PinzaC55

Great shots Silverlink , keep them coming !

Elton and Orston must be the least busy station in the whole East Midlands. One train a day in each direction stops there. I guess it's cheaper to keep it open like this than to close it.

In my Deltic bashing days there was a legendary basher (he was the one who kissed 55022's nameplate at Kings Cross on the last service train) and I think it was him who was bashing a pair of 20s back from Skegness via Elton. Supposedly the train was stopped at Elton and he bailed out there just to say he had rare haulage to an obscure station!

Apologies to him if he reads this and it is a shaggy dog story.....

2 shots of 55002 looking glorious at St Pancras in 1989, In the second shot she is being inspected by (left) a couple of my former colleagues from Kings Cross.

55002 at St. Pancras 1989 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

Seen by me in 1978 when I was several pounds lighter and still had use for a comb, Whitwick station on the old LNWR Loughborough (Derby Road) to Hugglescote branch which closed to passengers in 1931.

Whitwick Station (2) 24.6.78 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

 

Edit* I just looked on Google Earth and incredibly it not only still exists but has been very tastefully restored !  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitwick_railway_station

I have one of Beamish and one of West Stanley and I don't think they have been published but since they are copyright I cannot post them here.

Interesting thread here  http://www.lner.info/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10094

Carr House West box, after East was done away with (now in Beamish) and West's nameboard was shortened to Carr House.I think I took this in 1979, the name of the Punk group "CRASS" on the P Way shed is a clue!

Honestly no idea but this guy may well know  http://www.napier-chronicles.co.uk/

On 30.8.81 55002 ran an Adex from Newcastle to Whitby via Sunderland and even though I had been bashing the previous day I simply couldn't miss it ! 

Here she is entering Sunderland station with the grandparents finding themselves surrounded by young men with Black Sabbath t shirts carrying Adidas bags

55002  Battersby par PinzaC55, on ipernity

Arrival back at Sunderland, slightly out of focus as I had no tripod 

Deltic 55002 At Sunderland 30.8.81 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

55013 turns the air blue leaving Newcastle in 1981

55013 at Barnetby Station 3.9.81 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

A close up of her nameplate then back on the train. Luckily the Deltics had a bit of time in hand at stations like Barnetby!

55013 "The Black Watch" Nameplate 3.9.81 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

With the Hawkesworth Dynamometer Car behind the lococ, it would appear.. When did these trains run? I presume it was to cover for the blast furnaces at Consett being out-of-use, rather than as a long-term replacement? If this was the case, how long did the furnaces last after re-building, given the plant shut in 1982?

This is obviously a test run; the service trains had a couple of 'Merry-Go-Round' hoppers between locos and first torpedo, then another pair between each torpedo (I think they sometimes had three torpedos) and between the last torpedo and the 'van. Presumably, this was intended to spread the load on bridges.

Is the signalbox in the distance Carr House East, which is now at Beamish?

37101 on track lifting duties between Pelton and Beamish:

 

 

 

John

Way way back on 3.8.78 I visited Thirsk and snapped 55019 zooming south past a steam age water crane, ancient colour light signals and in the background a rake of flat wagons which were used to unload tanks for Catterick. Thirsk was a difficult place to visit because the train service was very poor in those days with sometimes 2 hour gaps inbetween trains! When I took this photo "You're The One That I Want" by John Travolta and Olivia Neutron Bomb would be playing on my Benkson transistor radio  

I saw this ugly wreck at Tower Colliery in Wales on 26.5.1988. Amazingly she has been restored and is still working! 

D3261 at Tower Colliery (2) 26.5.88 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

 

D3261 at Tower Colliery (3) 26.5.88 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

I was at the station yesterday and I swear the roof was still echoing!

Well the thread seems to have run out of steam    Hey ho, here is 55008 waiting to take over from 55010  on 1L43 on 16.10.81 at York. Just 3 months later both Deltics would be on the scrap line.

Here's a bit of an unusual one, the only known Class 56 ever to have transited the line to Consett, 56080 at the site of Beamish station on a rail lifting train in May 1984. I'm led to believe that some colour photographs of this working may exist but I've not been able to track them down so far...

 

 

John

Nice testament to the insanity of railway closures. The new destroying the old.  

55003 Meld heads south across the King Edward Bridge in Newcastle with 1V93 on 16.5.80

Number 7 chills at Doncaster on train 1A34 on 29.8.81. Not long till the end now 

On 29.5.79 I caught a DMU to Grimsby Town in the hope of getting my first Deltic haulage here......there was a distant roar and then my own baby came round the corner - magic!

55007 Grimsby Docks 29.5.79 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

Sometime in the summer of '79 55008 The Green Howards waits to leave the Cross with a night service. I know the colour looks weird but KX was lit by Sodium lights then.

55008 Kings X par PinzaC55, on ipernity

What a great thread!

 

I only wish I had some pictures to contribute but alas, I was not allowed as far as York, (or Scarborough), in 1981. Talking of Scarborough, the shots there are super.

 

I'm willing to bet no-one has a shot of a Deltic in my home town of Bridlington?

 

Cheers.

 

Sean.

Not one of my own but due to the power of the Internet  http://homepage.ntlworld.com/theblackwatch/gallery39.htm

I also found this clip of the same tour but only at York  

Great shot Silverlink! And the guy in the orange shirt has a photograph of you, wherever he is now.....

Here is 55021 glimpsed at Durham on 10.6.78

Hi Pinza,

I take your point about the photos but you could have started a thread dedicated to just photos on the Class 55 site and that way maybe all us Deltic fans wouldn't miss your  your excellent thread. I came across it by luck as I was trawling through all the different threads here on Rmweb.

Please keep up what you've started its great reading. 

Ian

Hi Ian, the other reason why I didn't post there is that is that there is very little activity on that group so if you go to the 6th thread the last post was 6 months ago and after that many of the threads are 2 years old. Seeing as you are in Scarborough here is a treat from 29.8.1981 when I had 55013 to Scarborough and back. The only bad point was that 55009 passed me at Seamer on the way from Filey! Happy days 

55013 at Scarborough on 1A37 29.8.81 par PinzaC55, on ipernity

Not wishing to burst your bubble but did you know that we already have a Class 55 thread under Special Interests where you can find lots of photos of Deltics.

Cheers

Ian

I searched that area for Deltics and although there are subthreads in the Class 55 group with photos of Deltics in them there is no thread solely devoted to photos of Deltics unless I missed something?

It is because they are two strokes designed to run at far higher power output than in Class 55. The clearances between piston and cylinder allow for this, which means that at tickover there is more clearance than might be found on other engines. And since the pistons move over and seal the inlet/exhaust ports, this results in more lube oil being able to find its way in to the cylinders/exhaust than would be the case otherwise. The end result being that the oil accumilated during idling gets burnt off when full power is applied. Once the engines have been running at full power for fifteen minutes or so and burnt off all the oil, they do run quite clear - just a little blue haze which can be less dense than the black smoke you might get from any other diesel working flat out. Just look at any video showing a Deltic at 100mph and you will see what I mean!

One of my big regrets is that I never photographed a Deltic on the bufferstops at Kings Cross when they had been standing for an hour between turns and they started up with plumes of white clag and that characteristic clattering noise. Did anyone? If you have such a photo, please share it with us!

Here's a Deltic leaving York seen from the Holgate footbridge where the spotters sat on the signal gantry!