Engine Trouble
Hitchin Depot

D5900 working an engineers breakdown train
Scrapped
New Baby Deltic

D5909 works outer suburban train with BR non-corridor stock
D5905 had its engine was removed and stored at Stratford as a standby power unit for D5901. When D5901 was scrapped at Doncaster Works in early 1977, NRM requistioned the engine and transported it back on a four-wheeled wagon. It remained under a tarpaulin until 2001. Following research, the Baby Deltic project team discovered its existance. After negotiations with the National Railway Museum, the engine was transferred to Barrow Hill locomotive shed and rebuilt to working order. This locomotive has now been professionally shortened to be the 11th Baby Deltic a truly magnificent achievement. There are lots of great pictures on The Baby Deltic Project website and Facebook page. The rarity of Baby Deltic equipment makes it all the more incredible that the very I engine I started up at Hitchin depot nearly forty years ago is still in existence and will be used again.
Model Railway
When Heljan produced a Baby Deltic, I simply had to have not one, but two. Unfortunately the model of D5905 is not in the livery that I remembered so I purchased D5900. An easier choice was with D5909 as this is produced in blue livery – the only member of the class to receive this. On my model railway layout, I have created D5900 working an engineers/breakdown train while D5909 is shown on British Rail non-corridor stock.

Railway model depicting ‘D5905’ (aka D5900 artists licence!!) and D5909 as stored at ‘Stratford’ in 1971
To me the Baby Deltics were something a bit special. The locomotives look handsome and well proportioned. I look forward to seeing D5910 operating and hope that my small financial contribution has helped the project along. I would urge you to consider donating to this worthy project. The web page has photos of the excellent work by the team. Hopefully in the future, I can show you some great real life pictures to complement my model railway images.
Hiya do you remember what the cab interia was like, was it the same layout as a class 37
Yes it was very similar
Yes it was essentially standard English Electric cab layout of the time. Clearly this is fortuitous for the Baby Deltic Project in the use of a Class 37 as the basis for D5910.
Baby Deltic D5901 when sent back to EE Vulcan foundry for the refurbishment programme and was converted to accept a new propotype engine that EE were doing 12 CSUT 1500hp Vee engine thus it would make the locomotive a Type 3. New management at EE decided not to proceed with the U engine project and pulled the plug. And D5901 was converated back to standard to accept the Deltic T9-29 1100hp engine and back into service 14:04:65. Phew 😓
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Thank you John for this contribution very interesting. I remember reading something about this recently wasn’t it referred to by EE engineers as DP3?