A really dumb question !

[Rob H]

I keep reading on this forum about Farish mk1 coaches, which I understand, and Farish staniers which I don't understand.
So what is a stanier ?

[zwilnik]

The mk1 coaches were the standard BR design coach introduced just after nationalisation. Stanier coaches are the ones designed by William Stanier for the LMS which made their way into BR usage.

[poliss]

Up until the formation of British Railways locomotives and coaches carried the name of the C.M.E, Chief Mechanical Engineer. He would be in charge of the design department. So you would get Gresley or Stanier pacifics. Collett or Maunsell coaches etc.
There's a list of them on Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:British_railway_mechanical_engineers

Farish is the name of the company that makes the models. It began as Graham Farish and made OO gauge models. Later it made N gauge models and was known as Grafar for a time. They had a factory at Poole, Dorset. In 2001 it was taken over by Kader Industries of China, who also own Bachmann.
You might hear of Poole locos being mentioned. This refers to locos made or designed in Poole before Bachmann moved production to China. You also might read of BachFar models. These will usually be of new and improved designs after the takeover.

History of Graham Farish on Wikipedia. Always remember that information on Wikipedia is not totally reliable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Farish

You can usually tell Poole designed steam locos from the solid wheels with only a moulded representation of spokes on the driving wheels and solid pony wheels without spokes of any sort.