EFE ZCA Sea Urchin

[AY Mod]

New Tooling from EFE Rail for the Winter 2022 British Railway Announcements comes in the form of the ‘ZCA’ Sea Urchin Open Wagon and this example is finished in pristine EWS livery.

 

E87018 OO BR ZCA 'Sea Urchin' Open Wagon EWS £37.95

E87019 OO BR ZCA 'Sea Urchin' Open Wagon EWS [W - light] £38.95

E87020 OO BR ZCA 'Sea Urchin' Open Wagon EWS [W - heavy] £39.95

E87021 OO BR ZCA 'Sea Urchin' Open Wagon (Ex-EWS) DB Schenker £37.95

E87022 OO BR ZCA 'Sea Urchin' Open Wagon (Ex-EWS) DB Schenker [W - light] £38.95 

E87033 OO BR ZCA 'Sea Urchin' Open Wagon (Ex-EWS) DB Schenker [W - heavy] £39.95

[LaGrange]

Looks nice, no doubt the Dutch version is next

 

Nice to see long overlooked wagons finally get recognition. Not all about locos

[Ramblin Rich]

If this is new tooling, it's interesting it has ended up as an EFE release, not a Bachmann main range item.

The chassis looks like it's different to the Bachmann OCA etc. Possibly derived from the ex FTG SPA?

It does look rather good.

[jonhall]

59 minutes ago, Ramblin Rich said:

If this is new tooling, it's interesting it has ended up as an EFE release, not a Bachmann main range item.

The chassis looks like it's different to the Bachmann OCA etc. Possibly derived from the ex FTG SPA?

It does look rather good.

Almost certainly derived from the FTG SPA, which is a shame because that was pretty awful, and the Sea Urchins derived from SPA's were the last built and therefore had the shortest lifespan. Using almost any of the other 20'9" airbrake van/open chassis would have given at least as many numbers, and a much longer prototype lifespan. 

 

Also worth noting that the ex-SPA Urchins have two different body designs, and Bachman has turned a blind eye to which numbers are suitable for the tool they are doing. I also wonder if Bachman realise that Paul Bartlett isn't the only person to have photographed wagons*

 

Jon

*which might be nearly true in the pre-digital era, but certainly isn't for the Late build Sea Urchin fleet.

[rembrow]

2 hours ago, Ramblin Rich said:

If this is new tooling, it's interesting it has ended up as an EFE release, not a Bachmann main range item.

The chassis looks like it's different to the Bachmann OCA etc. Possibly derived from the ex FTG SPA?

It does look rather good.

Bachmann only sell model railway items under the Bachmann or Graham Farish brands where they are the developer and the model is produced by Kader factories( the parent company). The EFE rail brand was set up to market models where the models are produced in non Kader factories and in most cases where the tooling is owned by a third party. In this case I suggest the tooling is owned by Kernow Models, using the chassis from the Spa wagon that they purchased the tooling from FTG Models. If so it is a model that Kernow are not selling first, via their own brand, but have gone straight to EFE.

[Lyddrail]

7 hours ago, LaGrange said:

Looks nice, no doubt the Dutch version is next

 

Nice to see long overlooked wagons finally get recognition. Not all about locos

These wagons (this version) were converted by EWS and therefore didn't carry Dutch livery. I think EWS was the only livery they had.

Cheers.

[LaGrange]

12 hours ago, Lyddrail said:

These wagons (this version) were converted by EWS and therefore didn't carry Dutch livery. I think EWS was the only livery they had.

Cheers.

 Grr - might have to indulge in the forbidden M thing

[SouthernMafia]

So is this wagon accurate or a mish-mash of a dodgy underframe under a new body tooling?

 

There are plenty of Dutch ZCAs on Flickr, and Mainline too. But I can see that the underframe is very different.

 

 

 

I picked up these very nice kit built ones of eBay a few years ago, which have the correct underframe.

 

 

[Matt]

There were a range of donor wagons converted. Those photos and your model show a conversion from a VDA I think whilst the EFE model is based

on a conversion from SPA so the chassis should be correct 

[hmrspaul]

As Matt says, lots of different donor vehicles provided the frames. Fortunately they retained their original running numbers so it is possible to easily identify the wagons and vans they came from. The Efe brake rigging and solebar etc. is correct, just poorly modelled. 

 

https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/zca

 

Paul

[NickL2008]

Evening all,

 

Took the plunge today and got one of these, dont normally get "new" wagons but one first glance it looked decent. There are good and bad things with regards to this model so ill quickly list them below:

 

Good

• Nicely, clear rpinted information panels / maintainence markings
• No fuzziness on livery application
• NEM pockets (Pretty much standard now) easy to remove

Bad

• Chunky moulded underframe detail, very basic in places and not well rendered
• Moulded lamp irons
• No sprung buffers
• EWS shade has purple tint to it

This model is a licensed KMRC product, and has their logo printed on the chassis so as previously mentioned its derided from a SPA wagon, so details are correct. Overall id say a Decent wagon, but the errors do spoil it. I would imagine this would be easy enough to convert to EM/P4, however I shall be looking at Stenson Models' range to see what can be used to enhance this model

 

NL

[rembrow]

One other problem is the overall height, as the model is too low. The buffer face top edge, locates at the middle of other wagon buffers. I've had to deepen the plate of the floating wheelsets, in order to raise the body. I don't know if this is caused by having wheels of a smaller diameter. 

[The Fatadder]

Mine arrived yesterday:

adding to @NickL2008’s comments, 

 

the biggest issue is that the body is a scale 6 inches too wide, the distance between the buffers is correct at least.  But the model is 2mm too wide.
 

I would also add that the yellow on the EWS version is the wrong colour (more of a lemon yellow rather than ews gold).  Also the lower flat edge of the side should be black not red for dc460915 (clearly shown on the Paul Bartlett photo they clearly used for inspiration).

 

by a long way the worst RTR model I have bought in a very long time.   However with a lot of work, cutting the sides off and narrowing the model, along with some repainting you can get a decent urchin at the end of it.    I really didn’t fancy scratch building the lower part of the sides, but if I had known about the width issue (in addition to the other issues I was already aware of) I’d have saved the money and drawn up a 3d print.