Tulyar at York

A new photograph from Iain Flynn

Class 55 55015 ‘Tulyar’ rolls into York on Sunday 18 October 1981, at the head of 1L42, the 14:05 from King’s Cross. The platform is packed with enthusiasts, young and old, and a gaggle of them has already formed around the cab door, hoping for a word with the driver and, with luck, a chance to cab the loco.

There is a particular kind of crowd a Deltic could draw in the autumn of 1981, and this is it: people of every age pressed along the platform edge, the group at the cab door hoping to cab the loco. Tulyar looks the part for it. The white surrounds around her cab windows catch the eye even at a distance, and the Finsbury Park stickers that had marked her old shed are gone from the bodyside this same day, removed as though in readiness for a fresh start at York.

The tidying up was not done for this working alone. Tulyar had spent the previous day out on ‘The Wessex Deltic’, a railtour that took her from Finsbury Park down to Bournemouth and back by way of Basingstoke, Eastleigh and Portsmouth, a long day’s running that called for a locomotive turned out properly. In the days before that, she had stood at Finsbury Park undergoing repairs and paint, stopped for a brake test, made ready for a tour that would carry her a long way from her old shed. The white window surrounds themselves, painted blue by York depot when she came up from Finsbury Park on 1st June, had been reapplied in white on 14th October ahead of the tour. A Deltic dressed up for one railtour tended to stay dressed up for whatever came next, and what came next, on this Sunday, was 1L42 into York with a platform full of people waiting for her.

The white surrounds did not last. A week later, on 24th October 1981, Tulyar worked ‘The Deltic Salute’, a railtour organised by the Deltic Preservation Society, and the cab window surrounds were repainted blue once more after working it. They went back to white a final time for the Farewell railtour on 2nd January 1982, the same day she was withdrawn from service, a locomotive that had entered service on 13th October 1961. It is a small thing, a strip of paint changing colour twice more before the end, but it says something about how a class in its last months was treated: not run down and neglected, but fussed over, dressed for one railtour and then the next, right through to the last working. Tulyar went on afterwards to a life in preservation, kept first in private hands and later by the Deltic Preservation Society, the society whose railtour she had already worked that October.

Why this photograph?

What holds the eye is not the locomotive alone but the crowd pressed along the platform, caught in the ordinary business of trying to get close to a favourite class, hoping for a moment at the cab door. Tulyar sits there freshly turned out, marked for York now rather than Finsbury Park, a railtour behind her and more still to come. It is the sort of photograph that keeps an autumn Sunday alive.

Available as Prints and Frames

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The photograph

• Locomotive: Class 55 55015 ‘Tulyar’
• Location: York
• Date: Sunday 18 October 1981
• Working: 1L42, 14:05 King’s Cross to York
• Also in frame: enthusiasts crowding the platform, a group gathered at the cab door hoping to cab the locomotive
• Photographer: Iain Flynn

Copyright Notice

This photograph is the copyright of Iain Flynn. It is reproduced here by permission and offered as fine art prints and framed editions by Memories of Motion.

The image may not be copied, reproduced, redistributed, transmitted or used in any form, in print or digitally, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder. All rights reserved.