Dapol GWR DMU railmotor

[GWR_fan]

I was just watching a video of a recent exhibition (Alexandra Palace) and an item on the Dapol stand attracted my attention. It was the body of a GWR DMU based on the original streamlined model (not the later Lima/Hornby version. It was hard to judge but it looked like an 'OO' model. I looked on the Dapol website but could not readily locate any info. Any news or is this an "N" gauge model?"

[Lysander]

This does seem to have gone quiet for a while. It's OO.

Tony

[GWR_fan]

Thankyou Tony, I was not aware it existed. Could be a big hit with the GW fans.

[skyblue]

It was announced several years ago and I even added a bay platform to one of the stations on my layout in anticipation of using one to run a branch shuttle. I suspect it will be rather a long time until we see it though.

[Bigmet]

... I looked on the Dapol website but could not readily locate any info...

Dapol had quite a useful website at one time. It had a handy list of their past product announcements, which helped keep track of what they had announced, and when it was going on sale. That's all gone, perhaps because it is just all too, too, too, embarassing. Here's a posting I made in 2012:

When Dapol started their announcements in early 2008 about a return to OO, they were making much of their demonstrated ability to knock out N gauge models a lot faster than BachFar. Those initial OO loco announcements were all similarly tightly scheduled. And were not delivered on the time scales announced. Their progress is directly comparable to the other OO manufacturers, some items appear more briskly than others, but it looks like they will settle down to three years or so from announcement to going on sale.

The one loco model they have underway that I am interested in is the class 21. They have now slipped it, announcing that the class 29 variant will come first (realistic guess sometime in 2013), so I don't think I will be seeing a class 21 much before 2014.

If the rate of progress is directly proportional to scale then plot 2mm at 1 year, 4mm at 3 years, and extrapolate to 7mm. The class 08 in O is going to pitch up for Christmas 2017...

Heap of product announcements since then, on top of all the products they still haven't delivered. The class 21/29 in OO were first announced in 2008 for availability in 2009. There was a problem and the whole schedule was revised, leading to my 2013/14 guess. And still nada. Have finished my HornBach frankenloco conversion, don't need any Dapol product.

[GWR_fan]

Bigmet,
I was going to comment initially that the Dapol website is a very poor offering for a major player in the game. Perhaps they spent as much time on their website as their new product development - nada!!!!!!!!

You must have had a crystal ball back then to get it so right, or was it just plain common sense to see that they had bitten off more than they could chew.

[Bufferstop]

Sometime in the last twelve months or so, I saw a photo of the one in STEAM being laser scanned. Just wish I could remember where I saw it. Presumably that's pretty close to the first step, so take it from there.
I could just about justify one on my layout, and it did pass through our station twice a day on its trips between Birmingham and Swansea (or was it Cardiff, somewhere down there ). I could run it from a cassette, non stop through the layout and get the cassette across to the other end in time to catch it.

[GWR_fan]

The DMU body in the Dapol case at the exhibition looked like a completed shell. Thus the project may be on the move (perhaps 2016?).

For those interested, 4.39 minutes into the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNG9_TLqEUc

[Emettman]

Did they ever actually work as diesel MULTIPLE units?
One was designed for a trailer, and a batch of the later semi-streamlined were built as twin units.

It's not going as far as saying it never happened but I've never seen or heard of two or more or the earlier units running together.

Chris

[Bigmet]

... was it just plain common sense to see that they had bitten off more than they could chew.

In my opinion, common sense is all it was. I looked at what they had done in powered models at that point, and the general trending was clear. What was especially noticeable was that the retailer commissions and some of their own later announcements had become product, (and as far as the powered OO models were concerned, generally well received too) while earlier announcements were in a 'limbo' state.

It's now not clear to me what, if anything, Dapol intend to produce from the many past announcements that have five or more years accrued since first advertised. They could I believe help themselves by coming out directly and saying: 'X, Y, Z, are not going to be produced'. On past form, I should think that the class 68 is the powered OO model likely to emerge soonest; there's a rail industry commissioning client for it. If it advances on plan as a project, sometime in 2016 would be a reasonable expectation.

[Bigmet]

The GWR railmotor is on sale. http://www.hattons.co.uk/58949/Dapol_4D ... etail.aspx

[Bufferstop]

Mine was dispatched on Monday. Piccies and comments when it arrives.
@Emettman
Chris the last two (or was it four) were built as two car multiple units, but were obviously the more angular type body. One of which suffered a devastating fire, following which one of the singletons was modified to reform the pair.
I once talked to an ex GWR driver in the 60's, who reckoned that the BR built unit he was driving, had inherited much of the mechanical design of the GWR ones along with many of the faults. My father who worked in the 60s for a GKN company trying to offer an alternative supplier to Hardy Spicer for propshafts and transmission components showed me a drawing from Swindon for a jointed inboard driveshaft which had clearly had thw GWR heading removed and overprinted with BR(W). The original date being 1946.

[Bufferstop]

Didn't have long to wait, arrived about 10 minutes after I posted.
First some piccies.

I opted for GWR livery, with shirt button logo, DCC ready. Which seems to have been the first release. Haven't weighed it yet but it's plenty heavy enough. The motor is down out of sight and drives one bogie by a cardan shaft. The info sheet says it needs no running in and it didn't. Runs smooth and quiet straight from the box. Crawls nicely and top speed is beleivable. One point worth mentioning, it has the full sideskirts in place, and the wheels are a commendably fine profile, getting it on the rails is a bit of a faff, a loco lift or railing guide will come in handy. There's one spot on my layout it can't access as it's too wide to clear the platform, not a problem as I didn't intend to run it there anyway, but it's just living up to its prototype, they made full use of the GWR loading gauge. I'm happy, I'll have to stretch credibility a little further to run it in the preservation era, but I claim my rights under Rule 1.

[Emettman]

Looking very nice...
Just asking: what does it have as a minimum radius tolerance (for hidden curves only, of course!)

[Mountain]

Very nice. I used to be friendly with a man who remembered the streamlined ones running through Ferryside when they first came out. I've not spoken to him for a few years as he passed away.
It is interesting what used to run on our lines years ago.
Kidwelly brickworks was said to have the largest wagons on the GWR system and possibly in the UK at the time. Why? Well, they had to cross the mainline not far from Kidwelly station from the Gwendraeth Valley Railway line (Near the Burry Port and Gwendraeth Valley Railway line) and the Great Western Railway charged them per wagon load to cross their line to gain access into the brickworks. The answer to reduce the charges for the crossing was to make new wagons as large as possible to ensure the maximum clay could cross at the minimum of cost, as the charge per wagon was quite a sizeable amount for such a short distance to travel. A few years later the GWR caught on and charged by the ton instead.