I have some 31s which I have fitted Zimo decoders to. I believe the Farish fitted DCC chip is also by Zimo. If so you can set the brightness of lights by changing CV 60. 250 is the maximum value.

Very helpful review that gave me a great insight into a current Graham Farish sound fitted loco.

Hi Ian, I don't normally watch review videos, but to be honest you caught my eye and I thought you did an excellent job! you covered all aspects brilliantly, and obviously looked for photos of it in that livery. Like you I was intrigued by the red solebars so I also looked up images to try to find out what year she carried this livery. According to some flickr images I looked at, she carried the livery in the late 80's which make a lot of sense as this was the period Railfreight started to come in and also carried red solebars. Regarding the sound version for an extra £90 isn't a bad price when you consider you'll have to pay between £20-£30 to get a decoder for it anyway. Sound decoders usually start at £100 upwards but if on a tight budget, go for the normal version and treat sound as an add on later on. Unfortunately with the prices of the world we all have to decide where our pennies can be better spent. All the best Tony.

Your review was a great help for what I thought a front lightning problem with my Kernow special edition one. Thanks

Interesting presentation Ian, seemed to be the right length with all appropriate points covered, keep up the good work!

Hi Ian, Excellent review. You've covered the major points that I think most people are interested in and the testing section was well put together.

Nice to see a diesel review, mostly on KZfaq all you see is steam, when i finally get the room to start my layout its the diesel electric route i wish to go. Thanks Ian i enjoyed your review.

Hi Ian Very good review I think, all the main points covered really but a couple of things, as you mentioned them in a reply, this 31 was repainted as a 'depot pet', later in its BR Blue livery life hence the unusual livery with the white stripe and red bufferbeam etc (although some 31/4's did get white stripes too when ETH fitted for the South Pennine trains). The Headcode panel lights are dim (as they were in real life!) and this particular model represents that, if you had a Headlight fitted 'refurb' model the lighting would be a lot brighter! I do have a earlier issued BR Blue 31312 also sound fitted and yes its great I love it and it runs beautifully, slow speed etc, although I too am a ' BR Blue' man and I also am looking for a non-sound Cricklewood to go with 31312. Lastly, I have to say although the pricing for all models is increasing beyond belife, it is always slightly cheaper to buy sound fitted models from the start, as opposed to 'retrofitting' them later, which will incur added costs. Good luck with it, looking forward to any more updates or reviews. Thanks

Hi Ian, an informative and enjoyable review of the class 31. Cheers Gary

Very good review Ian.

Hello Ian, excellent and comprehensive review 👍👌

Hi Ian .. great review, and your right it is was a eye watering price and that said I would not except the fact that the lights are not working, I suggest you contact the supplier maybe they’ll sort it out for you good luck….Graham

Thanks for this - for me it highlighted the areas I'd be interested in when thinking about a loco - full disassembly is way beyond what I'd attempt! Jonathan

Hi Ian. I like your style of presentation. More information is always nice, although not if it's too trivial. Grading is also good. If the quality is there, £90 for a sound decoder (and speaker) is not too excessive - although, I do understand your "eye-watering" comment. You just really need to want sound.

Hi Ian, well done on what I would call an excellent review video. I don’t often watch them as most are to long for me and I found this one just right, plenty of info and the train running round at low and high speeds. I bought my class 31 second hand for around £70 with no sound. I like the sound and I think a few selected loco’s with sound on a layout is probably good enough rather than keep laying out for sound loco’s. It’s nice to have a dedicated N Gauge reviewer, thanks for doing it and look forward to more, cheers Ian, John

Nice review, no changes required here 👍 The prices are eye-watering though...

First class Ian. Interested to see the speed it can attain. My new 60 can only crawl slowly. I posted a question on one of the N gauge forums and discovered other people have had the same issue. Some say send it back others say the newer motors on locos are made to only replicate the maximum speed of the real thing. Your loco does seem to run far faster than my 60 mmmm...interesting! Cheers Euan

Overall a pretty decent review Ian. A couple of points, the lights are as per the prototype i.e. only the headcode box lights iluminated in the forward direction, there were no marker lights on the front unless a headlight was fitted, or it was a headcode disc fitted variant, which in this case neither apply, and yes they were dim, no LEDs in those days. Secondly, the loco is an A-1-A A-1-A not a Co-Co. The centre wheel in each axle is not driven. I have to say that I disagree on the value. By the time you add the £20+ quid you would have to for a standard DCC you actually only end up paying around £60 more for the sound fitted version, which if you were to buy a sound decoder would be £100+.

The forthcoming farish class 14 is an extra £100 on the list price for the sound fitted version, which seems to be the norm at the moment. BTW - I believe the 31s were A1A-A1A rather than Co-Co, I.e. centre axles we’re unpowered.

excellent review, *especially* covering performance over 1st radius set track points and the S curve not sure but you may be able to adjust the brightness of the lights by messing with the CVs? though I gather headcode boxes were pretty dull and basically only visible at night so it may be about right - loco headlights as it were of the era being more so you could see it coming than for the driver to see where there are going. does look a very nice little model, not really suited to my location sadly (WCML) though that does avoid it utterly outclassing any of the others. not 100% convinced on DCC sound, I suspect largely due to the noise of my current fleet likely drowning it out but that review video of yours shows the sounds nicely - I gather you really need some sort of automation system to get the best out of sound but do want to experimentificate at some point nicely done :)

I think farish have done a good job with the 31s. I have a few now and they run well.

Greetings, Shelfington, and hello Ian 👋 great breakdown on the Farish 31👍 like you. I've found it to be a very reliable performer and highly recommended 👌 I, too, find that I'd rarher spend the money on other rolling stock than sound fitting 😇 though they do have their use for shunting sessions 🤔 Only thing missing from the video was life threatening situations 😱 jigsaws, fishplates and rocket card glue 😳 Very best wishes from the Emerald Isle ☘️

Nice looking train very well done a great review sounds really good a great video 👍

I have two of class 31s they are a lovely model one I BR blue and one in Inter City mainline

Hello Ian. Thanks for the review of the class 31. That’s been really helpful. I’m thinking of adding Cricklewoood to my fleet. My only concern though is the colour of the loco. From some of the pictures I’ve seen with the main retailers it appears to be a darker blue than typical BR blue. Compared to your other locos what do you think? Regards Richard

Crikey. I haven’t had my hand in modelling for some time now and stumbled across this video…. As with everything else at the minute, model railways seem to have fallen victim to the eye watering cost of living crisis……