EFE Rail launches N gauge Class 17 and Mermaids

[Trains4U]

Our stock arrived today.

[mac1960]

On 15/08/2020 at 07:05, Kris said:

Kernow model centre are saying that they will be released by the end of August.

Kris

I am told mine have arrived, unfortunately I am overseas but back Sat so will see what they look like then. I also have some Farish 8F on order (18 months now) I wish they had come as quick as the Cl 17. 

Prost

Mac 

[acg5324]

In stock at Monk Bar Models, York too. they arrived Thursday afternoon.

[Richp1976]

Just been to collect my 2 weathered versions today and on opening the box I was surprised the see Kernow stamped on underside of each loco - I thought they were EFE - I wonder if Kernow own the tools but are just sold with EFE brand. That said I'm very please with my purchases!

[Trains4U]

Just now, Richp1976 said:

Just been to collect my 2 weathered versions today and on opening the box I was surprised the see Kernow stamped on underside of each loco - I thought they were EFE - I wonder if Kernow own the tools but are just sold with EFE brand. That said I'm very please with my purchases!

 

See the main launch thread from page 17...

[class8mikado]

Arrived at FMR today, fancied another Mermaid ( dont we all) but at  £ 28... im having to think about it some...

[Les1952]

Well, the class 17 has arrived.  Well done Kernow!

 

First impressions- nice packaging, secure and with space for the blanking plate with the little goody bag.  The model looks superb.  Sufficiently good that I don't CARE if there is an odd slope wrong etc etc etc.  If it LOOKS like a Clayton then it IS a Clayton- and I'm old enough to remember the real things in service.

 

 

 

DCC fitting- a doddle. Pull off the tank and the chip fits straight in a sight easier than any 6-pin chip I've ever fitted- Next18 is the way to go.  Only problem is that I tried (and failed) to put the tank back on the wrong way round- it might go back incorrectly with the blanking plate installed, but not with a Zimo chip in place.  It just shows you can't make everything proof against ham fisted idiots like me.

 

Runnning.  Smooth and quiet out of the box.  Still smooth and quiet once the chip was in.

 

Do you feel a "but" coming on?  There is a "but" coming on.

 

It has already been mentioned that there are no traction tyres.  I'm just glad that the layout it is intended for (Croft Spa) is flat.  To run it in I'm using Bregenbach as that is the layout set up at the moment.  Bregenbach is a Black Forest layout with a less-steep-than-prototypical 1 in 25 gradient- the Hollentalbahn on the real thing is 1 in 18.  On my 1 in 25 gradient it managed FIVE beer vans.  Even my Farish 04 shunter takes three.

 

 

By comparison the Piko Bo-Bo diesel nose-to-nose with the Clayton ran out of beer vans to take up the hill at eighteen, and it was nowhere near struggling.

 

But as I said Croft Spa is flat, and the train I have in mind for it is a brake tender, twelve Peco sheeted five-plank wagons and a brake tender.  It should manage that.  After all the 04 can pull it...

 

All the very best

Les

 

 

 

[Roy L S]

I wonder what a real 17 would have managed on a 1 in 25 without blowing a gasket or two!

 

Roy

[Les1952]

4 hours ago, Roy L S said:

I wonder what a real 17 would have managed on a 1 in 25 without blowing a gasket or two!

 

Roy

 

More than five beer vans- they used them up the steep branches to the South Sunderland collieries and on 21 tonners up to Consett where they were allowed the same as a Q6 0-8-0 - 8 fulls plus brake unaided.  Whether any singletons actually got to Consett without breaking down is another matter.  The climb onto the overpass at tyne Yard wasn't exactly flat, either, and parking nose-to-tail along it meant restarting on the grade.  I'm fortunate in that Croft Spa is flat.  

 

I did some further testing this evening.  I took my three type twos out to the shed and ran them on the same rake of Hoppers.

 

The Clayton took 6 beer vans this evening, while the three type twos took 15 (Farish 25) and 16 (Farish 24 and Dapol 27), the difference between 15 and 16 could be due to no two of them having the same chip inside or a number of other fluctuations.  The Piko MaK Bo-Bo is about the same weight as the Clayton but has two traction tyres and not only managed the whole eighteen but two heavy (ie Fleischmann) bogie coaches as well.

 

Perhaps the Clayton might have been a suitable candidate for traction tyres.  Still, in ALL other respects it is a lovely model and it will look good on the Croft Spa limestone train.

 

Les

 

 

Edited August 21, 2020 by Les1952
typos...

[John M Upton]

Whilst I have no objection to traction tyres, there are those here who view them as the devil's sputum...

[Sithlord75]

5 hours ago, John M Upton said:

Whilst I have no objection to traction tyres, there are those here who view them as the devil's sputum...

A designer of N gauge locos I know quite well is of the view that if they are needed, then the design is not as good as it should be - particularly in diesels.  He concedes that some small designs of steam locos, because you can't scale physics, may need a bit of help.  Having said that, he re-worked one of my M7s to move the weight forward and it now pulls much better than the unworked example.

[Roy L S]

I recall that the original DJM spec was for one tyre on each bogie with un-tyred axles in the box. Like Les I am not unduly bothered as my layouts have no gradients so in double-harness they should cope more than adequately with the trains I plan them to haul.

 

Roy

[John M Upton]

Do we know how many of the 17s have been distributed please?  My local retailer seems to be indicating if their website is correct, just two of each version. 

[AY Mod]

5 minutes ago, John M Upton said:

Do we know how many of the 17s have been distributed please?  My local retailer seems to be indicating if their website is correct, just two of each version. 

 

The production run quantities will be confidential but the latter will depend on how many the retailer ordered. If they've got some of each that indicates they weren't at the tail end of ordering stock. 

[Trains4U]

I got all of them (in small numbers)

sold out of 1703 today though.

 

If most retailers are like us, they’ll be testing the water with only a handful of locos.

 

[Pixie]

HI all,

 

I picked up an example yesterday from Kernow in Guildford - it's certainly a nice model, a few little tweaks to make here and there but I like it. It certainly has Dapol-esk elements in the design; taking the bogies apart I recognise that flappy pick-up design and bogie construction from the D6300 immediately. Ben A mentioned the headcodes looked a little strange - fairly happy it's the right shape and size but the 'insert' is slightly chamfered which gives it an odd look. I've filled mine in, put correctly sized numbers in and given it a very thin coat of UV resin which I think has improved it no end.

 

 

The other little tweak is applying a little black around the glazing - as they come there's a prismatic effect but it disappears fairly well. Here's the before:

 

 

And after. I'm still toying with the idea of filling in the two roof ribs as they seem a bit overstated but we'll see.

 

 

Cheers,

Pix

 

 

 

 

 

[rab]

There seem to be quite a few on eBay dealers sites.

[John M Upton]

What is the general consensus if opinion on the factory weathering?  I am still undecided at the moment. 

[Duncan.]

Clayton Class 17

I bought a model of 8512. It's not really suitable for my Shirebrook layout, however, the design of the loco is so different from anything I would normally run I thought why not.

When I opened the box my first reaction was 'It looks big', bigger than I imagined. After I read the instructions I left the loco running in on my test track for 1 hour. It ran very well. I was also surprised that  it was very light (44g) even lighter than the Farish class 20 at 59g, however it had no problems hauling prototypical length trains on my layout.

I checked a couple of dimensions (and found just like the Mermaids that DJM produced) the bufferbeam is too high, higher in fact than any of my other locos and rolling stock, about 0.7mm. The other measurement I found to be wrong was the overall height which I measured at 27.4mm I calculated it should be about 1.3mm lower if the prototype measurements I have are correct.  Perhaps that explains my initial reaction that it looked big.

All other major dimensions were close enough to call correct.

I have read elsewhere that the glazing can be improved by colouring the edges black to reduce the prismatic effect which as delivered isn't great and there was also a question about the size of the 4 character headcode apertures on the noses. I can't decide if they are small or not (can someone measure the size on the prototype?), but they don't look quite right. 

I have tried to see where the extra height is in the model, I get the feeling that the cab is too high, the proportion of the cab windows look slightly too deep the cab just looks too tall above the bonnets when I compare to prototype photos. It is easiest perhaps to spot by comparing the proportions of the exhaust stack between the cab front windows on the prototype and model, the model version is clearly 'longer' and therefore looks narrower than the prototype.

Cheers

Duncan  

[kes]

I have just received my class 17 and here are two short videos of it running slowly around my 9" radius curves pulling 12 wagons with ease.  I ran it in for half an hour each way on the same layout, and tuned the engine through 180 degrees so the bogies turned both ways. I can not fault this model - wonderful!

 

 

[Steven B]

My green one arrived this morning. Apart from the height issues mentioned above it's a rather nice loco. I wasn't convinced by the nose ends but the headcode panels aside, it looks OK. Paint finish is as good as anything from Farish or Dapol (possibly better than some of Dapol's interpretations of some colours!). Mine is missing the multiple working symbols though.

 

Mechanically it runs smoothly and quietly. Slow speed running is OK. Mine managed 15 Farish Blue-Ribbon Mk1/Mk2s before it got too close to the end of its train on my figure-8 test circuit.

 

I'm tempted by the Castle Cement version (and could justify the blue one with red buffer beams for my RTC stock) but will probably wait to see if prices drop in a few months time.

 

Steven B.

[bingley hall]

6 hours ago, Steven B said:

My green one arrived this morning. Apart from the height issues mentioned above it's a rather nice loco...........Mine is missing the multiple working symbols though.

.......

 

Steven B.

 

I believe that over time most of the red diamond locos were converted to blue star, especially those that were repainted blue.

However at least one of the Beyer Peacock built examples D8600 green SYP - one of the EFE weathered ones - carried the red diamonds, 

 

I don't know the number of your model,  but as an example there is a pic on Flickr of 8599 at Tyne Yard in July 1969 with no mu working symbols. 

 

As for the height issue it has been posted elsewhere that they are 1.3mm too high. I'm guessing most people's n-gauge tracks are out by a bigger margin!
 

[Pandora]

On 21/08/2020 at 20:49, Les1952 said:

 

More than five beer vans- they used them up the steep branches to the South Sunderland collieries and on 21 tonners up to Consett where they were allowed the same as a Q6 0-8-0 - 8 fulls plus brake unaided.  Whether any singletons actually got to Consett without breaking down is another matter.  The climb onto the overpass at tyne Yard wasn't exactly flat, either, and parking nose-to-tail along it meant restarting on the grade.  I'm fortunate in that Croft Spa is flat.  

 

I did some further testing this evening.  I took my three type twos out to the shed and ran them on the same rake of Hoppers.

 

The Clayton took 6 beer vans this evening, while the three type twos took 15 (Farish 25) and 16 (Farish 24 and Dapol 27), the difference between 15 and 16 could be due to no two of them having the same chip inside or a number of other fluctuations.  The Piko MaK Bo-Bo is about the same weight as the Clayton but has two traction tyres and not only managed the whole eighteen but two heavy (ie Fleischmann) bogie coaches as well.

 

Perhaps the Clayton might have been a suitable candidate for traction tyres.  Still, in ALL other respects it is a lovely model and it will look good on the Croft Spa limestone train.

 

Les

 

 

I'd just like clarify  the reason for the 6 wagon limit of haulage  of the Clayton on test, is   the loco stalling  with wheels spinning due to limit of  friction when ascending the gradient, or  is a stall with the motor being unable to  supply enough drive to move the trainload?

Edited August 26, 2020 by Pandora

[Izzy]

2 hours ago, bingley hall said:

 

As for the height issue it has been posted elsewhere that they are 1.3mm too high. I'm guessing most people's n-gauge tracks are out by a bigger margin!
 

Hm, this sounds like a time warp back to the 1970’s, thought we'd managed to get beyond that era in N, such a shame.

 

Izzy

[Les1952]

1 hour ago, Pandora said:

I'd just like clarify  the reason for the 6 wagon limit of haulage  of the Clayton on test, is   the loco stalling  with wheels spinning due to limit of  friction when ascending the gradient, or  is a stall with the motor being unable to  supply enough drive to move the trainload?

 

Wheels spinning with the motor running flat out.  There wasn't enough friction between the wheels and the motor which is why the Piko Bo-Bo of similar weight but with two traction tyres walked up the bank with much more.

 

On the club layout Ashtown it handled a train equivalent to just a little more than the maximum I've got in mind (about 20 UK weight wagons plus brake) with no problems at all.  That means it should take my limestone train of 12 Peco sheeted five planks plus a Farish brake and a whitemetal brake tender even if Croft Spa ends up being set up on a floor with a slight slope.

 

Les