As the last BR diesel railcars are retired from passenger service by Chiltern Railways, BEN JONES takes a close look at Dapol’s long-awaited new model of the Gloucester RCW variant of the popular ‘bubble cars’.
ENTIRELY BY COINCIDENCE, this new model landed on my desk the day before Chiltern Railways said goodbye to its Class 121 railcars in May 2017, ending almost 60 years of main line operation by the classic BR ‘bubble cars’. This event really was the end of an era that started in 1955 – the ‘121s’ were the last slam door multiple units and last BR railcars in use, and the last vacuum-braked trains in scheduled passenger service.
As such, Dapol’s OO gauge Class 121s and 122s are arriving at a time when the profile of the real trains is as high as it’s been for many years. It’s several years since Dapol announced all-new models of the Pressed Steel Co. Class 121 and Gloucester Railway Carriage & Wagon Co. (GRCW) Class 122, but the need for up-to-date models of these useful vehicles has not diminished in the meantime. In fact, as the trend for small layouts continues to grow, these single-car trains should be increasingly popular with builders of minimum space layouts and dioramas.
The first to arrive is the Class 122,…
