Graham Farish - 371-136RJ - Locomotive, Diesel, Class 31/1 - British Rail - 31130

Specific Item Information: Announced as part of our Winter 2022 British Railway Announcements, we are delighted to present this Sales Area Exclusive N scale Class 31 Diesel Locomotive. This model, which will be available from retailers in Scotland, the North East and North West of England, and North Yorkshire, depicts Refurbished Class 31/1 No. 31130 ‘Calder Hall Power Station’ in the Triple Grey livery of BR Railfreight with Coal Sector branding.

This Graham Farish Class 31/1 sports all the hallmarks of a refurbished machine with its bufferbeam cowling and bodyside band removed, headcode boxes plated over and radio pods present above each cab. The attractive BR Railfreight livery is faithfully applied and, being a coal sector loco, it may come as a surprise to learn that the locomotive was actually named after a nuclear power plant, for the coal sector was also responsible for resourcing nuclear traffic and No. 31130 is named after the Calder Hall plant in Cumbria.

With a Next18 DCC decoder socket and pre-fitted speaker, the marker and tail lights are added to by the high intensity headlights fitted at each end – all of which are functional, of course. If you’re considering adding sound to your model, why not take the easy option and opt for a SOUND FITTED model with pre-fitted sound decoder and bring your layout to life with sound straight out of the box.

Road Name History: British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was the state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain between 1948 and 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the "Big Four" British railway companies and lasted until the gradual privatisation of British Rail, in stages between 1994 and 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commission, it became an independent statutory corporation in 1962 designated as the British Railways Board.

British Rail designed and manufactured rolling stock from 1948 to 1989, at which time its subsidiary British Rail Engineering Limited (BREL) was privatised.

1997 marked the end of the privatization effort in which the last assets of British Rail were sold to 31 regional freight and passenger operators as well as Railtrack (which was later brought under public control as Network Rail), which was given the track and infrastructure.

Read more on 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.