I won and took delivery of an old Poole made Farish Western this weekend, and it caused a bit of a headache. Despite it being noisy as is probably expected from the old 5 pole motor, it doesnt run smoothly on my track as the others do. I have the better scale track, looks better and runs better, code 55 isnt it? But the old style wheel flanges on 1062 look far too big for the rails and tend to ride on the sleepers and its derailing on points. The newer Bach models i own including 2 westerns run fine with no problems. Now, this is the peculiar thing. I ve got another Poole Western, 1070 in blue, which is the same chassis and runs ok. It can be a wee bit sticky sometimes but no where near as bad as Courier. Apart from changing the wheels, any advice please? Ian.

Assuming wheel flanges etc. are identical to the other Western, I'd check to see if any of the powered or non powered wheels are sprung in the chassis as it may be the 'new' one has less give and is less forgiving over bumps. Other things to check for are whether either bogie is bent slightly (had a very badly running Pannier Tank I'd bought 2nd hand where I found it had obviously been dropped on one end, bending the chassis frame. Bit of brute force later and it was running perfectly ).

Another possibility is the actual underframe of the model may be touching the track and letting the wheels lift off. If you have a video camera and a suitably accessible section of track (or even a loose spare section), it might be worth videoing both engines running from track level and looking at the video in slo-mo to see if you can spot any differences.

Hi Zwilnik. I have done as you advised an she seems to run ok without bottoming out. Its the flanges on all wheelsets that seem to ride on the sleepers on sections of track, even though its the same. The chassis looks ok, but there is a wee bit of droop on the bogies at the cab ends. It runs ok through the points when it chooses, and I think the points are 80s with a slight difference with the 55s. Thought that could be the problem, but its sticky on sections where there is a joint. None of the others do this!!

It might just be the wheel flanges being that little bit deeper (or the wheels being a little bit more worn) than on the other one. Two possible fixes spring to mind. First is that it might benefit from a bit of extra weight so it doesn't hop as much on hitting bumps. The other is that a suitable application of Bullfrog Snot  http://www.bullfrogsnot.com/ on enough of the wheels might be enough to elevate the flanges off the bumps (and add a bit of traction!).

I got some Bullfrog Snot a while back via a UK supplier over e-bay I think

I've seen this discussed elsewhere and I think the conclusion was 'change the wheels'.
I can't think of a quick-fix if the wheels are touching the sleepers.