TME from Mck
Introduction
Nordic Re-Finance AB is a company that leases out locomotives to different operators. Most locomotives today tends to be leased out, but it is however quite common that the leased locomotives are in the operators color scheme. This is not the case for this particular model though.
The TME is as far as I am aware a variation of the ME used by DSB (The Danish state railways). I am unfortunately not familiar with the difference between the ME and the TME, as they look identical to me.
I got this model as a used model from a model train shop. The particular model I got is, according to it's packaging, produced in a batch of 50 in 2021. McK have however created other batches of similar locomotives that is still in stock in certain stores in a brand new condition at the time of writing. The product number of the model I got is McK 0119.
First look at the model
The model came in a sturdy box with proper protections. The box looks similar to the one the NMJ Di6 came in, which actually makes a lot of sense since both models are produced by Dekas in the end.
The locomotive came with a manual, function list and some additional parts. The manual is written in danish, which is somehting to be aware of. Note that the model I got came with one of the snow plows broken. Such is expected when a model have been used before by someone else. I where luckily able to glue the snowplow together using super glue. I used a paper clip to even out the glue after applying it. Those of you who have read my articles in the past knows that I am not a fan of super glue. Super glue is however the most suitable glue in this scenario due to it's strength. The plastic glue I usually use is more suitable for gluing detail parts onto a model.
There are a total of four snowplows with this model. Two of them are for when you use the model with functional couplings, while the other two are for when you use the model with more realistc detailing. The model came fitted with the ones used for detailing, which is not what I want. I therefor decided to swap the plows, which I will describe later in this article.
The model looks to be in good condition. I did not find any damage to the paint job or important details missing. There seems however to be some missing steps, but that is of no importance to me. I would also say that the condition of the model seems to indicate that this model have barely been used or used very sparingly. Bellow are some pictures of the model.
Swaping the snowplows
The model I got did as mentioned come with snowplows for details, not functional couplings. I like to operate my locomotives, which is less fun when you can't connect any wagons to the locomotive. I therefor swaped the snowplows to make room for functional couplings. The existing snowplows are attached with two screws. I used a PH1 screwdriver to unscrew them. Bellow is a picture of the two different types of snowplows.
The next step I had to do was to remove some detail parts. I am not sure if they where fitted from the factory or from the previous owner, but I strongly suspect that they where fitted by the later as I had to use a plier and quite a bit of force to pull them of. That tells me that they probably where glued in place using some sort of strong glue.
The snowplow could then be fitted together with a functional coupling.
Pictures of the prototype
I have actually seen this locomotive in real life back in 2022. That is actually the only time I have seen it in real life. It is also the reason why I know that this locomotive have been in the country I live in and therefor the reason I decided to buy it. The locomotive was stuck on a red light that day as a service train working on new catenary had tipped over on a single track section of the railway. I regret not having time to take more pictures of the locomotive, but time didn't allow for that.
First run
The first test run of the model went well. I had no stalls and all light and sound functions worked to my satisfaction. One thing I did notice though was that the coupling was hiting the snowplow. This is the same issue that the EuroDual from Sudexpress have. It could be the reason why one of the included snowplows was broken.
I known from experience that this type of problem with couplings commonly cause wagons to decouple from locomotive. That is not fun at all when suddenly your entire container train decouples in the middle of a steep hill causing the entire train to run at full speed in the wrong direction. I did not run into such type of issue when doing the first test run, but I decided to swap the coupling for proper Fleischmann couplings. Bellow are two images showing the difference between the couplings.
Note how the Fleischmann coupling have no issues being flat due to the way the flap is designed. You could probably cut of the flap on the original coupling, but I would defintely recommend using the Fleischmann coupling instead. It is of high quality and is also the coupling expected when participating in FREMO events.
Programming the decoder
I am not a fan of lights that change with the direction of travel as I want to control the lights independently. I did try to move F7 function to F22 in order to use the F7 function for changing light direction. That works for some of the lights, but the tail lights seems to be hardwired to change in direction of travel just like on my EuroDual. Annoying, but it is what it is.
One thing I did change sucessfully though was the volume. The model came with a master volume of 160 and a faded volume of 128. I changed those to 64 and 32 respectively just like i did on the Di6.
Light and sound functions
The light and sound functions of this model is actually quite impressive in my opinion. This model have white front lights, red tail lights, shunting lights, cab lights, departure lights and engine room lights.
Inside the model
There are four screws on the underside of the model that needs to be unscrewed. I used a PH0 screwdriver. One thing to note is that it's easy to unscrew to many screws. The screws you need to unscrew are the ones that are closest to the center of the locomotive. That would be the screw to the left in the rightmost image bellow (bottom image if you are reading this on a narrow screen).
One thing to be aware of is that the center piece on the underside is quite loosly attached. It is therefor very easy to accidentaly loosen it. It's therefor always important to hold the locomotive in it's metal chassis rather than the center piece. Another thing to be aware of is that the chassis easily goes of in the A end of the locomotive while it's harder to loosen on the B end. It might therefor be necessary to very gently jiggle that end to help the shell come off.
One interesting thing to note here is that there are two speakers. There is one speaker right next to the decoder and one speaker inside the center piece. Another intersting thing is that there is two condensators mounted beneath the circuitboard.
My first impression of the model was that there was no condensators as the locomotive would stop instantly if it lost power. It might be a decoder setting that needs to be configured for the condensators to work, but it could also be that the condensators are simply to weak to provide power. I have decided to not spend any time investigating it at the moment, as I do not have any problems with stalls on this model.
One thing to be aware of is that it is quite easiy to loose the screws attaching the shell due their placement. I lost one of the screws the first time I opened the shell and didn't find it until a week later. The way I found the missing screw was that the curve noise on the locomotive was always active no matter what track I drove on. I therefor had to investigate the hall sensors used for curve noise. That resulted in finding the missing screw between the bogie and the sensor.
Final thoughts
I have to say that I am quite impressed about this model. It has neat light and sound functions while operating well. I have at the time of writing this article had zero problems with this model other than the curve noise issue caused by the screw I lost. This model is defintely on feature pariety with the Di6 I own, which means that this is a high quality model.
Superspeed500 2026