Dapol ‘43XX’ Mogul
◆ GAUGE ‘OO’ ◆ MODEL Dapol GWR ‘43XX’ 2-6-0 ◆ PRICE £159.95 ◆ PERIOD 1911-65 ◆ REGION Western ◆ AVAILABILITY Dapol stockists
As a big fan of the Midland & South Western Junction Railway, I have always liked the story that Churchward saw the Beyer Peacock 2-6-0 ‘Galloping Alice’ pass by Swindon Works on the Cheltenham-southampton line and decided that the wheel arrangement would suit the Great Western’s requirement for a mixed traffic locomotive. I suspect it is apocryphal, but it is certainly true that Churchward asked his assistant Holcroft to produce a design for a 2-6-0 using standard parts. The spec included 5ft 8in driving wheels and the Swindon No. 4 boiler, and Holcroft drew upon both men’s liking for North American practice, where the 2-6-0 was a common successor to the 4-4-0, just as it would be on the GWR.
The first 20 examples of what would be the ‘43XX’ class appeared in 1911 and proved so successful that 342 were built. Inevitably, with Swindon’s batch building and some being built by Robert Stephenson in the 1920s, the class is a minefield of detail variations, from changes to the centre splasher, different motion brackets, to tall or short safety valve bonnets, different boiler types resulting in differently positioned washout plugs, and the final examples being modified by Collett and fitted with a side-window cab.
As if that complex history of detail changes was not enough, 100 members of the class became parts donors for new-build ‘Grange’ and ‘Manor’ 4-6-0s.
Essentially a tender version of the ‘3150’ class ‘Large Prairie’ (as recently modelled by Hornby) the ‘Mogul’ was a very useful design, at home on anything from local passenger and freight services to express passenger work. Used throughout the GWR system, they are perhaps best known for their virtual monopoly of passenger services over the scenic Taunton-barnstaple line during its last years of steam operation.
Only one example from this important class survives in preservation, No. 5322 at the
Great Western Society’s Didcot Railway Centre, but a replica of the Collett version has been produced from the remains of a ‘Prairie’ tank by the West Somerset Railway.
MODEL NOTES
Dapol initially proposed both the ‘Prairie’ tank and ‘43XX’ tender locomotive but the tank locomotive seems to have gone on the back burner when Hornby revealed that it intended to release a modern version of its former Airfix ‘Prairie’ tank. The Dapol ‘43XX’ provides an up-to-date tooling of a class last offered in the Mainline (Bachmann) range with the temperamental split-frame/ split-axle chassis arrangement, more than 40 years ago.
The details are delicate, separately fitted where appropriate, and all look convincing
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Great Western modellers have enjoyed an array of new releases in late 2020/early 2021, having had something of a famine in recent years, and this new ‘43XX’ from Dapol is the largest and, arguably, the most useful of the models so far from Bachmann, Hornby and Model Rail/rapido.
I will freely admit that I prefer the Great Western’s smaller locomotives and have never been in awe of ‘Kings’ or ‘Counties’. I have long been a fan of the ‘Moguls’ and I still have the Mainline example that I fitted with a cast whitemetal cab conversion and weathered over 30 years ago. Its split-frame chassis gave up the ghost long ago, but I kept it because the weathering job pleased me (see MR254 cover).
A quick comparison with the new Dapol model shows just how far ready-to-run has come in the past nearly 50 years. The new model comes in Dapol’s top-notch standard packaging, a stout card box with lift-off lid, housing the usual clear clam-shell pack, protected by foam all round. An accessory pack contains just the front tension-lock coupling and a little tool to help in extracting the smokebox door to access the PCB. A detailed and useful 20-page manual booklet is provided, demonstrating that some UK manufacturers at least, have understood that models costing well over £100 are deserving of more than just a folded sheet of paper. All the rest of the parts which other companies usually supply as extras – brake rigging, vacuum pipes, dummy coupling hooks – are factory-fitted.
Our sample represents
No. 6385 finished in GWR green with the small circular emblem used in the 1930s, popularly known as the ‘shirt button’ due to its lack of prominence. It features the low-position washout plugs and flanged motion bracket correct for this batch of ‘moguls’. Despite the less-than-colourful livery, this is a model which instantly attracts. It is a nicely crafted model of a powerful little workhorse. As 6385 it has the flared chimney with capuchon, a tall safety-valve bonnet finished in green, no outside steampipes and no whistle shield. It is coupled to the standard 3,000 gallon tender. The boiler has the washout plugs in the lower position, close to the handrail. I understand Dapol has tooling which caters for variants with high washout plugs and different boiler-top details, as well as such differences as the elongated centre splasher on the right-hand side of early examples. The details are delicate, separately fitted where appropriate, and all look convincing. Only the shaping of the flared chimney looks a little heavy-handed with a rather pronounced groove where it joins the base. Churchward was never much on crew comfort and the very open cab allows an uninterrupted view of a nicely executed backhead with much of the detail picked out in colour. The white dials even have printed faces, which would give Hornby’s cab masterpieces a run for their money. To the left of the separately fitted reversing lever are two very slender floormounted levers, which I believe control cylinder drain cocks and sanders. I’ve not seen these modelled in a ‘OO’ ready-to-run locomotive cab before.
The tender features separate lamp irons, water scoop and handbrake standards, sprung and blackened metal buffers and a nicely modelled plank across the tender-front, shovelling plate area. Brake rigging is factoryfitted but the brake hangers and shoes appear rather ‘flat’ and prominent, apparently being aligned for ‘EM’ or ‘P4’ wheelsets rather than ‘OO’. Water scoop and vacuum cylinder are separate fittings.
CHASSIS AND RUNNING
The chassis is an assembly of blackened metal parts and plastic mouldings with drive on the rear coupled axle. The conventional chassis arrangement allows for daylight under the boiler and even some detail between the frames, picked out in red on this livery variant. The wheel rims and the rods, cross-head and slidebars are all blackened metal castings. The slidebars are accurately shaped with a taper to the rear on the outer edges, as on the real thing, however the slidebars on one side of our sample do appear
to be slightly splayed at the rear end, where clearances are tight. The centre driving wheelset is sprung and so is the front pony truck, with light downward pressure.
This model is offered in three forms, the basic analogue/ Dcc-ready version, a DCC decoder-fitted model and a DCC sound-fitted version. Access to fit a decoder in the Dcc-ready version is by removing the friction-fitted smokebox door and lifting out the PCB using the tool provided. An 8 ohm speaker can be installed in the smokebox, with a second in the tender, if desired.
Electrically, the ‘Mogul’ is a pretty sophisticated model. Axles run in brass bearings and electrical pick-up is through driving and tender wheels. While the pick-up from the driving wheels is through the bearings, that on the tender is by way of phosphor bronze wipers bearing on the top of the wheels where they are hidden from view and produce minimal drag.
Power is transmitted to the locomotive from the tender by way of a plug and socket arrangement built in to the loco-tender coupling, which is also a close-coupling arrangement that opens out on sharper curves. This is a novel arrangement, that avoids wires and mini-plugs yet allows the locomotive and tender to be coupled and uncoupled easily. You just push the two parts of the coupling together to couple them and pull them apart to uncouple.
With current collection spread over its 7in wheelbase of locomotive and tender, running is very positive over dead frog points and the ‘Mogul’ proved responsive and very quiet throughout the speed range. It was unfaltering in operation both forward and in reverse and it handled a 35-wagon freight train with ease on level track. It can be a little light on its feet if overloaded on sharp curves or gradients but with trains of typical prototype length it is effortless.
I had just two reservations with regard to performance. Firstly, the manual mentions a flickering firebox glow but I saw no trace of this on analogue DC, so I presume it only operates on Dcc-fitted models. More surprisingly, our sample persistently derailed at the same point on one of the curves on my layout, owing to the lack of vertical flex in the loco-tender coupling. No other locomotive has derailed at that point but it did prove to be a fault in my track – a slightly bent rail joiner causing a change in cross-levels between the two rails on a curve. Once the rail joiner was replaced and the track fettled the locomotive ran faultlessly, which suggests that the lack of vertical flex created by the loco-tender coupling will find any faults in your layout that result in a change in cross-level or gradient. It will be worth sorting them out!
LIVERY AND FINISH
The shirt button GWR livery is not, in my view, the most attractive of GWR liveries, but Dapol has carried it off well with a semi-gloss dark green and black paint job. Cabside numberplates are neatly printed in black and ‘brass’, and the power class D is carried on a blue route restriction circle. The shirt button itself is neatly printed but it is subdued to the point of being inconspicuous. The only other printing (apart from the cab dials already mentioned) is the black-shaded yellow number on the front bufferbeam.
This is the present Dapol organisation’s first tender locomotive in ‘OO’ and it’s a great start, with a ‘Manor’ 4-6-0 to follow in due course. Dapol has taken the opportunity to offer state-of-the-art features for those that want them and a very good analogue Dcc-ready version for those who don’t. A suitable crew and some etched numberplates are all that you will need to put the icing on this particular cake! (CJL)