Dapol Class 21
Dapol announced its intention to recreate the Class 21, as well as the later incarnation – the Class 29 – almost ten years ago, so the eventual arrival of the first models generated quite a lot of excitement in the Model Rail office.
The Class 21 Type 2 was not a particularly successful design, highlighting the shortcomings of BR’S hurried approach to dieselisation. A whole fleet was put into production before the initial pilot batch had been assessed, with the ensuing chronic reliability issues proving an embarrassment to BR and the North British Locomotive Company. A re-engineering programme soon followed for part of the fleet, thus creating the Class 29, but both classes were doomed to criminally short working lives. The combination of a sad-faced aspect and a busy bodyside full of windows, doors and grilles, led to a rather ungainly appearance, but the Class 21 did have a certain character, which the Dapol product has captured extremely well. The front ends, with the drooping windscreens, really look the part and the communicating doors, lamp brackets and marker lights are finely and accurately rendered, although the wipers are a tad overscale.
A set of white and green plastic headcode discs are provided, although they’re rather basic and there’s no means of attaching them to the model other than by glueing them directly to the marker light fairings, thus removing any means of swapping the ‘codes’ around in future, unless a temporary adhesive is employed (Glue ‘n’ Glaze is my recommendation). Furthermore, the lack of locating pins and slots also makes aligning the discs tricky.
The rest of the bodyshell is impressive, especially the large, finely etched grilles on each side, with the radiator elements visible behind. The moulded details, including louvres, grilles, footsteps and tank filling hatches are excellent, while the cab interiors feature moulded consoles and seats.
CLEARLY LACKING
In the past couple of years, I’ve been struck by the exceptional quality of glazing in
many new ‘OO’ and ‘O’ gauge models. Alas, the Class 21’s windows aren’t quite up to the same standard, with a pronounced prismatic effect around the edges.
The austere green livery has been applied well, but our sample does have patches of overspray around the boiler tank hatches. The diamond NBL worksplates are separately applied etched items, as are the oval shed code plates (the application of which is a little sloppy). The radiator roof fan grille, while finely etched, has also been installed laxly, with the longitudinal walkway being out-of-kilter.
A small bag of bufferbeam details is supplied and their presence greatly improves the look of the locomotive’s ends, although no fitting instructions or diagrams are supplied, meaning that the customer has to do a spot of independent research. The dummy drawhooks do not fit into the slots cast into the metal bufferbeams without either trimming the hook’s tail or opening out the hole with a drill or reamer.
Below the running plate, the bogie frames look good, with the prototype’s clunky brake gear recreated admirably. There’s also a run of piping to the brake reservoir tank and the distinctive spoked wheels have been faithfully recreated. Pivoting NEM coupler pockets are installed, albeit not the sprung close-coupling type, but a freely pivoting version that provides plenty of lateral movement. Underneath the chassis is a row of four slide switches, offering independent control of the cab interior lights, plus the head and tail marker lights, which is great for non-dcc users.