Dapol Class 121 and 122 in OO gauge

[Ian Hargrave]

Quite right; 'u' has a 'ee' sound in Welsh, and I sometimes forget that our English brethren may not appreciated this. 'Du' is Welsh for black, and 'Ton' is one of several words for 'place, so Tondu = 'Black Place'.

Where pit ponies were stabled.My late uncle was NCB vet for the area.

[dibber25]

Thanks to CJL going quite well so far!

20170714_153030_resized.jpg

 

Tony

Yes, that's exactly how mine looked when I pulled it apart. I found that the cab bulkheads distorted quite badly when I tried to get them back in but they straighten once you actually get the tabs into the slots. Might need a bit of j-j-j-jiggling to get the ends of the lighting strip into the recesses behind the destination boxes, too. (I think these may be the lighting 'ducts' to the destination panels. There may be a switch for the tail lights - not sure. These look good but they were never used on the real thing as BR insisted on an oil tail lamp. In reality the marker lights were made red by slipping a red slide over the marker light. (CJL)

 

[dibber25]

Can I "clarify" what I understand to be the 116 allocations?  Most of the first batch went to Tyseley [50050-78, 59000-38, 50092-120], with 50079-81, 59029-31, 50121-3 going to Cardiff.  50082-91, 50132-41, 50124-33 went to Newport and were maintained at Canton - these were the ones with the second class only trailers.  The second batch [50818-70, 593276-76, 50871-923] was intended for Cardiff in its entirety but, as Ian has said above, some spent time working out of Tyseley.  The third batch [51128-40, 59438-48, 51141-53] was ordered for Bristol.

 

If only it was all that simple.  It cannot have been long before second class trailers from the Newport sets were swapped with composite trailers from the second and third batches and the Tyseley sets were reported re-formed not long after introduction.  (In case anyone wonders what all this guff is doing on the 121/122 thread, there were reports of four car sets around Birmingham comprising two cars from a 116 set, a 122 power car and 122 driving trailer!).  Official records of allocations may well not have been kept at first: the earliest that I have found date from 1962.  Then there was borrowing.  Apart from the frequent presence of South Wales sets on Tyseley jobs, the Paddington emergency of November 1959 led to sets from Tyseley and Cathays being deployed on London suburban work until the 117s arrived.  Some of the sets borrowed from Cardiff were returned to Tyseley afterwards.  Later, when lines were closed and service levels reduced, sets were redeployed and from 1962 some 116s were to be found in the West of England.  One day someone will document all this but don't look at me!

 

Chris 

In summer 1964 I took a trip to Savernake Low Level from Reading. I guess we changed at Newbury, but the train I photographed at Savernake after we alighted from it, was a two-car 116 with the centre car missing and clearly from those South Wales allocations as it has Swansea/Neath mis-wound in the rear blind. Interestingly, it is unlined but in very dark green (I would have thought the majority of 116s were in light green) However, this is a later example as the two-character headcode has replaced the middle marker light, so interesting that a later example is still unlined. Note the cream (not white) roof dome. Would be interesting to know which depot this unit was working from - possibly Reading or is it a stray from Bristol? (CJL)

Edited July 14, 2017 by dibber25

[Brian Kirby]

As referred to above as "Mid-Brunswick Green" and applied from around 1958/59 onwards, until superseded by the oily olive green. The two early shades can be seen on page 60 of "Heyday Of The DMUs".   BK

[andyman7]

People think the nationalised railway was some sort of ideal, but in reality the amateurs in the Department were forever coming up with new ideas to save money. As a colleague once put it - the only good thing about dealing with the civil servants was that it was marginally better than dealing with MPs. 

Dealing with civil servants pretty much describes much of my job these days, and not much has changed.... 

[Tony_S]

Yes, that's exactly how mine looked when I pulled it apart. I found that the cab bulkheads distorted quite badly when I tried to get them back in but they straighten once you actually get the tabs into the slots. Might need a bit of j-j-j-jiggling to get the ends of the lighting strip into the recesses behind the destination boxes, too. (I think these may be the lighting 'ducts' to the destination panels. There may be a switch for the tail lights - not sure. These look good but they were never used on the real thing as BR insisted on an oil tail lamp. In reality the marker lights were made red by slipping a red slide over the marker light. (CJL)

Following your warning about the difficulty of returning the bulkheads to the correct position I proceeded with some trepidation. They did seem reluctant to return even though I had the tab and slot in line. Then I used thumb and forefinger of my left hand to gently push the body sides apart and pushed the bulkhead in with the other hand. Repeated at other end.

I think I will leave the seat and floor painting until tomorrow now!

Tony

Edited July 14, 2017 by Tony_S

[dibber25]

Following your warning about the difficulty of returning the bulkheads to the correct position I proceeded with some trepidation. They did seem reluctant to return even though I had the tab and slot in line. Then I used thumb and forefinger of my left hand to gently push the body sides apart and pushed the bulkhead in with the other hand. Repeated at other end.

I think I will leave the seat and floor painting until tomorrow now!

Tony

I've just bought an SYP version (Sc55007) so now I've got to do it all again! Delighted to see that it is in the darker green, so major repainting avoided and I'm happy that my discussion with them has produced the best livery options from what was available. No use saying "They should do this or that" - we have to live in the real world. In all my collection of Lima/Hornby conversions I don't have an SYP Class 122 yet I saw more in this livery than in the early 'whiskers' scheme. This will become W55001 as it was when working the St.Ives branch in 1966. It was the day of Ian Allan's non-stop Paddington-Penzance railtour. Uncle Mac (A.B. MacLeod) and I blagged a cab ride in the railcar back to St.Erth. As we passed the golf course, a white ball tumbled onto the line, followed by a golfer, who we narrowly missed.   (CJL)

[Ben04uk]

I've posted a Class 122 related topic in the Railways of Cornwall special interest thread and would welcome any suggestions/ideas/help.

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/124458-class-122s-in-cornwall-in-midlate-1960s/

[The Johnster]

In summer 1964 I took a trip to Savernake Low Level from Reading. I guess we changed at Newbury, but the train I photographed at Savernake after we alighted from it, was a two-car 116 with the centre car missing and clearly from those South Wales allocations as it has Swansea/Neath mis-wound in the rear blind. Interestingly, it is unlined but in very dark green (I would have thought the majority of 116s were in light green) However, this is a later example as the two-character headcode has replaced the middle marker light, so interesting that a later example is still unlined. Note the cream (not white) roof dome. Would be interesting to know which depot this unit was working from - possibly Reading or is it a stray from Bristol? (CJL)

 

The Valleys sets turned up in 1958 in unlined green, and at least some of them did not originally have whiskers, but all had white cab roofs, which rapidly weathered to something like the colour shown in your photo.  My impression (and I cannot claim it to be more than that) is that this train is in the original shade of green used on the South Wales trains in 1958, but that is a very subjective impression!.

[The Johnster]

Can I "clarify" what I understand to be the 116 allocations?  Most of the first batch went to Tyseley [50050-78, 59000-38, 50092-120], with 50079-81, 59029-31, 50121-3 going to Cardiff.  50082-91, 50132-41, 50124-33 went to Newport and were maintained at Canton - these were the ones with the second class only trailers.  The second batch [50818-70, 593276-76, 50871-923] was intended for Cardiff in its entirety but, as Ian has said above, some spent time working out of Tyseley.  The third batch [51128-40, 59438-48, 51141-53] was ordered for Bristol.

 

If only it was all that simple.  It cannot have been long before second class trailers from the Newport sets were swapped with composite trailers from the second and third batches and the Tyseley sets were reported re-formed not long after introduction.  (In case anyone wonders what all this guff is doing on the 121/122 thread, there were reports of four car sets around Birmingham comprising two cars from a 116 set, a 122 power car and 122 driving trailer!).  Official records of allocations may well not have been kept at first: the earliest that I have found date from 1962.  Then there was borrowing.  Apart from the frequent presence of South Wales sets on Tyseley jobs, the Paddington emergency of November 1959 led to sets from Tyseley and Cathays being deployed on London suburban work until the 117s arrived.  Some of the sets borrowed from Cardiff were returned to Tyseley afterwards.  Later, when lines were closed and service levels reduced, sets were redeployed and from 1962 some 116s were to be found in the West of England.  One day someone will document all this but don't look at me!

 

Chris 

I learn something new from you pretty much every time you post, Chris.  Again, an assumption of mine is holed below the water line and the bulkheads are failing; this time it is the assumption that, because the number sequences of the sets as set out by Ian Allan in the Combined Volume seemed to be consistent, so that if you spotted a 3 car set the number you underlined was always in the same position in the list and tallied with the number you'd written down on the end of the platform, the sets had always been in their formations and were as fixed and immutable as the courses of the stars in the heavens.  I was disabused of the notion that this was not always the case once my spotting activities went 'off region', but it seemed to hold for the WR.  This encompasses spotting observations from late 1963 onwards.  I found this to be so reliable that I would feel confident underlining whole sets from just one spotted number, which sounds a bit dodgy in the light of this information!

 

And now I am worried that it looks as if modelled a set with the wrong numbers.  Ian Allen did not differentiate between styles of cab, and the '4 marker light' version without headcode boxes, 3 marker lights equally spaced across the lower front of the cab and a fourth above the destination blind box to replicate steam loco headcodes presumably, seems hard to find in photos to check.  My set is 51128/59439/51141, which you have as the third batch ordered for Bristol.  Presumably it should have headcode boxes and no marker light above the destination blind box.  Sets from all batches had found their way to Canton and were working on the Valleys services by the mid 60s, but it looks like I have wrongly numbered my 4 marker light cab train, which should be from the Cardiff/Newport batch to be working in the South Wales Valleys .  Yet I have, and have had for a very long time, a clear memory of the first 1958 sets at Cardiff having headcode boxes.

 

It is in storage at the moment so I won't be correcting it for a while, but it may well need lining as well.  I thought I knew what I was doing when I chopped up all those Lima trailers 35 years ago, but maybe not...

[The Johnster]

Yes, that's exactly how mine looked when I pulled it apart. I found that the cab bulkheads distorted quite badly when I tried to get them back in but they straighten once you actually get the tabs into the slots. Might need a bit of j-j-j-jiggling to get the ends of the lighting strip into the recesses behind the destination boxes, too. (I think these may be the lighting 'ducts' to the destination panels. There may be a switch for the tail lights - not sure. These look good but they were never used on the real thing as BR insisted on an oil tail lamp. In reality the marker lights were made red by slipping a red slide over the marker light. (CJL)

 

 

The red slides were stowed in a little varnished wooden box with grooves in the sides for them, mounted on the wall panel of the control desk, about in line with the handbrake wheel if you want to have a go at modelling it; a piece of thin plasticard about 2mm x 1.5mm will do fine.  Difficult to see on most photos, though you can just make it out on the 121 at St Ives, is the semi-circular 'relief', with a slot to accept the slide, on the bottom half of the marker light housings; only the two lower marker lights where more than that were fitted had these, a simple and clever piece of design in my view.  AFAIK all first generation dmus had them, and they were not used because, I was told, by a driver when I asked in the early 70s, that it had been decided that showing that the train was complete by attaching an oil tail lamp to a bracket on the rear of the rear vehicle was the guard's duty, as he did not officially have access to the driver's cabs, and red marker lights were only to be used on light engines or engines engaged in shunting work.  Towed dead engines had to display an oil tail lamp.  I do not know when their use as tail lamps became permitted, though I am sure somebody here does. 

 

The Southern Region used backlit red blinds in their single-character headcode panels to indicate the rear of an emu or demu train, or light engine in the case of it's electric, electro-diesel, and class 33 diesel locos, and may have accepted the use of the slides on dmus, but do not quote me on that!

[YesTor]

What we are never going to achieve is a model painted in a shade where everyone says, "Yes, that's spot on"... (CJL)

 

I absolutely agree, however at least following some kind of established norm might avoid some of the unforgivable mistakes made previously - Rail 'Purple' and lemon, Inter City Executive 'Black' etc etc...  (again, more in relation to Dapol's 73, but relevant to the discussion around Dapol's seeming problems with liveries in general).

 

[Brian Kirby]

I've just bought an SYP version (Sc55007) so now I've got to do it all again! Delighted to see that it is in the darker green, so major repainting avoided   (CJL)

At last!  A confession!         BK

[dibber25]

The red slides were stowed in a little varnished wooden box with grooves in the sides for them, mounted on the wall panel of the control desk, about in line with the handbrake wheel if you want to have a go at modelling it; a piece of thin plasticard about 2mm x 1.5mm will do fine.  Difficult to see on most photos, though you can just make it out on the 121 at St Ives, is the semi-circular 'relief', with a slot to accept the slide, on the bottom half of the marker light housings; only the two lower marker lights where more than that were fitted had these, a simple and clever piece of design in my view.  AFAIK all first generation dmus had them, and they were not used because, I was told, by a driver when I asked in the early 70s, that it had been decided that showing that the train was complete by attaching an oil tail lamp to a bracket on the rear of the rear vehicle was the guard's duty, as he did not officially have access to the driver's cabs, and red marker lights were only to be used on light engines or engines engaged in shunting work.  Towed dead engines had to display an oil tail lamp.  I do not know when their use as tail lamps became permitted, though I am sure somebody here does. 

 

The Southern Region used backlit red blinds in their single-character headcode panels to indicate the rear of an emu or demu train, or light engine in the case of it's electric, electro-diesel, and class 33 diesel locos, and may have accepted the use of the slides on dmus, but do not quote me on that!

Yes, I remember the arrangement quite well because one of the only bits of 'preservation' I did on W79976 was to put opaqued perspex in the marker lights to replace the broken glass. I remember the rim having slot around the bottom half, into which the slides fitted. (CJL)

[dibber25]

At last!  A confession!         BK

Heck! What have I confessed to..... or, to what have I confessed? Could be one of several things.....(CJL)

[Brian Kirby]

Heck! What have I confessed to..... or, to what have I confessed? Could be one of several things.....(CJL)

A need for a repaint on the whiskers green 122.   BK

[Tony_S]

I was feeling quite pleased with myself after refitting the interior lighting and driving cabs when on re-reading CJL's comments I realised I hadn't got the ends of the lighting board quite in the slots for the destination board lighting. So remove and reassemble. Someone asked if the glazing is easy to remove. Quite a few bits dropped out and needed glueing back as a result of my brutal treatment. So I don't think they would be difficult to remove deliberately! After all this assembly disassembly malarkey I clipped the body back on and checked all the lighting functions worked. Amazingly they did. The passenger compartment lighting came on with F5 rather than F3 as documented but that isn't a problem.

Tony

Edited July 15, 2017 by Tony_S

[The Johnster]

I've posted a Class 122 related topic in the Railways of Cornwall special interest thread and would welcome any suggestions/ideas/help.

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/124458-class-122s-in-cornwall-in-midlate-1960s/

 

Given the number of references to bubble cars in Cornwall on this thread, should they be manufactured by Dapol and Pen...

 

Coat?

[Gwiwer]

Given the number of references to bubble cars in Cornwall on this thread, should they be manufactured by Dapol and Pen...

 

Coat?

 

Grooooaaaannnnnnn

 

Inspected the goods first-hand on Thursday.  None purchased.  An improvement on the long-lasting Hornby offering but I currently have more than I need of those (and no layout to run them on) and there are a few details about the Dapol ones I'm not prepared to part with around £125 for.  I'd like a green syp WR one but aside from the renumbering required the lining looks much too thick and I'm not a fan of the interior.  

[fezza]

Does anyone know of any online source showing allocation histories for class 121 and 122s?

 

My 1990 platform 5 shows just one 121 at Laira (all the 122s were there by then). This suggests that 122s would be more typical for West Country branches by then. Pity there are no Exeter or Plymouth destination blinds.

Edited July 15, 2017 by fezza

[chrisf]

Does anyone know of any online source showing allocation histories for class 121 and 122s?

 

My 1990 platform 5 shows just one 121 at Laira (all the 122s were there by then). This suggests that 122s would be more typical for West Country branches by then. Pity there are no Exeter or Plymouth destination blinds.

 

Life would be so much easier if there was one.  If there is, its existence has passed me by.  If you seek 1962 allocations there is an official document on www.railcar.co.uk which takes a bit of finding.

 

Chris

[Sam Moss]

Mine arrived yesterday so took it along to the club to give it a test run today. Ran it around the club layout for half hour but it sounded like it had a mobile phone vibration motor running all the time. Plucked up the courage to remove the seating area to reveal the motor etc and oiled all UJ's, bearings etc and it now runs fine. The only slight grumble I've got is the head code box. Mine fell out and split into its two sections (clear lens and green frame) before I'd even got it out of the box. Not overly bothered and two spares are provided and it will end up getting glued in place.

[chrisf]

In summer 1964 I took a trip to Savernake Low Level from Reading. I guess we changed at Newbury, but the train I photographed at Savernake after we alighted from it, was a two-car 116 with the centre car missing and clearly from those South Wales allocations as it has Swansea/Neath mis-wound in the rear blind. Interestingly, it is unlined but in very dark green (I would have thought the majority of 116s were in light green) However, this is a later example as the two-character headcode has replaced the middle marker light, so interesting that a later example is still unlined. Note the cream (not white) roof dome. Would be interesting to know which depot this unit was working from - possibly Reading or is it a stray from Bristol? (CJL)

 

Apologies for not getting back on this earlier but I have been in Bath today. It is good to see that photo again.  I believe I remember it from the Model Railway Constructor in the last century!

 

The Swansea/Neath display suggests a recent transfer from Cathays.  As posted a few pages ago, that depot's blind was not in alphabetical order.  The livery is that in which the unit entered service in 1958 but after six years's exposure to the elements and the addition of the speed whiskers by no means immediately after it entered service.  Before much longer it would have received a yellow panel under the cab windows but maybe it would have received the darker green livery at the same time.

 

As for the depot from which it was working, my understanding is that Reading had no 116s at that time but Bristol did.  When dmus were first deployed on the Reading - Westbury locals, by the summer of 1961, they were based at Reading and according to the carriage working programmes for both London and Bristol for this period were three car suburban sets.  Without access to the equivalent documents for summer 1964 one can only imagine that there had been a reorganisation of workings giving those jobs to Bristol sets outbased at Westbury.  At around this time Gerard Fiennes, General Manager of the WR, had the "bright" idea of trying to attract commuters but soon discovered that the dmus at his disposal were not up to the job.  In addition there had been service reductions in the Bristol area because the dmus had failed to attract additional custom and around Cardiff due to closures.  According to the Railway Observer, without which we would know nothing, four 116 sets [three 3-car and one 2-car] were moved from Cathays to Bristol at the beginning of the summer 1964 timetable.  Assuming, perhaps rashly, that the game of 'pass the trailer' was not played at Marsh Junction, the power twin in CJL's photograph could be 50870+50923.

 

Johnster, I will get back to you tomorrow.  I suspect that it will be better to take the conversation off thread and into PMs.

 

Chris 

Edited July 15, 2017 by chrisf

[Brian Kirby]

The Swansea/Neath display suggests a recent transfer from Cathays.  As posted a few pages ago, that depot's blind was not in alphabetical order.  The livery is that in which the unit entered service in 1958 but after six years's exposure to the elements and the addition of the speed whiskers by no means immediately after it entered service.  Before much longer it would have received a yellow panel under the cab windows but maybe it would have received the darker green livery at the same time.

 

As for the depot from which it was working, my understanding is that Reading had no 116s at that time but Bristol did.  When dmus were first deployed on the Reading - Westbury locals, by the summer of 1961, they were based at Reading and according to the carriage working programmes for both London and Bristol for this period were three car suburban sets.  Without access to the equivalent documents for summer 1964 one can only imagine that there had been a reorganisation of workings giving those jobs to Bristol sets outbased at Westbury.  At around this time Gerard Fiennes, General Manager of the WR, had the "bright" idea of trying to attract commuters but soon discovered that the dmus at his disposal were not up to the job.  In addition there had been service reductions in the Bristol area because the dmus had failed to attract additional custom and around Cardiff due to closures.  

Chris L's 116 at Savernake Low Level pic looks rather dark for a weathered version of the original green, it's possible, but are you sure it's not weathered Mid-Brunswick green (the second colour applied)? I think i'm right in saying that this service will proceed via the Devizes branch and Holt Junction, approaching Westbury from the North? 

    In South Wales, the withdrawal of stopping services on the main line, and in the Eastern, and Western Valley lines in the early 60s, was to make way for the ever-increasing freight services at the time, especially with the opening of the Llanwern Spencer steelworks, east of Newport, there's more money in freight, passengers could go by bus. The freight division required more paths and capacity to deal with block trains running between Ebbw Vale, Llanwern and Port Talbot steelworks, with their associated coal and coke trains, etc. On top of all this there was general freight, chemicals from Llandarcy, and the new oil and petroleum traffic from West Wales. I remember Bridgend station in the 60s and 70s, it was hectic, with a constant stream of freight, with the remaining passenger trains squeezed in. That's why the triple-headed iron ore trains had to be so long, with twenty-seven 100T wagons, there weren't enough paths to run two trains.

     Today the freight traffic has subsided, although is still significant, which is why it has been possible to re-open the smaller stations on the main line, and to Ebbw Vale.        BK

[Brian Kirby]

As we've also been talking about the similar Class 116 (Derby HD 3-car) units, and to add more fuel to the livery colour debate, here are four of my 116 models carved up from the old Lima 117s. Starting at the front is a second batch build with 2-character headcode and trailer composite in a weathered version of the first green, which was basically BR EMU green, this would deteriorate to a powdery pale green, which is probably why it was replaced. The second 116 is a first-batch build repainted into Mid-Brunswick green with four-lamp front and trailer second (for Eastern and Western Valleys). The third unit is another second batch with composite in a more oily olive green with cream lining. The fourth unit is a blue second (or third?) batch, which has lost it's 2-character headcode, but retained it's first-class seats, and has been transferred to the GN on King's Cross services. All four units are still non-corridor.

                                                  Cheers, Brian.