Performance

One bogie of each car is fitted with phosphorbronze wiper pick-ups to power the interior lights but the couplers are not wired. The driving cars have direction-controlled front and rear lights but the lack of any through-wiring means that DCC users will have to fit two decoders and reconfigure the one in the trailing car to reverse its ‘forward’ and ‘reverse’ functions just to operate the lights. That is the down side of this otherwise nice, simple coupling system. Unlike the real thing, which has diesel engines in the non-driving cars, Hornby has used the blanked-out window area in car 815004 to conceal a beast of a mechanism, weighing in at a whopping 494g (just over 1lb 1oz) thanks to a metal chassis and floor and an extra slab of weight above the motor. Within the ‘kitchen’ area is a motor and two flywheels, from which two steel prop shafts drive both axles of both bogies. This mechanism is extremely quiet and smooth. Even on my own layout with curves of over 3ft radius and a backscene which would prevent a mishap, I was reluctant to unleash the Class 800 at full speed. Model Rail’s test track is on a balcony above a 20ft drop and has much sharper curves! However, regardless of the curve radius, the IET looks much better when operated at speeds appropriate to the curves on which it is running. And it does look good! It is smooth and quiet straight from the box and the distinctive head and tail lights, set behind their moulded glass fairings, really do look the business.