During 1992 D7017 was painted in departmental 'Dutch' livery and renumbered 35017. Although of course no class member every carried this livery or indeed TOPS numbers, they certainly would have done if that had lasted another twenty years, so it was an interesting experiment in 'what might have been'. On 31 October 1992 35017 (D7017) darkens the sky as it departs from Watchet station with a Minehead bound train during the West Somerset Railway's Diesel Gala.

D7017 & D7018 pass Castle Hill on the West Somerset Railway with the 14:25 Minehead to Bishops Lydeard service during the line's Diesel Gala on 28 October 1994. The lead locomotives carries the experimental chromatic blue livery applied to a number of locomotives in the 1960s, before the slightly darker blue livery became standard. With small yellow warning panel and white window surrounds it certainly looks impressive, although the version carried by some locos without the white window surrounds looked very odd.