Well well well, after finding a bit of time to do some modelling for once i have just about got something nearly finished!

A long while back, i had a spare lima 50 and deltic and set about hacking them up to create a 'super deltic' as outlined in the the 'deltic locomotives of british rail' book. It started pretty well but as time is always at a premium, playing trains has taken over from building trains. Anyway, for this entry i thought id go back to the start with some pics of how the build went.

It all started when i started to look at possibilities with lima deltics, one day i just chopped the roof off a lima deltic with an idea to fit it onto a redundant 50.

Looking at the profile it was a half decent match so the cutting discs started to appear to attack the 50 and a very smashed up western for some extra grilles e.t.c

Having the line drawing in the book helped to get things roughly in the right area but as its a made up it didnt really matter too much

The 50 grilles were cut and rotated 90 degrees to go length ways and a couple of grilles were chopped off a western for some variety so after some frenzied chopping and gluing this was the pile of scrap left.

The next and most time consuming stage was the filling and blending in of the mish mash of body parts now glued together, i forget how long it took but it was a while before i was any where near happy with the bodyside, but looking back on it over the past year or so perhaps a bit longer could have been spent to get it that bit more flat but hey ho, sometimes i think lifes a bit too short, especially on a mishmash 'might have been'

It was about then that this little project stalled, for reasons i cant remember it sat on the shelf waiting and waiting......

Last summer it was brought down again and given a coat of blue to see how it looked, reasonable enough but still the inspiration wouldnt come. By January it was still there and just by chance i found some DAve Alexander class 37 white metal bogie over lays, Hmm looking at the bogies i thought this could give it the impetus to get things going again with this.

The lima sideframes were cut back and the white metal ones firmly glued on in place, the wheelbase is all wrong but you can barely see the wheels so it looks ok to me, also at theis point i chopped off the 50 tanks & boxes on the chassis and added the cut down deltic tanks, it was begging to take shape again. A couple of weeks back i sent off for a few craftsman bit and found the class 50 detailing pack including the bogie steps, once thes arrived the 'Thing' as it has become known has progressed nicely.

So, pretty much 2 years in the making, just about ready to number it i realise im dangerously low on transfers so a quick order to Fox for some plates and numbers for another project duly arrived, (excellent service as always from them, couldnt reccomend them enough.) A trip to my dads tonight some me crack out the transfers eager to crack on, then it hit me, what number should it be? After a bit of a think and a read up i took a punt at D700, i thought it would be a bit different to letter it without the D prefix and add in the early data panels just like the 50s. So as of tonight, nearly 3 years in the making im please to unveil the one and probably only super deltic in existance!.

It was supposed to have 2 super charged deltic 18 engines creating something like 4600 hp! Apparantly it was very close to being built with BR asking for quotes for 50 & 100 in 67/68 so just imaging what the east coast could have had.

Anyway heres some shots of it tonight after putting it back together and giving it a run, next job it to give it some varnish but that will have to wait for better weather, whatever that is these days!

Its a great feeling to see something that was in your head for so long come into existense, and i couldnt resist blue tacking a spare kestrel plate i found on the side! Its by now means an accurate representation of a proposed disign but to me it looks the part and i hope it looks ok to who ever will read this and if it encourages any one to have a go at something id love to some other might have beens appear, after all, they are our railways and well build and run what we like!

Thanks for looking in, please excuse any spelling/gramar mistakes, its geting late so i spose i best get some sleep.

Hopefully some more moddeling time will be comming soon so ill try clear the decks and see whats next on the production line.

All the best

James