Nick,
I own old 2509 and brand new 2509N. The locking of the film is made with the inserts on the 2509N and it is built in with the plain old 2509. The reel lock makes loading a bit more difficult because film has to pass above the lock.
Frankly, it's not a big deal.
I use the 2509N without the inserts and the film get out rarely, and not more than a couple of centimeters, causing no harm yet.
...if you want, you can easily do hand rotating in a water bath to use much less chemistry than inversion. I just used a dish pan or something similar and floated the tank in tempered water. I then rotated it continuously by hand in the water. I got great results, much better than I had gotten with a standard motor base like a beseler or unicolor. With constant rotation, you only need a very small amount of chemistry.