D5501 BR Green with SYP
New to 30A Stratford in November 1957, D5501 was only the second Type 2 to be released from Brush’s Falcon Works in Loughborough as part of the 20-strong Pilot Scheme batch of locomotives. The Hawker Siddeley-owned company was so proud of their new 1,250hp A1A-A1A machines that this particular example spent its first few weeks on display at its new acquired sister firm Mirrlees’ Hazel Grove factory, home of the 12-cylinder turbocharged JVS12T engine that was originally installed in the class. Mostly limited to East Anglia, with the odd cross-London or cross-country excursion it initially settled into a life of express and secondary passenger work as well as parcels and freight traffic, with the latter duties dominating as more powerful diesels were introduced onto the Great Eastern and Cambridge main lines. By the mid 1960s, D5501 had been repainted to match the production members of the class, losing its picked out window surrounds and duck egg blue body stripes, and that is how the Accurascale model is represented. Later renumbered 31001 it was among the first ‘Toffee Apples’ – so named because of the shape of the power handle - to be withdrawn, succumbing in July 1976 before being scrapped at Doncaster in January 1977.