The Last Hurrah

A new photograph from Ian Simpson

Class 55 Deltic 55008 ‘The Green Howards’ stands at Newcastle Central in the small hours of 30 December 1981, at 02.45, having taken over the train at Edinburgh with the Up ‘Night Aberdonian’. This working would turn out to be the locomotive’s last in revenue-earning service.

Newcastle Central at a quarter to three in the morning has a particular kind of emptiness: the platforms long and cold under the roof, ordinary daytime bustle stripped down to whatever the small hours still need moved. Down the platform stand some BRUTEs and trolleys. Behind the Deltic, a Gateshead-based Class 03 shunter sits alongside a rake of parcels carriages, a pairing so constant on this platform that it became the stuff of legend.

Through December 1981, 55008 was allocated to York and was still earning its keep on the core East Coast diagrams, an Up working running south towards London on nights like this one, out to Aberdeen and back on others. The ‘Night Aberdonian’ recurs through the month’s records as one of its regular turns, taken over at Edinburgh or worked throughout from King’s Cross depending on the night. The locomotive had already been giving trouble that December: brakes and batteries had stopped it more than once, patched up each time and sent back out. The month also carried a string of lasts. On 24 December, 55008 worked the final visit of a Deltic to Glasgow Queen Street. On 29 December, the same locomotive made the final Deltic visits to Carstairs and to Aberdeen. This photograph, the following night, sits inside that same closing week.

This time the fault did not clear. 55008 failed at Finsbury Park with brake-block trouble and flat batteries, and it never worked again. It was withdrawn on 31 December 1981, having entered service on 7 July 1961, one of the class that swept the Gresley Pacifics from the East Coast Main Line. Just twenty years later, the Deltics were themselves being swept aside, this time by the High Speed Train. Three days after this photograph was taken, the remaining members of the class were withdrawn from British Rail service, and two decades of Deltic running on the East Coast ended with them. 55008 was scrapped in August 1982; one cab was bought privately and survives in preservation.

Why this photograph?

It is probably one of the last photographs taken of 55008 in British Rail service, and quite possibly the last. A Deltic at rest at Newcastle Central in the small hours, a shunter and some BRUTEs for company, three days before the type disappeared from the network for good. Nothing in the frame announces itself as an ending, and that is exactly why it holds you.

Available as Prints and Frames

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The photograph

• Locomotive: Class 55 Deltic 55008 ‘The Green Howards’
• Location: Newcastle Central station
• Date: 30 December 1981
• Working: Up ‘Night Aberdonian’, 02.45, having taken over the train at Edinburgh
• Also in frame: BRUTEs and trolleys further down the platform; a Gateshead-based Class 03 shunter with parcels carriages behind the locomotive
• Photographer: Ian Simpson

Copyright Notice

This photograph is the copyright of Ian Simpson. 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.