EFE Bulleid Booster Locomotives Review
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EFE’s Bulleid “Booster” CC1 and CC2 loco models became available a few days into the new year. Five versions have been produced:
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 Photograph by Robert Armstrong |
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Declaration. On behalf of this group I contributed towards the early research and checking of development CADs of these models, so unlike my other reviews I cannot be impartial. However, I am reviewing the only two models I have, the BR Green and BR Blue versions that I paid for. As we found when poring over drawings and photographs, for just two locomotives there were a considerable number of detail differences over their lifetimes. It was therefore necessary to select specific incarnations that are verifiable from photographs. There are still some other possible variations! All variations are driven by a 5 pole, skew wound motor with flywheel, and each of the six axles are driven whilst all twelve wheels provide electrical pickup. Directional lighting operates in the forwards direction (the real locomotives were not fitted with tail lights), whilst cab lighting can be operated using a magnetic wand when used on analogue control, or when a 21 Pin DCC decoder is fitted via two DCC functions. A loudspeaker is fitted to every model, allowing a sound decoder to be fitted. DCC modellers will need to source and fit a suitable silent or sound DCC decoder. Specific details are as follows:
Product number E82002, SR malachite green
Product number E82003, black and aluminium
Product number E82004, BR lined Southern Region green
Product number E82005, BR blue with wrap around yellow ends
Now you can see why scrutinising a lot of photographs could cause a headache and also appreciate the flexibility of the tooling suite to be able to achieve all of this! Now to the review-proper. To be blunt – despite a wealth of detail these are rather plain looking, distinctly lacking in style, locomotives. This is accurately portrayed in these models. However, in my opinion, and of others, the moulding of small details is rather light and lacking in sufficient relief. The louvres are not as visible as in photographs and the details on the bogies particularly lack depth. The green and blue liveries do not help show slight detail and I suspect that some subtle, or even heavy, weathering will help show detail better. Photographs of the real locomotives rarely show them to be clean and shiny and things like the louvres really stand out when grimy. These models compare, allowing for variations, very well to drawings and photographs. Visibility of small details aside, these models look right. Dimensions are mostly spot-on, but perplexingly – and I have checked this a number of times by both measuring and laying the model over a scale drawing – the height of the loco from the top of rail-head to the top of its roof is 2mm under. This is despite the wheel diameter being nearly 0.5mm over. It is probably over-picky to mention this, but although the axle spacing on the bogies is accurate the overall wheelbase is 0.5mm short. Usually, I am not bothered by inaccuracies of up to 1mm provided they do not alter the look, so only the discrepancy in the height is of potential concern to me. Whilst mentioning bogies, the wheels are correctly of the BFB pattern. The issue 4mm scale Southern Electric modellers home-in on is how the pick-ups/pick up beams align with conductor rail fitted to 16.5mm gauge OO track (a.k.a. HO scale track). On these models they are outside of “correctly” fitted conductor rail, so the bogies are made to true 4mm scale width, not compromised for OO standards. This is borne-out by measuring their width, and they are accurate to scale. Each model comes with a bag of separate parts to be fitted by the modeller and the contents of the bags correspond to each variation. However, dummy hook couplings, buffer beam pipes (both best fitted with the tension lock coupler removed) and eight pick-up shoes are common to all models. My layout uses Peco Code 75 bullhead track fitted with Peco conductor rail components fitted as per Peco’s instructions. I found the pick-up shoes, although fitted to the inside of the beams, are still situated outside of the conductor rail. Furthermore, although they do not align with the conductor rail, they are also vertically positioned a fraction above the con rail height. When running around my main line the pick-up shoes did not foul anywhere despite there being a little, but very small, variation in con rail height, and these locos survived their runs with all eight pick-up shoes still in place. |
 Note the pickup shoes aligning vertically slightly above the conductor rail, and the BFB wheels |
| These models weigh a decent 480g, which ought to be good for traction. I have only had time to run each model for ten minutes in each direction around my mainline, and have not yet tested their haulage capacity. Straight out of the box they ran well enough, with top speed on DC being realistic rather than whizzing along at train-set standard high speed. Both ran slightly better in one direction than the other. I expect them to loosen up and improve when run-in. I have large radius points on my mainline and they navigated these, both straight through and when taking the diverging route, in both directions, smoothly at all speeds. All wheels’ back-to-back measurements are within correct gauge for OO, though I found there are extremely small differences. All three axles on each bogie are driven, which probably is the reason there is no vertical movement on the middle axle. This is contrary to best practice for frames and bogies having more than two axles, as without compensation or any other vertical play on intermediate axles, where the track is not flat the bogies or wheel frames can pitch about their intermediate axles resulting in loss of traction and/or derailments. I had no problem during test running, and this despite my best endeavour my mainline has a very slight short hump. However, I know others have experienced some derailments. |
 Contents of the detail bag from the BR blue model. Note the pickup shoes are pictured upside down and only half of them |
| The instructions show where to fit the pick-up shoes, but not how to fit them. I initially found fitting the pick-up shoes impossible, at least without risking using great force and possibly causing damage. You will note from the photograph above that the upper edge of each pickup has two inverted vertical keyhole shaped slots. On the inside of the pick-up beam are two corresponding short spigots pointing inwards. It appeared obvious to me that the slots should be placed over the spigots and then be pushed vertically home. I tried this about a dozen times, but to no avail. The pick-up beams are slender plastic and flex. Pick-up shoes either ballistically flew to somewhere else in the room (but fortunately I found them) or fell inside the body of the loco. Note no spares are provided. Shaking the body of the loco usually resulted in the shoes falling out, but not always. I ended up with two shoes lodged stubbornly inside, so the body had to come off to retrieve them. The instructions of how to remove the body are quite good. However, the four buffers have to be removed first and they are firmly plugged into the buffer beams. The buffer beams are also slender plastic and flex, so a combination of gently pulling from outside and pushing from inside, eventually popped the buffers out. I do not recommend removing and reinserting the buffers too often. Care must also be taken not to lose the four thin threads, fixing the body to the chassis, after unscrewing them. I found a combination of holding the model slightly above a flat surface by its body and allowing gravity to lower the heavy chassis, plus gently pulling the chassis down by holding the central footsteps (do not do this by pulling the bogies), worked well to separate the body from the chassis. |
 The heavy diecast chassis |
| Removing the body did at least give me the opportunity to inspect the drive mechanism, plus the DCC facilities, and also how to change over the roller blind headcodes (BR blue version). It also gave me a much better view of the bogies, which is how I noticed a not immediately obvious way of fitting the pick-up shoes. With one hand sightly flex outwards the shoebeam and with the other hold the pick-up shoes to the inside of the beam with the spigots aligned with the holes, then allow the beam to flex back to insert the spigots into the holes. Bish-bash-bosh, pick-up shoes are fitted reliably in seconds! However, the pick-up shoes then do not rest flat. On their rear faces they have a short inward facing spigot, which would seem to be intended to insert into a corresponding hole in the bogie sideframes. Except I found no such holes. Instead, this spigot forces the shoes either to rest not parallel to the beam or to flex the beam out slightly. On the last two of the sixteen shoes I fitted I experimented and first cut off the spigots from the shoes. They then rest flat, the beam is not flexed, but they do not fall off. I now need to go back and remove the spigots from the fourteen. |
 The closed – fiddly – head signals from the BR green loco detail bag |
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Like the buffers, the engine head signals on the BR green version are also firmly slotted in and would not pull out with a firm finger grip. I did not want to grip them in pliers in case this distorted them, nor did I want to insert a jeweller’s screwdriver behind them to try to lever them out for fear of damage to the body. So, I have yet to change these, and it does look a bit odd with all of them the same. I suspect that removing the body and pushing them out from inside is the solution, but again it would not be advisable to do this too much. The purely cosmetic metal pantograph, lightly sprung, is fine but is prone to spring up with the slightest touch. Fortunately, it clips back reliably equally easily, not requiring fiddling as on some other model locos. As previously written, the lighting for the headcode panel and head signals is directional. On the BR green version using DC I found except at top speed/full voltage only the top and bottom centre head signals were well illuminated. |
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| On the BR blue version the blind headcode was also best illuminated at full speed/full voltage. Clearly using DCC is better for this. Using DC the cabs’ internal lighting can be switched on and off using a magnetic wand over the cab’s roofs. On Rapido Trains’ North American rolling stock I found using a similar device hit and miss, mostly miss. However, on this model the switching mechanism works well and reliably. All lighting is of a comforting warm (but not bright yellow) colour temperature, most evocative of the time. |
 The magnetic lighting wand for switching cab lighting on DC |
| As I have commented in past reviews, because there are so many factors involved in the reproduction and an individual’s perception of colour I do not specify if a colour is correct or not, merely that it is credible or not. The BR Southern green and BR blue colours used to me are credible. They are certainly in “the ballpark”, but to my eyes not quite in the right part of the ballpark. The Southern green is veering a bit towards BR mid chrome green, arguably it ought to be closer to SR Malachite green version, and the BR blue is a little dark. I suspect that if a little (more?) colour scale perspective were to be applied (i.e. make them a tad lighter) they would look a bit more realistic. |
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Some have commented that the font used on the blind headcodes is incorrect, either by way of size or weight. Having compared with photographs I think it is correct, but that the two numerals are too close together, which is why it does not look quite right. My only other comment is to warn to be careful with the separately applied plastic grab rails when getting in and out of packaging, and when generally handling, as they are delicate. As my photographs show, they are prone to bend or break. In summary, by today’s inflated prices these are very good value for money. There are few minor niggles as they are not quite perfect, but this is nevertheless a very good model. Congratulations and many thanks to Kernow Model Rail for developing another useful model for Southern enthusiasts. Will 20003 follow? All photographs are by the author unless otherwise specified. Colin Duff. Modelling Officer. 16th January 2024. |
