Dapol GWR parcels railcar

◆ GAUGE ‘OO’ ◆ MODEL Dapol 4S-011-100 Gloucester RC&W railcar 17, GWR Express Parcels chocolate/cream; Dapol 4S-011-101 Gloucester RC&W railcar W17, BR crimson ◆ PRICE £148.70 ◆ AVAILABILITY Dapol stockists or www.dapol.co.uk

Adding the matching parcels railcar to Dapol’s GWR streamlined diesel railcar (MR243) fleet seemed, to me, to be an obvious course of action. It uses the same chassis and it has few windows, so the slightly compromised interior of the passenger cars is not an issue. However, it does require a completely new body tool and, happily, Dapol took the view that such expense could be justified. The parcels railcar, 17, or W17W in BR days, is now available and I’ve had the opportunity to test both GWR and BR versions.

The moulded plastic body captures well the smooth, rounded shape that earned these railcars the ‘flying banana’ epithet. Each side features the broad, centrally placed guard’s door and two pairs of loading doors. On the real thing all were sliding doors and on the model they are really crisply defined and look almost as if they should slide open but, of course, they don’t. The guard’s door has separately applied handrails and there’s a separately fitted conduit on the roof, but otherwise the smooth body shape does not really demand separate fittings. Glazing is flush and largely avoids the prismatic effect around the edges.

DETAIL ALTERATIONS

Like the passenger car, Dapol has catered for detail alterations which were made during the life of the cars. On later versions of the model the skirting panels over the bogies were removed, and there’s final drive detail on the bogie sideframes. Where appropriate, there’s a detail pack containing the plug and lamp for the central tail lamp which was a later fitting and, on the model, is the only nonworking light. On the fully skirted car the final drive detail is omitted to allow more space for the bogies to turn. The later versions also have steps above the buffers and a centrally placed lamp or bracket. These are supplied separately for fitting by the modeller.

The body is simply attached to the chassis with just two clips, one either side below the saloon doors. A substantial sealed motor, with a brass flywheel, is mounted within the chassis block and drives one bogie through a universal shaft and bogie-mounted gearbox. Lighting is provided by LEDS in the ceiling, and the small nose-end lights are also illuminated by LEDS, three white lights forward, one red light to the rear.

Access to the 21-pin decoder socket and the space for a digital speaker is gained by removing the interior moulding which is a one-piece moulding in ‘caramel’ brown plastic. The cabs are provided with seats, rather more substantial-looking than those on the real thing, but there is no other cab interior detail. There is, however, detail of the slatted parcels shelves inside the main body of the car with one side depicted open and the other folded. As on the passenger car there’s a large bulge in the floor area where the motor and drive system are mounted on the chassis below. It makes little difference in this car, as the interior is scarcely visible.

The bogies are plastic mouldings. The external drive-shafts and axleboxmounted final drives have been omitted from both bogies on the fully skirted model in order to provide clearance for the bogies to turn. Detail and relief on the bogies is a little flat, doubtless due to the need to allow for bogie swing on the fully-skirted car. Metal disc wheels are fitted with pick-ups on all eight wheels, those on the trailing bogie being simple phosphor-bronze wipers.

For those wishing to fit digital sound, a speaker location is provided in the underside just inboard of one bogie. Two screws hold the interior and the ceiling circuit board in place and these must be removed to allow access to the speaker location.

SMOOTH OPERATOR

On test, the railcar ran smoothly and quietly throughout the speed range, in both directions, and was controllable down to a crawl. Its quietness is impressive, with both samples virtually silent and just the noise of wheels on rails. The lights, though correctly quite small in size, show up well and the cab light does make the lack of a driver rather obvious. I did not carry out haulage tests as these cars never ran in multiple or hauled a tail-load.

The quality of finishing on both cars is to a high standard. The chocolate and cream is particularly pleasing, set off by a white roof. The GWR roundel and other small lettering is neat and legible in gold colour printing, and the ‘Express Parcels’ wording is goldcoloured and shaded with black. For those who model the steam era but are tempted by the odd early diesel, this is the perfect addition to your fleet. (CJL)

The moulded plastic body captures well the smooth, rounded shape that earned these railcars the ‘flying banana’ epithet