Bad N gauge models

[belstone]

One of the young lads at the club asked me to repair a loco he had bought very cheaply as a non-runner.  It looked like a Farish GP tank (vaguely Jintyish but with the proportions all wrong) but when he handed it over to me it just floated out of my hand and headed up towards the ceiling.  OK, slight exaggeration, but a plastic body with just one tiny little alloy weight up front. I have wagons which weigh more than that. Getting it running was easy enough (nut missing from the screw that holds the front of the motor down) but I had to stuff every available space inside the body with lead weights to get it to run at less than 100mph without stalling.  Even then it was rubbish, despite careful wheel cleaning and adjustment of pickups.  It didn't help that one of the wheels was slightly off-centre on the axle and kept lifting all but one of the other wheels off the track. The coupler mounts were hopeless, holding the couplers solidly at any angle other than straight and level.

Presumably these things were sold in some kind of starter train set. They must have done a fair bit to put off newcomers to N gauge. Pity, as underneath all the plastic tat was the good old Farish Pannier chassis, which can run very well indeed. Anyone else got any really bad N gauge models?

[maridunian]

I went to a lot of trouble Briticising this Life-Like loco, only to find I couldn't make it run reliably ...



Plenty of bad reviews available here...

Mike

[Adrian]

"Briticise" ........... 

Thanks for the new word for my vocabulary, Mike.

Made me smile - saw where you're based and why "anglicise" wouldn't work!

Best

Adrian

[zwilnik]

The Farish "starter" 0-6-0 GP shunters are ok as basic locos (my brother and I started with 2). Certainly been more reliable and better traction than my Dapol 14xx, but some people have had no problem with those either, so it's probably just a case of certain locos have a higher rate of failure/error/rubbishness than others.

The GP shunter is a really good one to practice painting and weathering on though

[kirky]

"Briticise" ........... 
"anglicise" wouldn't work

Anglesey is in Wales isn't it?😄

[jrb]

Was it one of these? They also did one in red, too. Plastic bodies over the old Poole-era jinty chassis.

Edit: Zwilnik beat me to it, I think.

[railsquid]

Lima Class 31. The wheels spin, it goes nowhere.

[belstone]

Was it one of these? They also did one in red, too. Plastic bodies over the old Poole-era jinty chassis.

Edit: Zwilnik beat me to it, I think.

That's the one, except this was in red, overpainted with what I think was black car underseal. I was very tempted to stick it in a jar of paint stripper and start again, then it occurred to me that the young owner might have painted it himself.

[belstone]

Lima Class 31. The wheels spin, it goes nowhere.

Lima! The models of my youth.  I had a Class 31, also the "Clayton" which even as an 8 year old I could see was just a repainted German loco. Strange brass pickups with springs strong enough to support a small family car, so the locos sat higher at one end than the other, speed range (scale) 75 - 200 mph. Amazing I still stuck with railway modelling at all, let alone N gauge.

[Dorsetmike]

The Lima 4F was pretty dire too, cut off the smokebox door and glue it back on in open position the park it at the back of the shed with a bloke and shovel suitably posed, or another sat under the lift with one end up and a pair of wheels run out behind.

I also found them very useful to practice hacking, tried hacking one into an SR Q class, you could find out what to do and how to do it without spending loadsa dosh.

[silly moo]

All of the Lima models are pretty dire but I surprisingly had a very bad Minitrix Ivatt, bought brand new it was absolutely dreadful and despite the attention of various experts it never improved.

My other Minitrix models are all fine and some exceptionally good despite their age, so maybe it was a one off.

Some of the early Farish locos with brass gears run adequately but very noisily.

I recently got a Lima Deltic that I occasionally run just to remind myself how much things have improved.

[johnlambert]

The Lima Deltic was pretty gruesome. Body looked vaguely Deltic-ish but was out of scale and out of proportion. Drive was by a motor-bogie arrangement with pick-up from one side of the bogie and from the opposite side of the non-powered bogie.

And if it looked bad on its own it must have looked worse with Lima's under-scale Mk1 coaches.

I had one, it was the first N gauge loco I bought and I sold it on pretty quickly.  It is the one buy I'd rather forget!

[Dorsetmike]

Yep, those Minitrix 2-6-0s couldn't pull, but the 2-6-2T was a bit better. Most, if not all, were on chassis from their German loco range, and the body of the 9F was the same as the Brit.

[Dr Al]

These locos are great - they run on a standard 94xx chassis, and therefore can be a very cheap source of chassis for kitbuild's - I've used about 5 of them over the years for various such things.

Running wise they aren't quite as good as the 94xx due to the lack of weight, but to be fair I've never had any problems with them once cleaned, lubricated and gear replaced if worn (seems common - they likely get a hard life as starter locos).

Cheers,
Alan

[Dr Al]

Yep, those Minitrix 2-6-0s couldn't pull

This is exaggerated now as most are 30 years old and their traction tyres are therefore life expired, and most go hard and lose their grip. Stick a new set on and they'll happily tow 8 free rolling coaches on the flat in my experience.

Peter's spares has suitable tyres periodically in stock - same as the ones for the 9F.

Cheers,
Alan