News, 20 February 2020

The Baby Deltic Project • 20 February 2020

News, 20 February 2020

The work of (almost entriely) one person over the last couple of shifts is shown in the photos below.  The keen-eyed will note the level of detail mentioned in previous updates - i.e. the replacement of the Class 37 style secondman's side instrument panel with the earlier style as seen on Baby Deltics.  We are indebted to the DPS for the loan of a panel to copy to enable this fabrication.  The removal of the old panel also requires the relocation of the heater switch assembly.  

With all the cabling and supply pipework having been removed earlier in the conversion the master controller was removed (five bolts are all that hold it in place) to allow a clear run at the entire bulkhead for de-scaling and painting.
After painting the bulk of the area in primer the number of cut-outs can be seen more clearly - a structural engineer's nightmare.  The areas which haven't been painted are left unpainted because they require welding or other changes still to do.

Note that the heater switch cut-outs on the driver's and secondman's side aren't horizontally level - they aren't on the real thing either so this is deliberate.

The crop to the left is of the area to the right of the driver's instrument panel.  When Class 37s were dual braked there was a need to add another gauge to the panel (the auto-air brake pipe gauge) so the main reservoir gauge was relocated.  It was put in one of two places, either to the right of the master controller or to the right of the existing instrument panel.  One would have been easy requiring the addition of a pre-fabricated box with a bit of external pipework and one would have been a pain in the arse involving cutting a new hole in the bulkhead and burying the pipework under the desk.  We had the latter and we have removed it - an equal pain to installing it in the first place - and welded a new piece of steel into fill the hole.  


Compare this crop to the photo above to see the changes.
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