Crikey, it’s been 5 months since I have done any serious railway modelling. Constructing and populating a granny annexe took every free moment over the Summer, but now with the dust settled and my workshop/mancave finally set up only 8 months after having moved in, I have the luxury of dark Winter modelling evenings ahead.

Looking through my boxes of half-finished projects, I have decided to take the half-built Class 23 “Baby Deltic” in hand.

I started this project quite a few years ago, inspired by the efforts of the Baby Deltic project at Barrow Hill who are in the process of cutting n’ shutting a class 37 to recreate an example of this extinct locomotive class: http://www.thebabydelticproject.co.uk/

Lying about in my rejects/scrap box I had an example of the old J&L models 3mm scale class 40 resin body. I had high hopes of this model when I first bought it in about 2001, but the quality and detail of both the whitemetal castings and the resin body itself left a lot to be desired, so even though their attempt to cater for 3mm modellers was to be commended, I thought that there was just too much rework needed to make it worthwhile.

So chopping it up to make a Class 23 seemed to make much more sense…

First off I used a scaled-down drawing to 1:101 scale from Colin Marsden’s “British Rail Main Line Diesel Locomotives” and cut n’shut the Whistler body shell to the correct dimensions.

Having previously used the chassis from the Piko Taurus loco to good effect in my class 73 I decided to sacrifice yet another of these beasties.

The good thing about these mechanisms is that the wheels are close enough to scale 3’6” diameter and a wheelbase not far off 8’6” – as long as you don’t look too closely. The bogie sideframe cradles are clip fit and can be easily adapted to carry new sideframes.

The actual chassis itself is just a simple lump of some kind of lead alloy, easy to work with a hacksaw, bastard file and brute ignorance. The bogie centre dimensions are however much too close together, so I cut the chassis in two and grafted in extensions made out of plasticard glued in with Araldite.

A trawl through my various bits boxes has turned up some suitable bogie sideframes (from a class 20 or 25 I think) and assorted panels, grilles, louvres, buffers etc…

Final assembly can now commence…