Author Archives: Tim Hall

There’s an awful lot of whining on the ngauge and ngauge-modern mailing lists from people who ought to know better, complaining that Dapol are doing a class 66 locomotive instead of [insert class here]. One person is even claiming that it will be a ‘financial disaster’ for Dapol to go head-to-head with Bachmann’s own long-promised model.

For those whining “Why couldn’t it have been a 59 or a 58 or a 56″, all I can say is “When was the last time you travelled anywhere by train, or went anywhere near a railway line?”. 66s are everywhere. The odds are, if you see a freight train, it will have one of these locomotives on the front. They are now the second most numerous main line British diesel of all time, after the class 47. They’re going to be the backbone of freight haulage for the forseeable future.

The class is really the meat and potatoes locomotive of the present-day scheme. Other classes like 60s or 67s are just gravy. Unless you want a purely passenger line with a fleet of nothing but units, you cannot build a convincing contemporary layout set anywhere in the country without at least one 66. They run everywhere from Penzance in Cornwall, to Georgemas Junction in the far north of Scotland.

In my opinion, Dapol made a serious marketing blunder with their first non-steam model. The 73 is a ‘niche’ prototype with limited geographical appeal, and they compounded the error by choosing what must have been the least popular liveries for the initial release. Hardly surprising the initial sales have been disappointing. With the 66, it seems that Dapol have learned from their earlier mistakes, and it deserves to sell well.

Dapol dropped a bombshell at the N Gauge Society AGM with the news of their next models for this year:

• Class 66 locomotive
• Dogfish ballast hopper
• Six wheel milk tanker

Future plans include a class 150 DMU, which will be a very useful model provided it has nothing to do with their horrible OO model from a few years back.

There has been a lot of criticism on the Ngauge mailing list for their decision for do a class 66, on the grounds that Bachmann had announced one. But the critics ignore one obvious fact! Bachmann have been promising a 66 for years now, with no release in sight. Bachmann have announced all sorts of things, with release dates put back so many times that nobody takes them seriously any more. Some have even suggested the announce things as ‘spoilers’, to discourage rivals. Following on from Peco with the HAA coal hopper, Dapol have decided to call their bluff. Good on Dapol! Perhaps this will prompt Bachmann to get their finger out. The prototype 66 is in service with several operators with a combined fleet approaching 400. It’s the essential model for anyone wanting to model the contemporary British scene.

If someone had asked me for the ideal wagons for Dapol to produce, I would have suggested the Dogfish and the milk tanker! Both are very long-lived prototypes with a wide geographical spread, sellable to both diesel fans and boiler bunnies. Both tended to run in block rakes. Any British layout set from 1948 through to about 2000 could make use of a rake of a dozen or so Dogfish. Although there is an etched brass kit available, they’re a pig to build, and way beyond my ability to produce an acceptable model from. Any many layouts set from the 1930s to the 1980s can find a home for a milk tank or six, especially those much loved west country branches.

As reported by the BBC, South West trains have run the last Mk1 train out of Waterloo. The venerable 4-VEP and 4-CIG units have been a feature of south London commuter lines for something like 40 years. North of the Thames, and in the regions, slam door commuter stock has been history for a while, although the even more venerable class 101 DMUs lasted a good while on Manchester commuter services.

You haven’t missed your last chance to ride one; not only do Southern still have a few trains left in service out of Victoria, but SWT still retain a couple of units for the Brockenhurst to Lymington shuttle in Dorset.

These trains were a daily feature of my life for several years when I commuted to Virginia Water in Surrey, with the English Electric motors howling up the grade from Egham.

At least one unit really needs to be preserved, preferably in main line working order. These trains are every bit as iconic as any much-preserved class of locomotive.

Graham Eccles, SWT chairman and managing director wins the Donald Rumsfeld gobbledegook award with this quote:
“Although they have passed their sell-by date, they don’t owe anybody a living.”

Quite what that’s supposed to mean is an unknown unknown.