A few of my recent posts have shown a class 22 pottering around the Charlton layout, so I thought that it was high time I wrote a post about the finished locomotive. The class 22 is a Dapol locomotive, one of the first batches of this model. There are a lot of good points about this locomotive and also some not so good ones too!
The Class 22 during running in, showing the factory finish!
As with all my locomotive detailing projects I took the locomotive apart and weathered the bogies separately to the body and chassis. With this Dapol offering, there are separate side valances to stick onto the locomotive, which seem resistant to most types of glue! To be frank this is a poor design by Dapol and some blobs of super glue are required to get these valances to stay in place. However, with a bit of faffing around I managed to glue these to the chassis ready for painting. This does make painting a bit awkward though, as the body really needs to sit on the chassis to be able to paint the valances too, which does require a little bit more masking than normal!
During painting with the body resting on the chassis, to enable the side valances to be weathered at the same time.
Anyhow, the first coat I give a locomotive is a wash of heavily thinned weathered black/frame dirt. Like with the Class 122 detailed in an earlier post, this attacked the paint finish, so be warned! However, this locomotive was always due to look pretty desperate, so this was duly disguised with more painting. Using some pictures of Class 22 around North Devon as a guide, shades of white, and various shades of weathered blue, were then airbrushed over the body before weathering of all the various components, such as bogies, chassis, etc. Like with all my projects, weathering was achieved using an airbrush and shades of weathered black, frame dirt, sleeper grime, brake dust and matt white.
The headcode fitted to plast glazing before adding to the body shell. These were simply cut to size with scissors.
The headcodes were added to clear plastic before cutting to shape and inserting. A Loksound 21 pin DCC sound decoder was added, with the sound files by Howes. The decoder was soldered up to a Road and Rails double Ipone speaker and the locomotive reassembled with baited breath. On testing I was absolutely delighted with the sound quality. The pick up of the locomotive when moving from a standing start is just like I would imagine. I can only regret being born too recently to have heard these locomotives chugging through the North Devon countryside.
The finished class 22 ready to run a parcels service out of Charlton.
Here is the finished locomotive running out of Charlton back to Barnstaple.
When I started programming the locomotive I went through some of the decoder functions and one of the cab lights refused to work. A quick google and I found this was a common problem with the early batches of Dapol class 22 locomotives. In typical Murphy's law, the end which has the working cab light, is the end without the driver! So half marks for Dapol here - a poor quality paint finish, one cab light doesn't work and the valances are a nightmare! However, with a bit of work, I am delighted with how this locomotive looks and sounds. It is definitely a favorite of the growing Charlton fleet of DCC sound diesels.
The class 22 emerging from the tunnel at Charlton, into bright sunlight.
The pick up from the idle to running is fantastic on this sound project I think.
And running the evening passenger service into the station on a summers day in 1970!
So with a class 42 sound chip just in, a class 37 sound chip about to be reblown, and a class 47 sound chip about to be ordered, there is plenty of modelling to be done on the workbench.
