muggins wrote: I did notice one comment about the running qualities which is perhaps a red flag of sorts. One bloke reckons it's a bit high-geared...
It has a 25:1 reduction, very much the normal thing for a loco to make full express speed. My example was very free running straight from the box, so on my DC controller which is an old Duette that has higher resistance mats in it, even with the optional resistance switched in it took off at slow walking pace the moment it got power. With a DCC decoder it will go as slow as you could wish and so smooth.
For my liking it is what a mechanism should be. But with many DC controllers if the example I have is typical then it might seem a little 'high geared', as very fine regulation is required to obtain a 'dead slow' crawl.