crewe Works, the resultant locomotives were commonly termed ‘Crewe-Cut’ machines. No. 47814 is one such machine, originally built as D1919, in 1986 it was fitted with Electric Train Heating (ETH) and became 47659 and later still was renumbered to 47814 in 1989 following the fitting of extended range fuel tanks. Eventually passing into Virgin Trains ownership and used on cross country services, the locomotive gained its name ‘Totnes Castle’ in May 1997. Subsequently this locomotive was rebuilt by Brush Traction as a Class 57 becoming No. 57306.

Further developments to the Graham Farish Class 47 come in the form of technical advancements, with an upgraded specification which now boasts a Next18 DCC decoder interface, pre-fitted speaker, cab lighting (when used on DCC) and independent control of the directional lights at each end. With the Next18 interface and pre-fitted speaker, SOUND FITTED models can now be offered for the first time.

Road Name History: Virgin Trains (legal name West Coast Trains Limited) is a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by Virgin Rail Group that has operated the InterCity West Coast franchise since 9 March 1997. Virgin Trains operates long-distance passenger services on the West Coast Main Line between London, West Midlands, North West England, North Wales and Scotland. The service connects six of the UK's largest cities; London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh, which have a combined metropolitan population of over 18 million people.

The Virgin Trains brand has also been used on the legally and operationally separate Virgin Trains East Coast since 1 March 2015, and previously on Virgin CrossCountry, which operated between 1997 and 2007. Virgin has around 3,400 employees.

From Wikipedia

Brand/Importer Information: Graham Farish is a British brand of N gauge model trains, that belongs to Bachmann Europe.
The company entered the model train business in the early 1950s, focusing on British OO gauge rolling stock, track and accessories.
In the 1970s, it started to produce N gauge models under the GRAFAR label. After the withdrawal of Lima and Minitrix from the UK market in the late 1980s, Graham Farish was the only major supplier of British outline models in N gauge, soon withdrawing from the OO scale market.
In 2001, Graham Farish was purchased by Kader Industries of Hong Kong, and absorbed by its subsidiary Bachmann Industries. Bachmann immediately closed the British manufacturing facility and moved production to China.
Bachmann have since increased the size of the Farish range, by duplicating models introduced to the Bachmann OO range; often, an OO scale Bachmann Branchline model is followed between 6 months to a year later by an N gauge Graham Farish model.

Manufacturer Information: Bachmann, a US company founded in 1835, was purchased by Kader Industries in 1987. Kader formed Bachmann Industries Europe in 1989 with their main UK headquarters in Moat Way, Barwell, Leicestershire, UK (former Palitoy location) and the following year launched the Bachmann Branchline range for the British market with the moulds that had previously been used for the Palitoy Mainline and Replica Railways model railway products. From this starting point Bachmann has developed the range further and now produce a large range of models.
In 2001 Bachmann Branchline bought Graham Farish, an N gauge manufacturer, and since then many of their models have been made available in both gauges.
Bachmann Europe portfolio also comprises other model trains brands such as Liliput.