B¹⁰ UIC coaches in C160 livery REE

But it’s a pity that the body-roof junction is so much visible (whereas there’s only a discreet welding in reality) and rather irregular, although, on my copy, it is less catastrophic than on others seen on the forums. It’s still less serious than on DEV coaches, because there are no burrs here. The defect is maximum on the end walls. REE makes such nice wagons…

The bogies, obviously screwed by a Mr. Muscle, are very detailed. Warning: the central dampers, inserted, tend to escape, (this is the case in the photo) and may also rub on a frame rib in extreme cases. The wheels have 0.8 mm flanges. It will be difficult to disassemble the axles because they are surrounded by the brake linkage (very detailed too).

There are on one side of the chassis two bosses meant to ensure a 2-point suspension (the third point being the ball of the opposite side bogie), but these bosses don’t lean on the bogie! They should be thicker by an average of 0.15 mm. And, on the other hand, there is very little clearance in rolling to the ball side: the secondary suspension spring heads quickly come into stop on the chassis beams.

The gangways, very thin and in metal, don’t stand vertical. Must be glued if you don’t want to lose one!

The metallic grey colour is incompatible with that of the LS Models USI coaches (darker, less glossy). But I don’t know who is right. The metallic grey strip is too wide.

No instruction sheet!

Finally, there is dirt on the windows inside the coaches, and some compartment walls (with “mirrors”) are crooked.

I bought the box of three coaches long after the first one which let me evaluate the product quality. As we have seen, it is not free of defects, but the promotional price (-46%!) at which this box is offered will allow me to complete train compositions cheap.

See:

• Loco-Revue Forum.
• gamos81.altervista.org for the reference list of issued UIC coach models.