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NBL Type 2 Diesel Electric Class 21 & 29


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I would like to draw attention to a superb book I have received today covering the history of the North British Type 2 diesel electric locomotives, D6100-57, that spent most of their entire careers on the Scottish Region.

Consisting of some 292 pages the book is in landscape format and contains many unpublished photographs and a complete history of all 58 members of the class, including the class 29 rebuilds. I have never seen anything on this scale quite like it for such an unloved and short lived class and I would congratulate the author, Anthony Sayer, for providing such an in depth and nostalgic tribute that this book portrays. Published by the Pen & Sword Transport Books it retails at £40.00 which is good value for money for the excellent content within.

With  a OO model of the D6100's about to be released I would say that the publication of this book is well timed and would compliment the model for those who wish to add extra detail. I look forward to seeing more of the same theme from Anthony and again commend the standard of presentation and historical information.

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To be honest I'm a little disappointed with it,  lots of figures and dates but not much continual reading. 

Lots of great pictures but haven't noticed any east Anglia ones yet, the author states there are a lot of pictures of the gangway connectors but doesn't seem to have included any , nor does there seem to be any of the cab or engine room interiors. 

I am probably being unfair but was expecting better like interviews with people who had actually worked with them as opposed to quoting other publications 

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Got a copy recently. Very good indeed and worth grabbing whilst it still available, but I do agree with russ p and I was a bit disappointed myself. I'm not really interested the allocation history of every member of the class which took up a majority of the book. The material describing the technical aspects of the class was good but there were very few GN or GE pictures of the class and a fair few exist. There only appear to be a few published shots of class 21 cab interiors which have come to light in the CJM Collection so I'm not surprised that none were shown although the CJM ones could have been included. I've never see a picture of a class 29 cab interior or engine room shot with a Paxman Ventura and I would doubt if any exist.

Edited by Baby Deltic
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I agree with Russ and Baby Deltic too.

There a few thoughts that have come to mind reading it as well:

Why were the ones that became class 29's all picked from the early red circle locos? The ScR had already asked for their original allocation to be the standard blue star multi working so that they could multi up with the ScR's other diesels. Does this show some level of 'if we make the re-engine ones still non-standard, we can get rid of them quickly anyway' thinking?

 

D6134 on page 255 shows her missing a buffer on the cab end, and the Author suggests that the valances around the buffers have been cut off to re-rail. I don't agree with this. I would say that the lower cowls around the buffers have been unbolted to allow access to get the buffer off (the cowls would have to be able to be split for maintenance). In fact how was the front cab section put together? It was obviously made from castings in places (the edge of the curves only perhaps?) but was the rest sheet metal? again I suggest it was, look at the obvious joins at the bottom of the nose....

 

Why did so many of the snowplough equipped locos not have the full set of plough's? Many of the ScR locos seem to have one blade only, or the middle section or nothing at all (I've been trying to see if I can see what the plough brackets looked like, but it appears that the brackets were removed with the plough's...)

 

Andy G

Edited by uax6
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I've often wondered why the paxman engined ones were red circle as that was never that common and was on the way out when the 29s were converted. 

I believe it's based on a ten notch throttle with no air involvement,  which on paper sounds better than blue star with its air throttle which even today causes problems with poor sealing of of the regulating air pipes (anyone wanting to call them control air pipes can stand at the back of the classroom facing the wall for an hour!)

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Its even stranger when you read that extensive re-wiring took place to many of the locos when they were re-built, which would have been an ideal time to make them Blue Star (perhaps cannibalising some of the stored blue star machines).

Just seems a very strange decision.

 

Andy g 

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26 minutes ago, uax6 said:

Its even stranger when you read that extensive re-wiring took place to many of the locos when they were re-built, which would have been an ideal time to make them Blue Star (perhaps cannibalising some of the stored blue star machines).

Just seems a very strange decision.

 

Andy g 

 

Like you said earlier they were probably meant to fail as a class and go early. 

They could have done so much with them if the will had been there , even type 3 power.

By all accounts they had nice cabs and rode well

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2 hours ago, russ p said:

 

Like you said earlier they were probably meant to fail as a class and go early. 

They could have done so much with them if the will had been there , even type 3 power.

By all accounts they had nice cabs and rode well

I had a ride on one, in Class 29 trim, from Mallaig to Fort William and back to Morar and they were a nice riding loco with ample power for the West Highland Extension but it was at relatively low speeds of course.   The local Enginemen seemed fairly happy with them in that form and they weren't slagging them off all the time as happened with so many diesels that weren't liked.  However the original version was nothing like as well regarded!  

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41 minutes ago, russ p said:

:mocking_mini: 

Hardly,  I'm only 52!

Can't be many people about that worked with the original ones, maybe one or two who secondmanned on 29s

Well you have three years on me. My uncle probably drove them when they were at Hornsey.

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On 29/09/2019 at 19:27, russ p said:

:mocking_mini: 

Hardly,  I'm only 52!

Can't be many people about that worked with the original ones, maybe one or two who secondmanned on 29s

Russ I'd wonder about that even.  On the West Highland extension the Secondmen at Mallaig were in their late 40s or 50s when the 29s were running there and I would imagine Fort William wouldn't be too much different.  Probably younger men in the Glasgow area but scotland was still very much in the after effects of the end of steam and considerable redundancies so Drivers' Seniority dates at some depots went back 30 odd years (from c.1969/70)

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On 29/09/2019 at 12:29, russ p said:

I've often wondered why the paxman engined ones were red circle as that was never that common and was on the way out when the 29s were converted. 

I believe it's based on a ten notch throttle with no air involvement,  which on paper sounds better than blue star with its air throttle which even today causes problems with poor sealing of of the regulating air pipes (anyone wanting to call them control air pipes can stand at the back of the classroom facing the wall for an hour!)

I have the book and commend the author for documenting such an obscure class of locomotive belonging to the dark age of BR.  The book is a valuable resource for purchasing decisions  of the  Dapol 21 /29,  I foresee  I will have "more than a few".

The book reveals, the Paxman 29 conversions   were from the sizeable pool of  unserviceable class 21s. BR intention to restore the fleet to full strength before  funding more 21 to 29 conversions if the Paxman 29 proved to be reliable.  However  the project  budget escalated as costs rose from  simple conversion to,  costly rectification and conversion,  to crown the matter, the project committed , BR quickly changed policy and withdrew a large batch of the  serviceable 21s,  the book provides the figures, BR would have saved money if they had allocated   the pool of serviceable 21s for conversion into class 29.  

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On 28/09/2019 at 12:21, Baby Deltic said:

. I'm not really interested the allocation history of every member of the class which took up a majority of the book.

 

Chapter 4 "Class 21/29 Allocations"  content  occupies only  3 pages of a book of 290 pages

Chapter 6 "Individual Locomotive Histories" content occupies 138 pages of 290 pages.

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