Review | Bachmann - Swindon Works “9F” 2-10-0

Howdy again folks!

Today we're taking a looking at another British steam locomotive, and a particularly interesting and impressive one at that.

So without further ado, let's get started!

9F History: The British Railways 9F has a storied, but relatively short, history, so I’ll start today at the beginning, with the needs resulting in its design, and work forward from there.

British Railways was the amalgamation of the UK’s “Big 4” railroads; London & North Eastern Railway, London, Midland & Scottish Railway, Southern Railway, and the Great Western Railway. When all these lines were combined into BR, this resulted in the new company having an enormous array of locomotive types inherited from the former lines.

This situation was not preferable, so BR decided on designing standard classes of locomotives, which would streamline maintenance, allocation, and construction. This idea would carry over to diesels and electrics, as well, which were actually preferred at the time the 9F was being designed, but the infrastructure was not yet ready for a total motive power change.

Among the several classes of “Standards” was the 9F, which was designed to be a powerful, but also relatively speedy, freight locomotive, hence the “9F” – 9 was the power classification, which ran from 0 to 9, and F for, well, freight (there were also P for passenger and MT for mixed traffic).

Robert Riddles, who had previously worked for the London & North Western Railway and the LMS, as well as serving in the Royal Engineers in France during The Great War (and being badly wounded) would eventually come to work for BR, and would design the 9F (and many others before BR and during his BR tenure).

The original idea for the 9F was a 2-8-2 configuration, but the 2-10-0 would be the ultimate outcome of the design process – this would improve tractive effort, as well as spread the axle load out to allow better route availablilty.

Construction would begin in January 1954 and last until March of 1960, with 251 being built, both at BR Crewe Works and BR Swindon Works.

The driving wheel diameter was an even 5ft, which were driven by two 20”x 28” cylinders, which in turn were steamed by a boiler capable of 250psi. These specs in turn put out an impressive 39,667lbf of tractive effort.

All this would culminate in one of the UK’s best steam locomotive designs of all time – handling its designed task of freight with ease, as well as showing a surprising ability to handle passenger trains, though they would be barred from the express trains for fear of excessive wear on the running gear.

They would also serve as the base for several experiments, including; 10 equipped with the unusual Franco-Crosti boilers, which would prove ineffective and be removed/bypassed; 10 more would sport Westinghouse Pumps to operate pneumatic doors on hoppers; a few received mechanical stokers, which proved inefficient in their case; 92250 received a Giesl ejector, which proved inconclusive; and 92178 would receive a double blastpipe and chimney during construction, which proved successful enough that all subsequent 9Fs were built with this arrangement.

They were big, powerful, and supremely successful, but would prove short-lived, through no fault of their own.

BR was working on phasing out steam even as 9Fs were rolling out of the Works, and by 1968 they were all withdrawn – a pitiful 9 year working life on some examples!

Thankfully, a fitting nine have been preserved, including the last one built, which was also the last BR steam locomotive, 92220 “Evening Star”, the only BR steam locomotive to be marked for preservation from the date of construction, as well as the only 9F to be painted in BR passenger Locomotive Green, and the only 9F to be officially named by BR. Also in preservation is 92203, named “Black Prince” by the post-BR owner, which pulled the heaviest train that a steam locomotive had pulled in the UK at 2,178 tons, in 1982 (presumably for fun).

92090 History: Our prototype today was built at BR’s Swindon Works in November of 1956 and equipped with a BR1F tender.

It would be allocated to Doncaster, but would be reallocated to Annesley the following year. Its final allocation would be at Birkenhead Mollington Street in 1965. In May of 1967 it would be withdrawn, and would be scrapped that October.

Box info.

I've always liked the BR Standards, for the most part.

Also, the large "plates" on each side of the smoke box are smoke deflectors, which when the locomotive is moving at speed channel air upwards to push the smoke high enough to not obstruct the crew's view.

All those drive wheels and space between boiler and frame really give a unique look to this class.

I feel like walking up the front steps beside the deflectors would've been precarious with such a small amount of space to walk.

Not too impressive a cab by UK model standards, but considerably better than most of my more expensive American models.

All the detail on the front of the tender is interesting.

Good: The paint looks nice, with something approaching a reasonable shine to it, and all the lettering and stickers look nice, as well. The details overall are very impressive; well manufactured and installed – I found the cab area particularly impressive. The build quality is also very good overall, with it being very sturdy and robust – even the smoke deflectors, which I expected to be flimsy. It runs perfectly, with no issues whatsoever, and the accompanying sounds are top-notch as well. It comes in at 1lb 0.3oz, which is okay. Also, it came with a substantial amount of optional detail parts, including cylinder drain cocks, screw link couplings, brake pipes, and steps.

Bad: Nothing too serious here. The connection between the locomotive and tender isn’t very impressive – the drawbar comes unhooked easily, and the wires are a mess; that system really needs an update, and other manufacturers have come up with far superior methods. Also, the stack/funnel molding struck me as odd – there’s almost no depth when looking down into the stack. That needed to be molded deeper, preferably extending down into the locomotive body due to the very short nature of the 9F stack.

Overall: It’s a perfectly good model. A couple minor issues, but overall a good quality model that runs well, sounds good, and looks good. I’d certainly recommend it!

That’s all for this review – as always, thanks for looking!

Also, if you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to drop them below.