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BR type 2 Baby Deltic Class 23 Locomotives
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Heljan Baby Deltic Modifications by Kier Hardy
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Heljan Baby Deltic Modifications by Paul James
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Image of D5901 at Doncaster works courtesy of nigelmenzies on flickr
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English Electric type 2 Baby Deltic D5905 (Heljan) trundles an engineers train back to the depot at Hitchin.
From the Eastwell fleet, a heavily modified Heljan Baby Deltic with reworked nose ends,
headcode boxes and roof modifications to bring the radiator fan in line with the side
grills. D5908 heads a northbound Cambridge Buffet express at Hornsey Broadway.
For further information on the conversions click here.
D5908 is seen later in the day heading south with a suburban train formed of non-gangway mk1 stock.
D5909 & D5905 on shed at Hornsey (Heljan).
This Heljan class 23 model has been converted to EM gauge to join the Shenston Road fleet,
and finished off with weathering, to a photograph of the loco C1970.
D5909 heads a special freight from East London to Shenston Road in 1970, worked by
Stratford men with a route conducter from Rugby due to traction shortage!
Derby RTC's D5901 hauling the Tribometer train through Shenston Road. This loco is
based on the Silver Fox resin kit.
The partially dismantled Heljan D5909, surrounded by a few loose bits and pieces. The loco
arrived on the work bench after a lengthy journey from China, and it was evident that one
or two of the 'factory fitted' parts needed putting back on - and that's before it came out
of the box! The other parts were checked over with some superglue on a cocktail stick, to
make sure nothing else fell off, and the directional lighting units were unplugged and
removed, as they look unrealistic when lit. I was puzzled by the 2 body coloured etched
brass pieces which came in a separate pack with the tension-lock couplings, until one of
the diagonal cross braces on the large side grill came off during handling of the body.
It amuses me to think of the hunreds of detached fuel tanks which will come off in your
hand, whilst trying to remove the body from the chassis. After the trial of removing, I
shaved down the retaining pips (which are located inside the body), for easier removal
of the body next time around.
Although all loco wheel conversions now keep the originals (the flanges reprofiled on the
lathe), this process uses 14mm Romford Jackson coach wheels, with the pinpoints removed.
Give or take a few thou', they are the right size for the model (the prototype being 3ft
7ins diameter). I have found the flanges are a lot better than the Heljan wheel, so
better suited to EM gauge trackwork. The gear just slides off the old axle, and onto the
new one with relative ease. The result is a very rigid arrangement, with good electrical
contact on the back of the solid brass wheel. Whilst the axle keep-plate was off, the
opportunity was taken to remove the tension-lock coupling box, and allow a front cross-beam
to be fitted to the bogies.
The chemical blackening can be removed with a knife blade whilst cleaning (running upturned),
and allows for greater reliability during the running-in period. The perforated cross-beam
was fitted to the front of the bogie, and a piece of black plasticard was fitted to the inner
end next to the tanks. I don't see the need to remove the bogie side frames in the future,
so the whole assembly is glued together, and still allows removal of the keep-plate and
wheels (if required).
Modifications part 1 - The headcode box on the Heljan Baby Deltic is too small to accept the correct
4mm characters, as shown in this head on comparison view with D5901 at Doncaster works.
Class 23 nose comparison with headcode photoshopped onto model.
After discussion about the effectiveness of the paper headcode, the
next question was size and position. A quick look through my archives found an article by Monty Wells
in the May 1983 edition of the Railway Modeller on making a class 23 from a Hornby class 37. This
gave a lot of information and drawings regarding the Baby Deltic body, in particular the headcode boxes.
A comparison between my paper one and Monty’s in size was close, my paper one being slightly narrower
than Monty’s. When comparing the two sets of measurements on the actual Heljan body I decided to stick
with my paper headcode measurements. These are set out below. (An amendment of Monty’s original drawing).
Once I had decided on the size of the new headcode box, what to make it out of? I had
a couple of headcode box fitted Lima Class 20’s sitting in the pending box. The cab end headcode box on
one measured up pretty close, being alright for height, but a little bit wide. They proved to be easy to
get off the cab end of the loco, just being held in position by a couple of spigots into the body. They
were rounded at the corners, but in reducing the width of them this would disappear. The sides of the
headcode boxes were filed down until they were the right length, care being taken to make sure the loss
was even on both sides.
The before and after can be seen below. I had originally intended to cut out
the original headcode aperture from the Lima 20 headcode box and
then use that as the new headcode, but soon realised there were a few problems with this idea.
I decided to cut a new front plate for the headcode box from some thin plasticard I
had in the spares box....
.....and stick that on the rear of the Lima headcode box, and then cut off the original
front part of the now reversed headcode box.
New headcode in position (under the masking tape). Note the original profile of the nose
where it meets the sides. With the replacement headcode boxes finished, the next question was exactly where
to fit them on the nose. Looking at as many photos of Class 23 nose ends, and more studious measuring
resulted in me deciding that the top of the new headcode box would be the same position as the Heljan original.
This would mean that the bottom edge of the new headcode box would be lower down the nose. This seemed to tie
in with the photos and my measurement, as well as what was in Monty Well’s original article. The width of the
new headcode box was just about the same as the Heljan one, so that would help in fixing the centre line of the
new one. The original Heljan headcode box was drilled out and carefully filed back so that the top of the
new headcode box would be in the same position as the original. The sides of the headcode box were done
in the same way, filed back until the new one fitted centrally. With the top and sides of the new headcode
box fixed, the replacement was placed in position and the new bottom of the headcode box marked up on the
nose. More careful filing and frequent rechecking resulted in a slot in the front of the locos nose that
the new headcode box could fit snuggly into. With careful lining up, I used the step down in the size of
the buffer shanks as a reference for how much the headcode box stuck out from the nose, and when satisfied
all was square, the new headcode boxes were glued in position. The photo below shows the new headcode box
in position, and also the original profile on the corner of the Heljan nose.
Another thing that flagged up with looking at all the Class 23 photos was the profile of the
nose where the top meets the side. There had been some discussion as to Heljan not getting it completely right
with their first model, but correction it for the later model of the early disc version of the loco. This
seemed to be possible to fix with the careful application of a fine file, some sanding sticks and finally
very fine emery cloth designed for getting scratches out of Perspex. The patient application of the latter
resulted in barely noticeable damage to the overall plastic body colour, which is green, and means I can get
away without having to respray the nose, any slight difference in colour being easily masked with a bit of
weathering.
Once I was happy all was good, the yellow was re-applied to the nose and glazing fitted to
the headcode boxes using some scrap perspex sheet in the scrap box. New headcodes, as seen on prototype
locos in photographs were manufactured on the computer and printed off to fit into the headcode boxes. The
resulting look can be seen below and in the photos below.
At the end of this work I was happy that I had improved on the look of the Heljan
headcode fitted Baby Deltic model, and with some test running under its belt was all set up the weather
the loco. After discussing some of the other faults on the loco, the main one being that the cooling
fan grill didn't line up with the radiators on the side of the loco, and was I going to do something about
them. Challenge number two was set in motion. All will be revealed in Part 2.
