Graham Farish - 372-262SF - Locomotive, Diesel, Class 47/7 - Rail Express Systems - Royal London Soc. For The Blind - 47745

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. 47745 is one such machine, originally built as D1967, in 1983 it was fitted with Electric Train Heating (ETH) and became 47603 and later still was renumbered to 47745 in 1994 following the fitting of extended range fuel tanks and cab-front jumper cables when allocated to Rail Express Systems. Named ‘Royal London Society for the Blind’ in 1994, complete with a set of nameplates in Braille, the locomotive retained its Rail Express Systems livery until it was cut up in 2004.

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: Rail Express Systems (RES) was a sector of British Rail. This sector was responsible for transport of mail and parcels, including the Travelling Post Office trains, as well as taking over charter operations from InterCity and haulage of the Royal Train.

RES had been created out of a policy of Sectorisation, its functions previously being undertaken as an integral element of British Rail in the 1980s. Initially known simply as the Parcels Sector, it was decided to re-brand it as Rail Express Systems during late 1991. The entity's management team sought to improve the economics of its operations and to better satisfy its customer's needs, the principal one being the Royal Mail. Thus, various initiatives were undertaken, including the procurement of new rolling stock in the form of 16 four-car British Rail Class 325, a series of electric multiple units built exclusively for moving mail.

During the mid 1990s, RES implemented a £150 million strategy that focused on long-distance services that worked in conjunction with a central hub based in London at its heart, known as Railnet. As a consequence, many stations had their mail services permanently withdrawn as they were redirected to a series of hubs across the country; the final mail train services departed King's Cross, Euston, Liverpool Street and Paddington stations on 27 September 1996. As a result of the privatisation of British Rail during the mid 1990s, RES was put up for sale to the private sector. Following a competitive bidding process, the entity was purchased entirely by the recently created railway freight operator English Welsh & Scottish (EWS); shortly thereafter, RES was integrated into the firm and ceased to exist as an independent operation. A few years later, railway-based mail operations ended entirely in Britain due to the increasingly poor economics involved.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.