Dapol Class 22

[gmax]

Hi Steve - D6331 was GSYP with headcode boxes from c1965 and gained it's full yellow end treatment in April 1970, being withdrawn in this condition in March 1971

 

I picked mine up from the Dapol stand first thing this morning (cheers Dave.... here's a tip, turn your phone off for a stress free life!), and have to say I'm well chuffed with it. The quality of the tooling is superb, nothing is overdone, especially the glazing, which on a loco with such a distinctive 'face' and so much character could easily have turned out as an expensive mistake. With the model sat here in front of me as I type, the relative height of the bogie side frames and valance* edging looks about right to me, I can sort of see why it's been mentioned previously but it does 'sit' very nicely on my one and only bit of track. Also, straight out of the box, the gap previously noted between the main body moulding and the buffer beam shrouds attached to the chassis block in some photos is neglegable.

 

* Talking of those valances.... something to be wary of when fitting part no. L3 above the fuel tank is knocking off the two finely moulded pipe runs at the right hand end, I nearly lost mine to the carpet fairy!

 

A couple of nice touches worthy of note are the etched NBL builders plates (four of 'em on this green machine) which other manufacturers might not have bothered with, and the characteristic footsteps hanging down from the cab corners which again, might easily have been left off the model entirely. As for those spoked wheels, well... superb. The only (tiny) niggles for me are the buffer heads which could do with flatting down, the headcode samples which look a shade on the small side and the widscreen wipers, which would benifit from toning down with a bit of weathering, and er, well...... that's about it really! I might try some Heljan Hymek headcodes on mine and see how they look.

 

Dave mentioned to me the 'slides' built into the tooling for the roof, sides and ends which will enable other variants to be done, a very shrewd move this which I'm sure will reep dividends for Dapol and bring several smiles to those wanting the much earlier disc headcode type and (my crafty little grey cells are telling me), later 'tidied up front end' versions.

 

All in all, this is a cracking little machine which deserves to do the business for Dapol, and bodes well for the Kernow D6xxs and of course the mighty Westerns yet to come. I'll be having more of these little beasties in green and blue.... looking at my D6331 here in front of me I want to set the controls of the Rugd1022 Patented Time Machine Device for 1967 and find a warm spot on the end of Plymouth North Road's platform 8.....

 

Apologies for the pants quality, but I couldn't resist a pic or two before the light disappeared down behind the cow shed....

 

 

 

Thanks for the gen re-livery of D6331 Rug.

I saw it enough times as a teenage basher but the old memory cells have withered a bit with age.

I have several on order as this is a BIG gap on my Bath Road depot at the moment.

I agree with what you say about the headcode numerals looking a tad small. That will have to be dealt with as the look of the hadcode panel is a major feature in my view. It just HAS to look right.

As a side point I have just taken delivery of D27 from Bachmann and it the headcode panel looks superb, especially with it's lights on.

Regards

Steve in Paignton

[JohnR]

Looking through all the pictures of the real thing, I noticed there seemed to be 2 versions of Blue Full Yellow End - one which had just the nose painted and another with the yellow carrying up around the windows.

 

Am I right in saying Dapol are only doing the second type??

[Downendian]

Neil, do you know exactly when D6331 full went yellow ends?

AFAIK it was gsye in Sep 68 and gfye by April 1970.

Regards

Steve

Steve

Nidge beat me to it!

Neil

[lapford34102]

The only (tiny) niggles for me are ...................... that's about it really!

 

Another tiny niggle here

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/47247-Dapol-class-22-photo-review/page__st__75

with the OLE warnings.

Posted a link here as this thread seems to be getting the activity.

Stu

[Oldddudders]

Whatever they do some people would whinge. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't. For Pete's sake, it's a toy train!

And then, having got hold of the model - which event the manufacturer/importer/dealer apparently sought to defer - they will broadcast all the little faults they discover, after comparing it to every photograph known to man, presumably willing the model to be "wrong". Some people's idea of fun is certainly different from mine.

[Rugd1022]

Looking through all the pictures of the real thing, I noticed there seemed to be 2 versions of Blue Full Yellow End - one which had just the nose painted and another with the yellow carrying up around the windows.

 

Am I right in saying Dapol are only doing the second type??

 

Morning John,

 

Are you sure about that / are you looking at photos of 29s and not 22s...? I have photos of all of the blue 22s and all those with full yellow ends had just that, full yellow ends, going right up to the roof and round the top of it. Some of the 29s had the ends as you describe, but none of the 22s!

 

Just to recap, the BFYE 22s were D6302, 6308, D6318, 6319, D6322, D6325, 6326, D6328, 6330, D6332, D6333, D6334, D6336, 6338, D6339, D6340, D6342, D6343, 6348, D6354 and 6356.

 

[JohnR]

Definitely 22s - unless the NBL Diesel Electrics managed to wonder around the Devon branches?

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertcwp/2574048258/

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/1150-Dapol-class-22/page__st__125__p__282992&do=findComment&comment=282992

 

http://www.railblue.com/pages/Class%2022/D6343_LA_080871.htm

[Rugd1022]

Definitely 22s - unless the NBL Diesel Electrics managed to wonder around the Devon branches?

 

http://www.flickr.co...cwp/2574048258/

 

http://www.rmweb.co....992#entry282992

 

http://www.railblue....3_LA_080871.htm

 

What you're looking at there John is a layer of filth on top of the yellow paint that goes all the way up to the roof, and just beyond it.

 

Had me worried there for a minute! Great pics though, very nice

[JohnR]

I'd disagree. The area of the roof above the windows on D6343, for instance is the same colour all the way back to the rear of the cab door. The livery in

 

http://www.flickr.co...cwp/2574048258/

 

is actually different with regards to the yellow end compared to

 

http://www.flickr.co...57603653181775/

 

 

in a way that "dirt" cant cover.

 

I mean, dirt isnt normally so tidy as to just cover those parts of the front of a loco so completely.

Edited November 20, 2011 by JohnR

[Rugd1022]

Fair enough John, I can see what you're getting at but trust me, none of these locos had the yellow stopping below the windows, it really is dirt on those photos. Of the hundreds of published photos of BFYE 22s and hundreds more in private collections, none show the locos with anything other than full yellow ends going right up to the roof. Swindon painted them all the same way, but some of them got a lot dirtier than others. The photos you've linked to were possibly taken with different film stock, throw in varying lighting conditions, aging of the original material, variable printing, rendition etc and you get different results.

 

I guess we'll just have to agree to differ

[buffalo]

I'm inclined to agree^* with JohnR, this looks like a real livery variation. The 'roof grey above the windows' style appears also with the green liveries, e.g. http://www.flickr.co...y42/5372469935/ as well as several of 6331 and others when they were working on demolition trains on the Somerset & Dorset in 1967.

 

Nick

 

* though later I saw the error of my ways and repented

Edited November 20, 2011 by buffalo

[JohnR]

I agree that the film stock - particularly colour film, doesnt have the clarity that more modern stuff has. From a modellers point of view, I'd like a model that looks like how it appears in those photos, and I doubt that a "weathered" version would replicate the dirt in that way - it would be more accurate to treat it as a livery variation.

[JohnR]

I'm inclined to agree with JohnR, this looks like a real livery variation. The 'roof grey above the windows' style appears also with the green liveries,

Nick

 

 

Glad I'm not imagining it! I've now been squinting at so many pictures of 22s I was beginning to wonder!

[The Stationmaster]

Fair enough John, I can see what you're getting at but trust me, none of these locos had the yellow stopping below the windows, it really is dirt on those photos. Of the hundreds of published photos of BFYE 22s and hundreds more in private collections, none show the locos with anything other than full yellow ends going right up to the roof. Swindon painted them all the same way, but some of them got a lot dirtier than others. The photos you've linked to were possibly taken with different film stock, throw in varying lighting conditions, aging of the original material, variable printing, rendition etc and you get different results.

It was dirt, well to be more correct it was filth; D63XX always got very dirty on the upper part of the ends although it looked a bit odd in some respects because of the fact that the windscreens were kept pretty clean and because the area above them was not really touched by washing machines. I suspect that the shape of the ends might also have contributed to 'dragging down' exhaust smoke and the filth in that area certainly always looked to be mainly the result of exhaust muck.

 

Look at my 1964 pic of D6346 here http://www.rmweb.co....346-laira-1964/ and the very heavy staining at the top of the dividing bar between the windscreens and all the way down it.

 

Edit - typo corrected, no effect on detail and info.

Edited November 20, 2011 by The Stationmaster

[Flood]

I reckon the photo of 6343 shows the yellow through the grime anyway and the front of 6337 is in shadow so you can't really tell.

 

Just to confirm what the stationmaster said about the cleaning of locos here is a photo of 47578 with a light grey roof but a modeller would be hard pushed to tell if they hadn't looked at earlier photos of the loco.

 

[buffalo]

It was dirt, well to be more correct it was filth...

Fair enough, I've now found one photo of a green example (again on S&DJR demolition work) in which these areas could best be described as 'filth with a hint of green'.

 

Nick

Edited November 20, 2011 by buffalo

[Les_bailey]

Definitely 22s - unless the NBL Diesel Electrics managed to wonder around the Devon branches?

 

http://www.flickr.co...cwp/2574048258/

 

http://www.rmweb.co....992#entry282992

 

http://www.railblue....3_LA_080871.htm

In all of those 3 photos, the locos have full yellow ends on my monitor, in full size this is obvious, you can see the yellow ends, and on the BW ones the border between the blue & the yellow.

The effect you see is because the depot staff have only cleaned the nose (ie the bits they could reach).

Roofs often looked grey in still photos, this effect was the sun lighting up the upper surfaces, this often showed up on all blue class 37s, the green/blue cab roofs on class 20s etc.

On 22s (and the D600s) the effect would be also prominent due the roof panels being firbre-glass type material, the paint here would fade quicker than the sides too.

On the colour pic, the fading has obviously been going on for a while, as the BR lion & Wheel logo is also visible through the blue paint.

[Pennine MC]

I mean, dirt isnt normally so tidy as to just cover those parts of the front of a loco so completely.

 

Oh but sometimes it is, especially if the said dirt has been cleaned back to a certain point (which in the case of windscreens, would make perfect sense). We've had debates before about this, about Peaks with 'black' nose tops for instance, and blue 47s with 'black' roofs, but like m'learned friends above, I'm unconvinced that it's anything other than dirt

 

From a modellers point of view, I'd like a model that looks like how it appears in those photos, and I doubt that a "weathered" version would replicate the dirt in that way - it would be more accurate to treat it as a livery variation.

 

In which case, you should paint what you see (it's your model, and that is in any case a basic rule of weathering). But liveries in this period are contorted enough as it is, I'd hate Dapol or any other manufacturer to have to produce models catering for 'variations' which are, quite simply, unproven.

Edited November 20, 2011 by Pennine MC

[Downendian]

The photo of D6333 is one of my collection.

I agree with Nidge and Pennine, it's filth- the pic of D6343 shows this a bit better than the other two.

And South Wales 47/4s I'd believed for years by prototypical observations had black roofs-it perhaps was an area of the loco missed by washing. They were indeed blue but smothered in a smoky/sooty deposit.

 

Neil

[JohnR]

OK, I consider it might be a possibility - I have found a photo which shows the effect more clearly

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24292321@N02/2366710181/

 

Also shows the different fonts on Rail Blue examples....

[Rugd1022]

Not sure what you mean by 'possibility' John.... I can clearly see yellow paint going up the window pillars and a hint of it beneath the muck on the front edge of the roof on D6328!

 

I'm not trying to pee on your chips and I certainly don't want to cause any friction on here, but there is no pictorial evidence that Swindon ever painted the yellow ends on Class 22s in the same style as Glasgow did with their 29s, ie: up to the nose only, with blue painted window pillars. Even well into BR days, Swindon were in the habit of photographing everything they touched with a paint brush outside 'A' Shop next to the mainline, including all of the hydraulic classes for their official records, many of these official shots have been published over the years but I have never seen one of a 22 with the yellow finishing beneath the windows. All of the locos I listed as being painted blue in my previous post (#457) received one variant of that livery only with full yellow ends, the only differences were in the placement of logos and numbers (and the fonts used) and well... that was it. None of them went back into Swindon for another repaint into any other variant, they were all withdrawn in the same style of blue they received from early 1967 onwards.... the photographic evidence is there in many, many books, slides, printed photos etc. There are other people in the various hydraulic preservation groups who know a lot more about these locos than I do, some of whom own the official Swindon Works engine record cards and other paperwork relating to their Works visits, I have seen some of these with my own eyes and none of them show any evidence of Class 29 style yellow ends.

 

Edited November 20, 2011 by Rugd1022

[JohnR]

I dont doubt what you say, but I have yet to see any proof. As I posted above, I have found a photo which shows the effect you describe, but not on a loco which appears to have no yellow above the windscreen in other pictures.

 

Its all very well saying that theres all this evidence and experts etc, etc., but I havnt seen it. I at least have been able to post links showing the effect I describe.

[Rugd1022]

I'm a little confused by your sentence... "...but not on a loco which appears to have no yellow above the windscreen in other pictures" ... I guess we're just going to keep going around in circles here.

 

Unfortunately for both of us, I do not own the copyright on the photos I'm referring to so cannot post them on here, or any of the official paperwork etc... but really, I can assure you, there is no pictorial proof or other kind of evidence anywhere that any 22 emerged from Swindon with the yellow only going up to the bottom of the windscreens. With respect John, they either had small yellow panels in blue (D6300, D6303, D6314, D6327) or had full yellow ends in blue (see post #457), there is no evidence of anything 'in between'. It really is just dirt, honest....

 

I'll keep schtum on the subject now, lest I get the thread locked. Time for my Ovaltine and a nice bit of cake.

Edited November 20, 2011 by Rugd1022

[Mod6]

Not sure what you mean by 'possibility' John.... I can clearly see yellow paint going up the window pillars and a hint of it beneath the muck on the front edge of the roof on D6328!

 

 

To be honest so can I.

 

 

 

I at least have been able to post links showing the effect I describe.

 

That is uncalled for. Rugd1022 has explained clearly and correctly why he cannot post the photos he refers to, and also quoted numerous

official records that he has seen. Unless there is clear evidence to the contrary, that should be enough.

['CHARD]

Oh but sometimes it is, especially if the said dirt has been cleaned back to a certain point (which in the case of windscreens, would make perfect sense). We've had debates before about this, about Peaks with 'black' nose tops for instance, and blue 47s with 'black' roofs, but like m'learned friends above, I'm unconvinced that it's anything other than dirt

 

In which case, you should paint what you see (it's your model, and that is in any case a basic rule of weathering). But liveries in this period are contorted enough as it is, I'd hate Dapol or any other manufacturer to have to produce models catering for 'variations' which are, quite simply, unproven.

 

I'd go further than that, Ian. It's absolutely the case that the BFYE locos were filthy to the windscreen tops, no halfway house BNFYE* existed on 22s, someone's in danger of chasing a fantasy livery here that never existed on a painting diagram, just in the field after some hard collar had been put in.

 

Somewhere on another thread, there's a parallel debate about the custard coloured roofs of BFYE 76s being incorrect. They're not incorrect for a loco fresh out of Works but after any sustained period of service the 76s have a filth coloured roof from immediately above their windscreens.

 

The 22s weren't the operators' priority when it came to keeping their roofs clean, and on the picture of D6328 I can see a definite change in hue of the filth in the exact point where the yellow ends on pristine 6348. Q.E and indeed, D.

 

* Blue nearly full yellow end

 

 

EDIT: apologies Mod6, that ended up a parallel post

Edited November 20, 2011 by 'CHARD