Production
Following trials with the prototype DP1 Deltic locomotive, an order was placed with English Electric for a production fleet of 22 units (reduced from the originally-planned 23 ), replacing more than twice that number (55) of Gresley Pacifics. A first, was that the locomotives were purchased under a service contract, English Electric agreeing to maintain them, including their engines and generators, for a fixed price. Additional Deltic engines were produced to enable engines to be swapped out regularly for overhaul while keeping the locomotives in service.
The locomotives were assigned to three locomotive depots: Finsbury Park in London, Gateshead over the Tyne from Newcastle, and Haymarket in Edinburgh. They arrived from the manufacturer painted in two-tone green, the dark BR green on top, with a narrower strip of a lighter, lime green along the bottom. This helped to disguise the bulk of the locomotive body. The cab window surrounds were picked out in cream-white. Although delivered without it, they all soon sported the bright yellow warning panel at each end common to all British diesel and electric locomotives, to make them more conspicuous. Very soon, all were named; the Gateshead and Edinburgh Haymarket locomotives after regiments of the British Army from the North-East of England and from Scotland, respectively, while London Finsbury Park followed the LNER tradition of naming locomotives after winning racehorses.
By 1966 they began to be painted in corporate Rail Blue with yellow ends, the change generally coinciding with a works repair and the fitting of air brake equipment, the locomotives originally having only vacuum braking (the first so treated was D9002; the last to be painted blue was D9014). In the early 1970s they were fitted with Electric Train Heating (ETH) equipment to power the new generation of air-conditioned coaches, while a couple of years later, with the introduction of BR's TOPS computer system, they were renumbered 55 001 to 55 022. In 1979 Finsbury Park restored the white cab window surrounds to their remaining (6) Deltics, making them distinctive although these were later painted over when the locomotives were transferred to York during the rundown of the depot at Finsbury Park.
Read more about this topic: British Rail Class 55
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