Dapol Class 29
◆ GAUGE ‘OO’ ◆ MODEL Dapol 4D-014-000 Class 29 Bo-bo 6112, BR two-tone green ◆ PRICE £151.95 ◆ AVAILABILITY Dapol stockists or www.dapol.co.uk
I’m always shocked whenever I research 1950s diesels at just how much money must have been wasted in a vain attempt to support British companies by ordering locomotives which had not only not been tried and tested, but in some cases had not even been designed. One company, which was a recipient of this government largesse via BR, was North British Locomotive Company in Glasgow.
NBL had the licence to build MAN engines when it was politically unacceptable to buy from Germany. However, the licencebuilt engines soon – surprise surprise – earned a reputation for unreliability, which the German-built ones did not.
BR ordered the Man-engined
MAN stands for Maschinenfabrik Augsburg Nürnberg AG
Type 4 ‘Warships’ (both Class 41 A1A-A1A and Class 43 B-B) from NBL along with Type 2 (Class 22) diesel-hydraulics for the Western Region, and Type 2 (Class 21) diesel-electrics for the Eastern and Scottish Regions. None of these locomotives covered themselves with glory and the Eastern Region soon managed to pass all its Man-engined Type 2s to Scotland.
However, the Scottish Region also experienced reliability issues with the MAN engines and so, in 1963, D6123 was fitted with a 12-cylinder Paxman Ventura high-speed diesel engine. From 1965, another 19 were similarly re-engined and they became Class 29 under TOPS.
The easiest way to tell the difference was that the Class 29s were fitted with four-character headcode panels in place of the end communicating doors. Other detail changes to the body resulted from the engine change.
To distinguish these locomotives, the first examples had the upper sides painted in Sherwood green’, but once Rail blue came into use, the remainder received the Corporate Image livery. Though the Paxman engines produced an improvement in reliability, Class 29 was a small, non-standard class and, as such, did not last much longer than the unmodified locomotives; the last ‘21s’ were withdrawn in 1968 while all the ‘29s’ had been withdrawn by the end of 1971.
If the NBL Type 2 diesel-electric proves anything, it’s that beauty is not necessary to being modelled. The first NBL Type 2 model appeared as a fairly crude
Playcraft model and then figured quite early among Tri-ang-hornby’s diesel models, but both disappeared from sale years ago, and it has taken until 2020 for Dapol to revisit the type, producing first the original Class 21 (MR273) and now the Class 29. It’s now set the record for the longest gestation period for a 21st-century model locomotive – nine years!
Don’t be misled by the Dapol box on which a misprint refers to the Class 21/29s as ‘hydraulic’; this model owes little to the Chirk company’s earlier Class 22, despite the obvious NBL parentage of both locomotives.
The Class 29 diesel-electric has a sharply tooled body incorporating the various changes from the Class 21, the most obvious of which is the illuminated four-character headcode panel. The
headcode itself, which reads simply ‘••8•’ is set back behind the glazed panel and is illuminated from behind, together with the front marker lights.
The front end character of the Class 29 has been well captured, though there does seem to have been some variation between individual locomotives in exactly how the conversion was handled, particularly in the plating over of the doorway. There’s still the residual outline of the communicating doors, as there was on the real thing, and those bizarre lamp irons, welded up from a piece of bar and some ‘L’ angle. The lamp irons and windscreen wipers are separate fittings. So, too, are some of the roof details, revised from those on the Class 21 to suit the re-engined locomotive.
Both cabs have interior detail and switchable interior lights but no driver figures. A bank of four micro-switches on the underside allows independent switching of front and rear cab lights, headcodes and marker lights in DC operation. Digital users can, of course, switch these remotely.
The most striking feature, in my view, is the treatment of the large bodyside grille. I was unable to ascertain exactly how this is done. It appears integral with the main body moulding. From some angles it looks to be a routine moulded grille painted black, but when the light catches it the ‘mesh’ stands out against a reflective background in a most convincing way.
Publicity suggests that it is an etched grille and certainly the main circular fan grille on the roof is etched. Both are exceptionally fine and very skilfully fitted, such that it is impossible to tell where the etched part ends and the plastic moulding begins.
FIT AND FINISH
I am not a fan of Rail blue and so I selected 6112 in two-tone green with full yellow ends to review. This model is also available with a decoder fitted (RRP £181.95) and with sound (RRP £293.93). I would have preferred D6114, which was the only one in two-tone green with a small yellow panel, but there’s only a sound option with this model. Dapol has been steadily improving its levels of paint finish and printing in recent years and this model is right up there with the best of modern ‘OO’. The two-tone green has a nice satin finish and the masking where it meets other colours is neat. The yellow on the ends is, perhaps, a little heavy-handed but this is unavoidable when spraying over a darker colour.
Presumably NBL had the railwayana market in mind when it fitted these locomotives with no fewer than four of its distinctive diamond-shaped worksplates. These are represented by a raised moulding on the cabside and the printing is legible under a magnifier, though smaller and not quite as neat as the TOPS data panels placed on diagonally opposite cabsides. Shiny wire handrails are fitted on either side of the doors.
The body unclips easily from the cast metal chassis, with just three or four strips of cut-up credit card inserted between the sides and the metal chassis block. The two sections remain connected by four sets of wiring, but these can be unplugged if you really need to separate the body and chassis.
Much of the mechanism is concealed within the chassis block but, in doubtless the same arrangement as the Class 21, the centrally-mounted motor drives both axles of both bogies through shafts and bogie-mounted gearboxes. A 21-pin decoder socket is mounted above one bogie and above the other is space for a decoder and sound speaker placed directly under the fan grille.
Sprung oval buffers are fitted and there are pivoted Nem-style sockets at both ends. I found the bogie sideframe detail particularly impressive, with the depth of detail around the leaf springs, dampers, steps and sandboxes, the best I’ve seen on a ready-to-run model. It’s been a while since I last reviewed a diesel-outline locomotive and though I was not a fan of Class 29s and don’t think I ever saw one, this is a model which impresses at every turn. (CJL)
Together with classmate D6101 and an unidentified English Electric Type 3, D6112 rests at Grangemouth shed circa 1969. D6112 went new to Stratford shed on June 20 1959 and moved to Eastfield, Glasgow, in September 1960. It was fitted with its new engine in September 1966 and, as 6112, it was withdrawn from Eastfield, still in two-tone green, on December 31 1971. It was scrapped at St Rollox Works in company with 6129 and 6116 in the summer of 1972. RAIL ONLINE
The most striking feature, in my view, is the treatment of the large bodyside grille