Slowly morphing at Barrow Hill Roundhouse from a Class 37 into a replica Class 23 (D5910) is 37372 (D6859, 37159, 37372), 2nd March 2024.
Donor locomotive D6859 was built by English Electric at the Vulcan Works and entered traffic in July 1963. With a set of Class 20 bogies and the sole-remaining Napier Deltic type T9-29 engine and generator it is one of the main elements in creating a replica Class 23 “Baby Deltic”. The Class 37 body has been shortened at the nose and the overall body length reduced and mounted on the Bo-Bo Class 20 bogies so as to reproduce, so far as reasonably practicable, the appearance of a Class 23. To mount Class 20 bogies onto a Class 37 underframe required the modification of the entire centre casting, pivot members and side-bearers as well as all the bracing and load concentration points.
Ten type 'B' locomotives (D5900 – D5909), later classified as Class 23 were ordered from English Electric under the pilot scheme for main line diesel locomotives as part of the BR modernisation plan of 1955. They were powered by a 9-cylinder Napier Deltic engine of type T9-29 rated at 1,100 hp at 1,600 rpm and were mounted on two-axle bogies giving a Bo-Bo wheel arrangement. Deliveries commenced in Spring 1959 to Hornsey Depot, via Doncaster Works for commissioning, transferring to Finsbury Park on its completion in 1960. In their original guise they were not a success, all of them being stored by June 1963 prior to a refurbishment programme which was completed by April 1965. The refurbished locomotives were a considerable improvement on the original design. However, by 1968 their small class size made them rather non-standard and they fell victim to the BR Standardisation Plan, the first loco being withdrawn in October 1968. The remainder followed over the next three years with the last one, D5909 being withdrawn in March 1971. D5901 found some further use with BR's Research Department where it provided motive power for the Tribometer train until late-1975. It was broken up in March 1977 the last of the class.
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