Underground Ernie and different chips

[the fuzzler]

Having a) a 21 month old lad and B) an eye for a bargain, on holiday I picked up a Cirlce line train for ??5 (rrp ??35) and a train set for ??20 (some are still selling online for ??60!).....which got me started hunting down the rest of the range.

 

I've now got a full fleet of UE stuff off Ebay, ready for when he's older, and have today DCCd them.

 

Hanve to say Im intrigued by the fact that they had DCC sockets. Most were fitted with Bachmann 3 function controllers, and they run okay. One had an old Bachmann 2 aspect one (and sounds very poorly). A Hornby 8249 went in the last one, and it runs very sweetly. Finally, due to the tiny space, Ive wasted a TCS D2PX-uk in the inpesction saloon. That runs very well but needs some fine tuning of CVs to sort out slow speed control.

 

So......they all ran the same under DC. I can't beleive the variance in motor sound/performance with these different chips. Im very impressed with the Hornby chip, as the motor sound very quiet and it runs like a dream. But the 2 function one sounds dreadful. I've checked my records and I only had one other one, which is hard wired into a 142. I cant be bothered changing it as I dont expect miracles in performance.

 

Now tempted to get a full UE layout for a local model club open day.

 

And I can't beleive they expected to charge ??35 for the trains !!

[Suzie]

I can't say that I noticed a lot of difference in sound between the 36-553 (3-function) decoder and the 36-552 (2-function) although top speed and acceleration were a lot different, and the 36-553 kept losing it's settings. I have standardised on 36-552 in all the international underground trains now - it will even fit into the Ernie1 inspection vehicle (which has a much higher top speed).

 

The Underground Ernie trains have a nice mechanism and were a real bargain at ??4.99 but still reasonable value at ??35 when you realise that you are getting a 2-car EMU for that. The little ones don't appear to have any trouble picking up DCC control with the E-Z command when you put pictures of the trains by the buttons.

 

Suzie x