Tracking Down 2 - Full

Tracking Down 2: In Search of BR 1980s Passenger Turns

My school friends had no idea what I got up to on Saturdays and during the holidays. Craig, on the other hand, was fortunate to be part of a peer group at his school which appreciated railways and locomotives. Our shared outlet was platforms 9 & 10 at Newcastle Central station, where we hung out with our railway mates. We are still friends now, and for old times’ sake we still do railway stuff together, when we can. Little did we realise, at the age of fifteen, that 45 years later Craig’s photography and my words would be combined in print.

I lived right next to Tynemouth station. On Saturdays and school holidays I would be on the first DMU to Newcastle Central, at about 5.40am. My mates would join me on the same train en route.

We would arrive in time to see the arrivals of some of the overnight sleeper trains from King’s Cross, which were invariably Deltic-hauled. With Ranger tickets in pockets we would board the 07.05 Edinburgh train if it was a Deltic or a Class 40, as far as Berwick; or the 07.00 departure for Bristol, which got us to York in time for the 05.50 King’s Cross to Aberdeen, a near-guaranteed Deltic turn. Thus each day was spent hurtling up and down the main line or spontaneously jumping on a diversion to Carlisle. All that our parents knew was that we were somewhere within an 80 mile radius of home and that we would be back in the evening; tired, grimy and hungry, but very pleased with ourselves.

ISBN 978-1-913893-61-3

Following on from our previous volume illustrating 1980s BR freight workings in the northeast, we stay in the same region and era but take a look at the more glamorous world of passenger trains. In this volume we attempt to rekindle happy memories of teenage independence, discovery and camaraderie, as we travel around Northumbrian Ranger territory.

£13.50

by Craig Oliphant and Colin Alexander

At that innocent pre-O Level (GCSE in today’s language) age, the school holidays were spent travelling thousands of miles in a week. This was thanks to British Rail’s amazing Northumbrian Ranger ticket, which lasted seven days and cost only £2.60!

Tracking Down 2: In Search of BR 1980s Passenger Turns

by Craig Oliphant and Colin Alexander

Tracking Down 2: In Search of BR 1980s Passenger Turns

by Craig Oliphant and Colin Alexander

© Images and design: Transport Treasury 2025 Text: Craig Oliphant and Colin Alexander ISBN 978-1-913893-61-3 First published in 2025 by Transport Treasury Publishing Limited. 16 Highworth Close, High Wycombe, HP13 7PJ. Totem Publishing an imprint of Transport Treasury Publishing.

The copyright holders hereby give notice that all rights to this work are reserved.

Aside from brief passages for the purpose of review, no part of this work may be reproduced, copied by electronic or other means, or otherwise stored in any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the Publisher. This includes the illustrations herein which shall remain the copyright of the copyright holder. www.ttpublishing.co.uk Printed in Tarxien, Malta by Gutenberg Press Ltd. ‘Tracking Down 2: In Search of BR 1980s Passenger Turns’ is one of many books on specialist transport subjects published in strictly limited numbers and produced under the Totem Publishing imprint using material only available at The Transport Treasury.

Front Cover: Several ‘bashers’ have their heads out of the windows as split-headcode Class 40 40126 brings 1E53, the 13.24 Llandudno to Scarborough train into York station on 17 September 1983. Twenty years earlier the locomotive, then numbered D326, gained notoriety when its driver, Jack Mills, was attacked and injured in the so-called Great Train Robbery on the West Coast Main Line in Buckinghamshire.

Frontispiece: A blanket of fresh snow covers Bishop Auckland station in this atmospheric portrait of a Metropolitan-Cammell Class 101 DMU, bound for the coast at Saltburn in March 1984. This part of the station has since been swept away, along with the semaphore signal, the Wickham inspection trolley and the yellow BR mess van.

Rear Cover: A collection of our tickets and haulage notes from ‘back in the day’, including our favourite, the £2.60 weekly Northumbrian Ranger, complete with its crude diagrammatic map. A platform ticket cost just 2p.

Thanks go to Dennis Troughton for his help with the accuracy of this book.

Introduction

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oing back to the summer of 1979, Mrs Thatcher was probably still unpacking tea chests in 10 Downing Street, petrol was 98p a gallon (that’s 4.5 litres!), the average UK house price was £20,000, Nottingham Forest had just won the European Cup; and the Boomtown Rats were at number one with “I Don’t Like Mondays”. That was the state of the nation when one day, Craig and I got talking on platforms 9/10 at Newcastle Central station, with our respective groups of mates. We were all in our teens, in fact Craig and I were born on the exact same day in 1964. It was the beginning of a friendship that 45 years later would result in this book and its predecessor, a similar volume focusing on freight traffic.

Craig was very fortunate to own decent cameras, even at that age. He had an Exa Ihagee 4, a Praktica MTL 3, a Zenit EM and a Pentax MX. The best I could do was a Kodak ‘Instamatic’ 33, with all of its shortcomings. He was influenced by railway photographers such as Trevor Ermel and Malcolm Dunnett, and the ‘Master Neverers’ who so artistically portrayed the last days of steam. Craig has similarly, in my opinion, captured the last days of ‘proper’ diesel traction on passenger workings on British Rail before privatisation heralded a flood of imported motive power and an epidemic of multiple-units.

Film and processing were expensive, especially for schoolboys on pocket money, but Craig’s photographic hobby extended to processing his own film. This meant that he could afford to take more photographs than most of his contemporaries.

A key event in Craig’s photographic journey was a presentation

by Ian S Carr of a selection of his railway images at the University of Durham’s Railway Society. A technical issue prevented their projection on a screen as intended, so the images were spread out on the lecture theatre desks and Ian

explained each one in turn as the audience progressed along the line. One that caught Craig’s eye featured Hawker Siddeley prototype diesel HS4000 Kestrel on Durham Viaduct, and when Craig mentioned how much he liked it, Ian was kind enough to present it to him. This was the beginning of a partnership leading to several photographic expeditions on the railway.

Both Craig and I were indoctrinated in railways by our parents from a very young age, however in Craig’s case, photography came first, picking up a camera at the age of six. Realising he had not inherited his grandfather’s or father’s artistic skill with a paintbrush, he turned to photography as his means of expression.

Oliphant and Alexander family outings would invariably involve a surprise visit to a preserved railway, and our abiding love of steam locomotives was unusual among the Newcastle diesel fraternity.

It was at secondary school where Craig’s new friends introduced him to what until then he’d regarded with suspicion as ‘dirty diesels’. A lunchtime escape from school via a shortcut through the woods and a well-used rope swing led them to the boundary fence beside the East Coast Main Line, just north of Durham. Almost immediately, a tremendous internal combustion racket exploded from under ‘The Red Bridge’. Its source was a large blue diesel locomotive with a nose at each end whose distinctive turbocharged whistling shattered the woodland peace. “That’s a Class 40”, Craig was informed, as the 2,000hp monster powered a southbound mixed freight towards Durham station and the gradient up to Relly Mill.

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His friends explained that the Class 40s were products of English Electric, who produced some of the best diesels on BR. This information was absorbed as a northbound express passenger train accelerated by, accompanied by a totally different sound. This was the throbbing hum of the twin Napier engines in one of the legendary EE Class 55 Deltics.

That day is forever etched on his mind, and every railway enthusiast will be able to recall a similar experience when they caught the bug.

Craig soon progressed to spending Saturdays fourteen miles to the north at Newcastle Central, where his group of Durham mates met mine from North Tyneside.

Once we got over the novelty of noting locomotive numbers and taking photographs, we quickly developed the urge to travel. The ideal solution was BR’s ‘Northumbrian Ranger’ ticket. For a paltry £2.30 this allowed a full week of unlimited travel anywhere between Berwick-upon-Tweed, Carlisle and frustratingly, Thirsk, just short of the railway city of York.

The shock of a subsequent 30p price increase was offset by the news that the ticket’s coverage would extend to York. This meant we had access to the famous 44-mile long ‘racing stretch’ between York and Darlington, and an unbroken 147mile run from York to the Scottish border, and boy, did we get our money’s worth! The ticket also covered the Tyne Valley route to Carlisle and a few branches such as the Esk Valley line to Whitby.

The aforementioned Deltics, which were all named after racehorses and regiments, truly hit their stride on the racing stretch, and travelling up and down the main line behind them kept us occupied in the school holidays. Thousands of miles

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could be clocked up in a week, our faces freckled with twostroke oil from leaning out of windows at 100 miles per hourplus, and all for £2.60. We were hooked!

My mother would send me off with jam and cheese sandwiches and a lump of fruit cake, and if my flask ran out, British Rail tea was 19p a cup. We did occasionally exit stations but only for good reasons, such as haggis and chips in Berwick-uponTweed, or to catch a Ribble bus outside Carlisle Citadel station to the Redfern Inn for a visit to Kingmoor Traction Maintenance Depot and the New Yard with their electric locomotives and Scottish diesels.

So our week-long Ranger usually consisted of five days belting up and down the main line between Berwick and York behind Deltics, with a day at Carlisle & Kingmoor. On the seventh day, for a change, we would perhaps splash out on the excess fare to go somewhere more exotic such as Sheffield, Doncaster, Edinburgh or Glasgow.

At Doncaster, we’d tackle the long walk through the back streets and alleys, one of which had an unrepeatable nickname, to reach the muddy banks of the River Don and find a hole in the fence to sneak into the back of Doncaster works. There we would find doomed locomotives in varying stages of being dismantled, those awaiting overhaul and others newly outshopped. Edinburgh would provide us with a pair of Sulzer Type 2s through the tunnels to Haymarket and a look around the depot there. Glasgow meant a scary expedition through the mean streets of tenements to visit Eastfield shed, where the depot foreman’s warm welcome was in contrast to that of the surrounding area.

After leaving school, we could afford to progress from the Northumbrian Ranger. Craig got as far as planning an All-Line Railrover, all on a typewriter and timed to the minute, which was a stipulation of his parents for being allowed to do it. The chances of completing it as painstakingly typed-out, would of course have been nil, so instead, Craig focused on Yorkshire and Northumberian Rangers as well as Freedom of Scotland tickets.

All too soon, our beloved Deltics and Class 40s were consigned to history. We drifted away from the railway then, as it held little interest, and life took over. Happily, nowadays, we get together regularly for events on heritage railways and occasional railtours. When we close our eyes and listen to those preserved Napier or English Electric sounds we are transported back in time to the carefree days of our youth.

The photographs are arranged in approximate geographical order from north to south, and we have tried to illustrate as wide a variety of locations and traction as possible.

Once again, I would like to thank Craig for allowing me to write about his photographs, because mine really aren’t worth writing about!

Acknowledgements: Thank you to Les Abram and the authors of the excellent BR Loco Database, Chronicles of Napier, Derby Sulzers, Disused Stations, and Six Bells Junction websites.

Following on from our previous volume on 1980s freight workings in the northeast, this book is another showcase for Craig’s evocative photography from four decades ago, this time illustrating some of the variety of BR passenger trains that could be witnessed in the northeast. These ranged from two-car multiple units on the few remaining branch lines to the 3,300hp Deltics and the relatively new 125mph High Speed Trains (HSTs) that would ultimately replace our favourites.

Craig’s nostalgic monochrome images, taken when he was a teenager (!), not only illustrate how the region’s rail passenger services have changed, they also show a vanished north east, one where the scars of industry, which once dominated much of the landscape have since been softened or eradicated. It was the end of an era in more ways than one, and many of the locations featured have since changed beyond recognition.

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Left Top: The Prince and the pauper. A regular destination was the Scottish capital, 124 miles from Newcastle and if we had a Northumbrian Ranger, it necessitated the payment of an excess fare from Berwick. We didn’t mind paying the extra if it meant Deltic or Class 40 haulage. On 10 August 1980, Craig captured the powerful outline of Deltic 55005 The Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment Of Yorkshire at rest at Haymarket shed, in the company of Class 25/0 25006.

Craig and I have near identical shots of this, as I was on an Eastern Region Railrover (another excess fare!) and Craig was coincidentally at Haymarket on a Rail Enthusiasts Society visit. Shortly after the photo was taken I was headed for York behind 55005 on the 11.25 Edinburgh-Plymouth train.

Left Bottom: One reason for travelling to Edinburgh was to experience the Scottish Region’s BRCW Classes 26 and 27 in action. They rarely strayed south of the border except at Carlisle. Particularly noteworthy were the Edinburgh to Glasgow push-pull workings with a Class 27 on each end. Sadly they were replaced with Brush Class 47s, which were nowhere near as much fun. Class 27 27040 is seen awaiting departure from Edinburgh Waverley with 2J11, the 12.15 to Dundee, on 7 June 1985.

27040 was previously numbered D5402, and was delivered new to Cricklewood depot in Northwest London. It moved to Scotland in 1968 and was withdrawn five months after this photograph was taken.

The Class 47 that had brought the train in is at the buffer stops.

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Right: Morpeth is the first major station north of Newcastle, a distance of sixteen miles. The former Blyth & Tyne Railway line to Bedlington branches off here, with curves to the north and south. This can be used as a diversionary route, as on 25 June 1984 following the derailment of an Aberdeen to King’s Cross sleeper hauled by 47452 on the notorious curve immediately south of Morpeth station the previous night. Power car 43046 is at the rear of a Class 254 High Speed Train (HST) as it negotiates the curve from east to north and is about to rejoin the main line. They weren’t our favourite motive power, to say the least, and we used to refer to them as ‘trams’.

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Left: Also on 25 June 1984, waiting pedestrians and their dogs observe with interest as another diverted HST, led by power car 43087 has stopped the traffic at Bedlington. This was in the heart of the southeast Northumberland coalfield, and the level crossing here was used almost exclusively by coal trains. Bedlington South signal box completes the picture. Bedlington lost its passenger service in 1964, but sixty years later, in December 2024, the route reopened to passengers as the Northumberland Line with regular services between Newcastle and Ashington, although Bedlington’s station is not due to reopen until 2025. The signal box is to be retained but demoted to a simple crossing box. The Clayton Arms is over the crossing but the pub in the right foreground, with the Fiat Strada (“handbuilt by robots”) outside, is long gone.

Right Top: It didn’t take long for the main line to reopen following the Morpeth derailment. The 14.35 Edinburgh to King’s Cross passes Benton signal box, a few miles north of Newcastle, on 26 June 1984. This was the first southbound passenger train following the mishap, less than two days later! Here, the North Tyne loop crossed the main line, with connecting curves in three quadrants.

The curve in the foreground led to Benton station on the loop, part of the Tyne & Wear Metro since 1980. This curve continued to be used by BR freight trains to Rowntrees at Fawdon and ICI Callerton until 1987. Out of sight above the HST buffet car is the south to east curve, the only one to remain today, which is now used by Northumberland Line trains to Ashington.

Right Bottom: All change at Heaton Junction. Heaton, east of Newcastle, was the point at which the former Newcastle & Berwick Railway diverged from the Newcastle & North Shields Railway. By the time this photograph was taken on 26 June 1983, the latter was part of the Tyne & Wear Metro, whose Chillingham Road station is right of centre behind the concrete ramp. A new alignment took it through a tunnel into Byker. BR Sulzer Class 45/1 45132 is bringing the empty stock for 1O25, the 13.40 Newcastle to Poole train out of Heaton depot and heading for Newcastle Central. NEI Parsons’ turbine works is on the right, and the main line to Edinburgh curves off to the left.

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The top of the Tyne Bridge and the spire of All Saints Church punctuate the skyline above the dilapidated remains of Manors station, Newcastle, as an HST threads its way onto the viaduct towards Newcastle Central in July 1983. Manors was once an important junction where the two ends of the North Tyneside loop met, and was formerly the starting point for trains to Ashington and Newbiggin. It was adjacent to the North Eastern Railway’s giant New Bridge Street goods station which was badly damaged by the Luftwaffe and finally demolished in the 1980s. Just a solitary, simple island platform remains at Manors today, however with the reopening of the Northumberland line, it now boasts more than sixty weekday departures, with an average journey time to Newcastle Central of two minutes.

In the mid-1980s, BR was experiencing reliability issues with its ageing DMU fleet, and locomotive-hauled trains were often substituted. This was possible because there was always spare stock available then. With two railmen casually sitting on the edge of platform 4, Brush Class 31/1 31210 enters Newcastle Central with a short rake of Mk.1s on such a replacement, coming off the High Level Bridge with a Durham coast service in August 1984. The Norman Castle Keep, a superb vantage point for generations of railway photographers, towers over the east end junction. 31210 is preserved at the Nottingham Heritage Railway, Ruddington.

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Mersey mission. In a scene that is beautifully backlit by the low winter sun, the ‘board is off’, and the route indicator illuminated, as the crew of BR Sulzer Class 45/0 45076 prepares for departure from Newcastle Central’s platform 9, on 18 December 1982. The train is 1M75, the 13.22 to Liverpool Lime Street. Note the standpipe and water hose on the platform, essentials in those days of steam-heating boilers on diesel locomotives. An HST is coming off the King Edward VII Bridge as it arrives at platform 8 with a service from King’s Cross. Built in 1961, 45076 started life as D134 and was withdrawn in 1986.

With the station clocks showing 18.25, John Dobson’s magnificent Grade 1 listed station roof can be admired in this night shot of an HST at platform 8, Newcastle Central in December 1982. Dobson consulted Robert Stephenson on the engineering of the station, and invented a system of bevelled rollers to form the curved iron ribs for the train shed. A Metro-Cammell Class 101 DMU is in platform 11 and mailbags are piled high on the old Post Office barrows. They were probably destined for 1V50, the overnight mail train to Bristol. There was an extensive subterranean mail sorting room adjacent to the station, accessed by three exclusive lifts.

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Class 55 55017 The Durham Light Infantry was one of the six Deltics originally allocated to Gateshead shed, all of which carried the names of regiments from north east England. Towards the end of its life it was based at York, and was instantly recognisable by the absence of a footstep between the buffers at one end, having been plated over following collision damage. It also had nameplates of unique proportions, one of which was slightly off-centre, which made it distinctive on a side view. A group of enthusiasts is enjoying the sound of its twin Napier engines as the Deltic prepares to depart platform 10, Newcastle Central with 1V93, the 09.50 Edinburgh to Plymouth, 7 March 1981.

Hero worship. Wax crayons and wallpaper are deployed by some snorkel parka-clad lads as they take a nameplate rubbing from 55007 Pinza, complete with snow on its nose. The larger regimental names were more of a challenge but we weren’t put off! The Deltic is at platform 8, Newcastle Central on 1S12, the 05.50 London King’s Cross to Aberdeen on 28 February 1981, which it took as far as Edinburgh. HST set 254011 is on a King’s Cross service at platform 9. Subjective I know, but although today’s generic multiple-units are more colourful than the BR locomotives they replaced, they lack character and hold little interest for either of us.

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In those pre-internet, pre-mobile phone days we had no ‘gen’, no idea what might turn up on a train. The anticipation of that first sight or sound of a Deltic or a 40 on the horizon at Durham was something magical. At Chathill we would hear the locomotive before we saw it. Occasionally, something truly unexpected would appear. On Saturday 31 August 1985, English Electric Class 20s 20013 & 20047 arrived at Newcastle with 1N35, the 10.18 from Scarborough. Such pairings were usually restricted to railtours and summer Saturday trains from the Midlands to Skegness. 20013 was part of the original 1950s BR Pilot Scheme, in which 174 diesel locomotives of 14 types were commissioned for comparative trials before mass orders were placed. At least, that was the intention…..

Although relatively rare on Tyneside, Class 20s were more likely to appear on freight duties. Haymarket duo 20221 & 20218 are seen here running light engine on the freight avoiding lines beside Newcastle Central, probably having brought a cement train south from Oxwellmains to Tyne Yard.

They were among 100 members of the class ordered in the late 1960s to replace the unsuccessful Clayton Class 17s. They took the total of Class 20 locomotives to 228, some of which are still in revenue-earning service in 2024. The Class 31 pairing of 31145 & 31320 stands at platform 10, having rescued failed Class 45/1 45122 on the service from Poole, 26 July 1983.

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Left: A rather neglected parcels barrow is prominent in this capture of 47542 at platform 10, Newcastle Central on 29 January 1983. Its departure with 1M75, the 13.22 to Liverpool Lime Street is temporarily blocked by the presence of a Class 101 DMU bearing the short-lived Tyne & Wear PTE logo. A Class 03 diesel-mechanical shunter on station pilot duties can be glimpsed between the two trains. The girder bridge above it housed the relay room for the signal box. This has been replaced by a footbridge to a new island platform built around the curtain wall on the right in the early 1990s.

Right: Carry on travelling. The idea of the wheeled suitcase was still a crazy futuristic fantasy as a crowd of passengers parade 1980s fashions on platform 11 at Newcastle Central. The date was 4 August 1984 and English Electric Class 37 37077 had arrived with 2E42, the 14.45 from Carlisle. This was another DMU replacement, and the stock will form the 17.10 departure to Hexham, which according to the clock, is late! Parcels vehicles stand at platform 12, and a Class 101 DMU is on the right.

Unlike their east end counterparts, all but one of which is now a car park, most of the west end bays seen here are still in use today.

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The Deltics were always our first choice for haulage and photography, followed closely by the English Electric Class 40s. One of the latter that had a long association with the northeast was 40084, which was also a regular choice for railtours. The former D284 was photographed at platform 8, Newcastle Central on 15 September 1982 with 1S15, which was the 15.50 Carlisle to Edinburgh service. The aforementioned east end bay platforms can be seen on the right. They gradually became redundant following the opening of the Tyne & Wear Metro’s underground platforms in November 1981.

Class 40 40024, formerly named Lucania after the Cunard liner, has arrived at Newcastle Central with 1E88, the 16.05 from Liverpool Lime Street on 29 December 1981. This was two days before the withdrawal of the Deltics, and many of us were on the ‘Deltic Executive’ railtour from King’s Cross to Harrogate and Hull and back behind 55009 Alycidon. On the right is 1A40, the 21.00 to King’s Cross which conveyed travelling Post Office vehicles. Unlike 40084 seen above, 40024 has retained its headcode discs. It was built as D224, and was in service from 1959 until 1984.

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Until 1982, Newcastle to Carlisle trains ran along the north bank of the Tyne through Elswick and Scotswood. Having just crossed the Scotswood Bridge from Blaydon, Brush Class 47/0 47068 passes the lofty Scotswood signal box with 1S15, the 15.53 Carlisle to Newcastle train on 2 October 1982. The former North Wylam line is on the right, part of which was still in use at this time for carrying coal to Stella North power station, which can be seen in the distance. If it was possible to stand on this spot today the scene would be unrecognisable, with virtually nothing remaining.

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In late 1982, Scotswood Bridge closed and Tyne Valley line services were subsequently rerouted to cross the Tyne on the King Edward VII Bridge and run via Dunston to Blaydon, Hexham and Carlisle. A Metro-Cammell Class 101 DMU is seen here negotiating King Edward Bridge Junction on 10 July 1984 as it wends its way to Hexham. Gateshead shed is in the background, where a Class 47, the tool vans and a ‘Peak’ are visible. On the right are the flats of St Cuthbert’s Village, which was the location of Glenda’s flat in the iconic Michael Caine film, “Get Carter”.

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Left: After the Deltics and 40s our next favourite locomotive type was probably the Class 37s, but they tended to be restricted to the summer timetable.

Between Gateshead and Blaydon was the industrial setting of Derwenthaugh, where 37045 was photographed on 5M71, the empty coaching stock from 1E71, a summer Blackpool to Newcastle service in 1984.

The points in the foreground accessed the exchange sidings for Derwenthaugh coke works. Appropriately the date of the photograph was 9 June, the date of the Blaydon Races in the famous Geordie anthem of the same name.

Right: The BR Sulzer Class 45 and 46 ‘Peaks’ were tolerated but the least popular diesel locomotives for us were the ubiquitous Brush Class 47s, also known as ‘duffs’. Gateshead shed’s allocation included several of the original series of twenty ‘generator’ Class 47/4s, including the former D1501, later 47402 and latterly named Gateshead. It is seen here passing Derwenthaugh with 1S15, the 15.38 Carlisle to Edinburgh train on 15 July 1983. Note the old SR box van body on the ground to the left and the cooling towers of Stella power station on the horizon. The brick building on the far left is the Skiff Inn, the original of which was owned by the legendary Tyneside oarsman Harry Clasper.

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Left: Photographed on Saturday 11th August 1984, 37020 approaches Blaydon with 2E48, the 18.55 Carlisle to Newcastle, replacing the booked DMU. On today’s railway, if a DMU was unavailable, passengers would have to be conveyed by bus. The steelwork on the left is the former premises of Monkhouse & Brown, steel stockholders, in the process of being dismantled. The Tyne, which in the last forty years has been transformed from a polluted industrial corridor into one of the country’s finest salmon rivers, can be glimpsed on the right. This was one of the proudest achievements of Craig’s late father, Leonard, who was the architect for the company that designed the plant to clean up the river.

Right: Another ‘generator’ Class 47/4, 47405 Northumbria passes the staggered platforms of the Newcastle & Carlisle Railway’s 1835 station at Wylam, a place famed for William Hedley’s pioneering work with steam locomotives, and as the birthplace of George Stephenson. The train is 1S12, the 08.40 York to Aberdeen on 19 May 1983, diverted via Carlisle due to a landslide at Burnmouth, north of Berwick. The delightful original station building is hidden by the train which is framed nicely by Wylam’s distinctive North Eastern Railway gantry signal box. Once widespread across the NER, this is one of only two still in existence, and both are listed buildings.

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The other surviving NER gantry signal box is at Hexham, where on the same day as above, Class 47/4 47423 passes with 1S14, the diverted 08.10 Newcastle to Aberdeen train. Days were numbered for Hexham goods yard, which was on the right, and indeed for small yards all over the network.

47423 was introduced in 1963 as D1527, and was withdrawn in 1992. The Brush Class 47s may have lacked the glamour of the Deltics, in our opinion, but they were versatile and successful. Of the 512 built, several are still in use today, including the re-engined Class 57 derivative.

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Not the shape of things to come. One of British Rail’s ill-starred Advanced Passenger Train prototypes, 370002 stands at Carlisle Citadel on 16 August 1984 alongside 47547, which has arrived with 1M09, the 07.38 from Hull Paragon. We had seen the APT-P in Newcastle, when brake trials were carried out on the then unelectrified East Coast Main Line, using pairs of Class 37s for propulsion. Several passenger runs were made on the London Midland Region but the project was scrapped. Some of the tilting technology patents were sold to the Italian firm responsible for the Class 390 Pendolinos, which ironically can be seen at Carlisle today.

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Our reason for travelling the sixty miles along the Tyne Valley line was to reach Carlisle where we would witness traction unheard of on the East Coast Main Line. An example of this is Scottish Region BRCW Class 27 27033, which has steam escaping from its train heating boiler as it waits for departure with a Glasgow service via the G&SWR route through Dumfries in May 1984. Although Sulzer Type 2s were very occasionally seen in Newcastle, a visit to Carlisle or Edinburgh guaranteed several, as well as the seven classes of West Coast Main Line AC electric locomotives, one of which can just be discerned in the distance.

Steam (almost!), diesel and electric in the Border City. BR Sulzer Class 45/0 45062 stands in the middle road of Carlisle Citadel having arrived with 1M04, the 07.05 from Edinburgh Waverley via the Tyne Valley line. Class 81 AC electric 81017 stands on the spot occupied by 27033 in the previous image. The date was 22 January 1983, and on the left can be seen the chocolate and cream liveried stock of a BR excursion named the ‘Northumbrian Mountain Pullman’, which started in Newcastle and was steam-hauled over the scenic Settle & Carlisle line by preserved LNER Class K1 2-6-0 2005.

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Left: A short bus ride from outside Citadel station to the Redfern pub followed by a walk down Etterby Road took us to Kingmoor, with its Traction Maintenance Depot, visible in the left distance here. There was always plenty to see, with frequent freight movements, locomotives on shed and sometimes withdrawn engines awaiting disposal. An unidentified Class 87 electric locomotive is speeding south past the depot in this April 1983 shot.

Our favourite vantage point was the bridge that carried the former North British Railway Waverley route over the main line, at the south end of the massive Kingmoor New Yard. On Craig’s first visit to the depot with some school mates, they weren’t granted access. So in order to obtain the locomotive numbers, they resorted to wandering the wasteland and overgrown sidings seen in the right distance. Craig almost found out the hard way that this had once been the site of the steam shed when he narrowly missed falling into an old ash pit.

Right: We are now back at Carlisle Citadel station on 28 April 1984. The train-heating boiler of BRCW Sulzer Class 26 26037 is steaming away nicely on the front of 1S50, the 08.40 to Glasgow Central via Dumfries. I travelled that line behind the same locomotive the previous year.

Unlike the earlier members of the class which began their careers in North London, 26037 spent its entire life allocated to the Scottish Region. Built in 1959 as D5337, it was withdrawn in 1993. As well as the Glasgow & South Western route, the 26s were synonymous with the Kyle of Lochalsh and Far North lines out of Inverness.

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Retracing our steps to Tyneside, we find Craig at Heworth Interchange on 15 September 1984, about to join me on a DMU replacement from Sunderland to Newcastle hauled by English Electric Class 37 37219. I was already on it, having jumped on at Sunderland. This station opened in 1979 and two years later it enabled passengers to transfer between BR trains on the Sunderland/Middlesbrough line and Tyne & Wear Metro services.

This was part of Tyne & Wear Passenger Transport Executive’s plan for integrated transport in the metropolitan area. 37219 was built in 1964 as D6919, and remarkably is still in revenue earning service sixty years later as part of the Colas Rail fleet.

Moments later, we are leaning out of the windows (a pleasure denied today’s enthusiast) behind 37219 as it passes through the derelict Gateshead East station. It is about to cross Robert Stephenson’s High Level Bridge into Newcastle Central. From 1849 to 1906, this carried all East Coast Main Line Anglo-Scottish traffic, which had to reverse at Newcastle. The lantern tower of St Nicholas’ Cathedral rises above the Castle Keep, to the right of which is the viaduct leading to Manors and the north. Since Gateshead East closed in 1981, the town is one of the largest in the country without a main line station, although it does possess an underground Metro interchange in a more central location.

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Left: Half of the BR Sulzer Class 46s were allocated to Gateshead shed, including 46047, seen here approaching Pelaw with 1N35, the 10.35 Scarborough to Newcastle train on 4 June 1983. Beyond the back of the train is the three way junction for South Shields, Sunderland or Washington. Tyne & Wear Metrocar 4071 forms the front half of the nearest train in the sidings to the right. At this time, Pelaw was the southern extremity of the Metro. 88 of the articulated Metro-Cammell ‘supertrams’ entered service in 1980, following the two prototypes, and after 44 years of continuous use they are finally to be replaced by a Swiss-built Stadler fleet. The former Monkton coke works is on the horizon above the Class 46.

Right: We didn’t mind the old DMUs, of which we had Classes 101, 104, 105 & 108 in the northeast, because they were comfortable and if the driver was feeling generous he would leave the blinds up behind his seat giving us a clear view through his cab and out of the front. By the early 1980s it was mostly the MetroCammell Class 101s that remained. This smart refurbished example in Tyne & Wear PTE branding was photographed at Sunderland’s subterranean station in June 1983, before daylight was banished from its platforms, which are now shared by Network Rail and Tyne & Wear Metro services.

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For us, HSTs were only ever used as a last resort to get from A to B in the hope of catching a locomotive-hauled service. This southbound unit was photographed on another diversionary route, the erstwhile Leamside line, which until 1872 was the main line. The location is the site of Washington station and the date is 13th June 1983. Diversions were taking place after a DMU split the points at Durham. The run-around siding to the right facilitated reversal of iron ore traffic from Teesside to Consett, and also served a chemical works. Although the Leamside line finally closed in 1992, there is a proposal to use part of the trackbed for an extension to the Tyne & Wear Metro, creating a loop from South Hylton to Pelaw via Washington.

South of Washington, the Leamside line crossed the River Wear on the graceful Victoria Viaduct, opened in 1838 by the Durham Junction Railway and still standing, though without rails on it. It then continued south through the Durham coalfield past Fence Houses to Tursdale Junction, north of Ferryhill, where it converged with the present main line. On 28 November 1982, Class 47/4 47525 passes a semaphore fixed distant signal at Fence Houses with a diverted train, possibly a Newcastle to Liverpool service. One of the later Class 47s, built as D1108 in 1967, it was in service for forty years.

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Sometime in October 1983, Class 47/4 47408 is assisting an HST led by power car 43063 past King Edward VII Bridge Junction onto the bridge leading to Newcastle. Five months later, 47408 would be named Finsbury Park, after its home depot, the former London home of the Deltics. In the background are the newly-built Redheugh road bridge and its predecessor, which was dismantled shortly after.

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Gateshead Revisited. Most locomotive-hauled passenger trains from the south into Newcastle crossed the Tyne over the King Edward VII Bridge, which opened in 1906. If you were lucky, you might be routed over the High Level Bridge instead, giving a good view of Gateshead shed as you passed. BR Class 45/1 45103 is threading through the former Gateshead West station with 1O25, the 13.40 Newcastle to Poole train on 12th June 1983. It is about to pass Class 37s 37073 & 37093 at the eastern extremity of the depot. The arch of the Tyne Bridge provides the backdrop.

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Trains from the south approach King Edward VII Bridge Junction through Bensham Cutting. Brush Class 31 31271 leads sister 31240 past Bensham with 1E33, the 09.10 Paignton to Newcastle, which the pair worked from Bristol Temple Meads on 11th August 1984. Another Class 31 is on the incline in the distance. 263 Class 31s were built but all had to be re-equipped with English Electric power units following reliability issues with their original Mirrlees engines. There were once six stations between Newcastle and Durham, seven if routed via Gateshead West. The others were Bensham, Low Fell, Lamesley, Birtley, Chester-le-Street and Plawsworth.

Having just passed Tyne Marshalling Yard, BR Sulzer Class 45/1 45122 heads south past a gang of permanent way workers at Ouston Junction on 5 June 1983. This was where the Consett branch was reached from the main line. At this time the Consett line was being singled prior to lifting, hence the engineering work. Note the spectators on the overbridge with its tribal graffiti. This locomotive had the distinction of being the first member of the production series of BR Sulzer Type 4s, following on from the ten Pilot Scheme locomotives, the original ‘Peaks’, later Class 44.

Emerging from Derby Works in 1960 as D11, 45122 was withdrawn in 1987 and scrapped in 1994.

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Left: Today, the only station between Newcastle and Durham is Chester-le-Street, where the railway is carried high above the market place on a soaring brick-built viaduct. On 14 May 1984, Brush Class 47/0 47270 heads south with 1V50, the 20.00 Newcastle-Bristol mail, which until May 1982 also conveyed passenger vehicles. The train ran overnight via Worcester and Gloucester, and we travelled throughout on it behind 31222 in 1982. This was one of those anywhere-in-the-country special offer tickets. We did Bristol, Bath, Cardiff, Crewe, Nottingham, Grantham, then an Austin Princess taxi to Sleaford to catch a diverted overnight train back to Newcastle, all for £2.00!

Right: In the early 1980s, one of our regular outings was on 1V93, the 09.50 Edinburgh to Plymouth, which was usually Deltic-hauled as far as York. The ‘normals’ on the platform look thrilled as white-cabbed 55007 Pinza arrives at platform 1, Durham in this rear three-quarter shot, taken 29 March 1981. From York the train would usually proceed behind a Class 47/4, but occasionally a newly-overhauled Class 50 would appear, being returned from Doncaster works to the Western Region.

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We mentioned earlier that DMUs had their benefits, especially when they failed and had to be rescued or replaced by a locomotive! In this case, BR Sulzer Class 25 25278 has arrived at Durham’s platform 1 with a dead Metro-Cammell Class 101 DMU in tow, forming 2G08, the 17.25 from Newcastle on 13th June 1984. The locomotive was built by Beyer Peacock of Gorton, Manchester in 1965 and withdrawn in 1987. A year later it arrived on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, where it now carries two-tone green livery and its original number D7628 with the name Sybilla. It is the only Class 25 still active on the main line, as it is a regular on the Grosmont to Whitby line, which is shared by the NYMR and Network Rail.

BR Sulzer Class 46 46014 arrives at Durham’s platform 1 with 1M79, the 17.18 Newcastle to Liverpool Lime Street on 15 July 1983. The photograph was taken from platform 2, which retains its original 1872 canopy. That on platform 1 was rebuilt in the early 1970s, partly due to subsidence, but also because when the southbound curve onto the viaduct was eased to raise the speed limit, the old canopy fouled the new alignment. Had it not been for a public campaign, the northbound structure would also have been replaced. The Class 46s differed from the similar 45s in that their electrical equipment was supplied by Brush instead of Crompton-Parkinson.

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Gateshead depot driver Joe Murray looks happy in his work in this study of disc-headcode Brush Class 31 31125 at Durham. The train is standing at platform 2 with a northbound train in July 1984. The Castle and Cathedral form the dramatic backdrop. This side of the station was constructed after the southbound side, which was initially a single platform. For the first fifteen years of its existence, Durham was on the line from Sunderland to Bishop Auckland. It wasn’t until 1872 that the main line was diverted through here. At this time, the northbound platform was added, along with bay platforms at both ends of the station.

‘Fail, seizer!’ On 2 July 1984, HST power car 43112 had to be removed from its southbound train at Durham with a seized axle, and was ignominiously dumped in the north end bay platform. The rest of the unit continued south with one power car and without its passengers. Alongside 43112 in the twilight is Brush Class 47/4 47525 on 1E59, the 18.05 Liverpool Lime Street to Newcastle service. Eventually, the disgraced power car was dragged away for repairs by 47518 with the Gateshead tool vans. In steam days, there was an engine shed at this end of the station.

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With steam leaking from its train heating boiler, English Electric Class 40 40012 Aureol stands at Durham with 1E52, the 10.05 Liverpool to Newcastle on 13th April 1983. A Brush Class 47 can be seen curving onto the viaduct and starting to climb the gradient with a southbound freight train. The castellated structure above the escaping steam is The Battery. This was incorporated into Wharton Park, which opened in 1857, the same year as the station, to provide panoramic views of the Cathedral and Castle, and more importantly, of the railway. It was one of our favourite places to watch the trains go by.

The view of Durham station from The Battery was superb, although vegetation has since encroached. On 2 August 1983, Brush Class 47/0 47076 City Of Truro arrives at platform 1 with 1M75, the 13.22 Newcastle to Liverpool Lime Street. This was one of eighteen Western Region Class 47s given names, which gave them a touch of exclusivity. Seventeen names were used, but the Thor nameplates were transferred from D1671 to D1677 after the former was an early casualty. It wasn’t until the late 1970s and early ‘80s that BR started naming multiple members of the class. 47076 was originally D1660, and now renumbered 47749 it is still at work on the national rail network.

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Class 37 37073 comes off Durham Viaduct and into platform 2 with 1E12, the 08.20 SAGA charter from Camborne to Newcastle, which it worked from Bristol on 4 June 1984. 37073 originally had the split headcode box arrangement but was rebuilt with centre headcodes following collision damage. We were not averse to jumping on special trains such as this, if there was interesting traction up front! On one occasion, arriving in Durham bound for York behind a ‘Peak’ we saw 40113 at platform 2 on a charter train. We leapt off and flew through the subway, making it in the nick of time!

The balancing working of 1V93 was 1S27, the 07.22 Plymouth to Edinburgh, which was at this time usually Deltic-hauled from York. 55015 Tulyar was photographed from The Battery as it coasted off Durham Viaduct into platform 2 on 14 February 1981.This locomotive hauled the Deltic Scotsman Farewell from King’s Cross to Edinburgh on 2 January 1982, before 55022 Royal Scots Grey returned the railtour south, bringing down the curtain on the Deltics’ glorious 20 year career. Happily, those two are among the six production Deltics to survive, joining the striking 1955 English Electric prototype in preservation. The beautiful Norman Cathedral dominates the horizon. It is well worth climbing the 325 steps to the top of its tower for the view over the city and viaduct.

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Left: Durham station and The Battery are visible above and beyond the train in this spectacular shot of the sandstone viaduct towering over the terraced streets, viewed from The Avenue. The date was 11th August 1982 and the train is 1O19, the 09.50 Newcastle to Poole service. Working the train as far as Birmingham is Class 45/1 45120, introduced in 1961 as D107 and lasting in service until 1987. The image gives an impression of the elevation and distance between the station and the city.

The driver will be applying maximum power to attack the 1 in 114 gradient up to Relly Mill.

Right: South of Durham Viaduct is Neville’s Cross, where the railway enters a 100-feet-deep cutting through the battlefield of that name. In 1346, it echoed to the roars of English soldiers and the invading Scots. For the last 160 years, the cutting has echoed to the roar of locomotives tackling the southbound gradient, often with the assistance of a banking engine in steam days.

Photographed from the bridge carrying the old A1 over the line, English Electric Class 40 40181 descends the bank with 1E71, the 12.30 Blackpool to Newcastle, 16 July 1983. The rear of the train is just coming off Relly Mill Viaduct.

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A closer look at Relly Mill Viaduct on 19 July 1984 as BR Class 45/1 45118 The Royal Artilleryman heads north with 1E52, the 06.12 Liverpool Lime Street to Newcastle. It is about to enter the cutting seen above and will soon be slowing for Durham station. The ten Pilot Scheme Class 44s were named after British mountains, but the ‘Peak’ nickname was then extended to the 183 production series locomotives, the 45s and 46s. Only 27 of these received names, all but one of which was on a regimental theme. Built as D67 in 1962, 45118 was in service for 25 years and is now preserved and main line certified.

Another named Class 45/1 was 45144 Royal Signals, seen here passing the remains of Relly Mill Junction with 1M75, the 13.22 Newcastle to Liverpool on 16 September 1983. Here, the ‘new’ 1872 main line diverged from the route to Bishop Auckland, the trackbed of which is on the left.

There were also branch lines to Lanchester and the Deerness Valley, but only the East Coast Main Line remains. The photo was taken from the site of the former Deerness Valley Junction signal box. 45144 was introduced in 1962 as D55, and was named three years later. It was in BR service for 25 years, being withdrawn after a minor derailment in Bristol in 1987.

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The brick piers and wrought iron and steel girders of Langley Moor Viaduct carry a named, Gateshead-allocated Brush Class 47/4 southbound over the River Deerness, a tributary of the Wear, with a Newcastle to Liverpool service in June 1983. The twenty ‘generator duffs’ were disliked by Deltic aficionados as they had a nasty habit of turning up on trains diagrammed for our beloved Class 55s. First to enter service was D1500 in 1962, which was withdrawn as 47401 in 1992. It is preserved at the Midland Railway Centre, Butterley, Derbyshire.

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There are several level crossings on the main line in Northumberland, but between Newcastle and York there is just one, at Hett Mill, on a minor road a few miles south of Durham. At this time it was controlled by a neat former North Eastern Railway signal box, since sadly demolished. On 16 March 1984, it was about to be passed by BR Sulzer Class 45/1 45104 The Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers with 1O19, the 09.50 Newcastle to Poole, which it would take as far as Birmingham. This locomotive was one of the last Class 45s in service, being withdrawn in April 1988. All were gone by August of that year.

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Two miles north of Hett Mill and almost visible from there, Shincliffe station was on the southern part of the Leamside line, which ran from Pelaw to Tursdale Junction and was the main line until 1872. On 7 July 1983 the Leamside was still in use as a diversionary route, as seen here with Brush Class 47/4 47422 on its way from Liverpool to Newcastle. 47422 was a Gateshead locomotive for most of the 1970s and 1980s. Like so many former stations, Shincliffe’s handsome 1844-built Newcastle & Darlington Junction Railway building, designed by architect J T Andrews, is now in private hands, having closed to passengers in 1941.

In the good old days when the railway ran Merrymakers, ‘additionals’ and charters, Brush Class 47/4 47455 was on a circular excursion from Blackpool to Durham via Carlisle and Newcastle, on 27 July 1983. After its passengers disembarked at Durham, the empty stock was stabled at Ferryhill yard. Having run around, 47455 is seen passing Ferryhill signal box as it returns north to Durham, where it reversed again before the return via York. Ferryhill was once an important junction. Today the only route that leaves the main line here is the former Clarence Railway line to Stockton, used for freight and occasional diversions.

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Left: Stillington was one of the intermediate stations between Ferryhill and Stockton. It closed in 1952.

‘Generator’ 47414 was photographed passing Stillington on Sunday 23 October 1983 with 1M69, the 12.10 Newcastle to Liverpool train. Saturday night and Sunday diversions were fairly common through here. On one of those occasions we were travelling overnight behind Class 40 40103 on 1S72, the 22.30 King’s Cross to Edinburgh, which we did throughout. We stayed awake to keep track of our four diversions, which were via Lincoln, Knottingley, Stockton and the Blyth & Tyne line, a total of 420 miles!

Right Top: Darlington has for 200 years been synonymous with the railway. The museum housed in the Stockton & Darlington Railway station at North Road is well worth a visit. At Bank Top station, on the main line, English Electric Class 40 40122/D200 has arrived with 1M76, the 14.20 Newcastle to Liverpool service on 15 May 1984. D200 was the first of the class, entering service in 1958, and was restored to green livery at the end of its BR career. It is one of seven Class 40s in preservation and is housed in the National Railway Museum’s Locomotion outstation at nearby Shildon.

Right Bottom: Darlington’s platform 2 must be occupied by another train, as BR Sulzer Class 45/0 45002 has been routed ‘bang road’ (wrong line) and is standing at the usual southbound platform, 1b, with 1E33, the 09.10 Paignton to Newcastle, which it worked from Bristol Temple Meads on 7 July 1984. Heavily-laden Post Office barrows clutter the station. With only two through platforms, Bank Top station has often proved to be a bottleneck. At the time of writing, this problem is at last being alleviated by the construction of additional platforms outside the train shed on the avoiding lines.

45002 was withdrawn ten weeks later.

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Among the overnight trains on the East Coast Main Line, there was one from King’s Cross that divided at Darlington with a portion to Newcastle around the Durham coast via Sunderland, and a southbound equivalent. Complete with unofficial headboard, Gateshead’s Class 46 46051 stands in south end bay platform 2 at Darlington having arrived with the last ever 1N03, the 21.30 portion from Newcastle, on 3 October 1982. I once managed to jump on the late-running northbound train, 1N04 while it waited for the signal at Gateshead East, and travelled across the High Level Bridge the half-mile to Newcastle behind Brush Class 31/4 31418; the shortest ever journey on an East Coast overnight?

The tower (left) above Bank Top station was the intermediate Darlington link of BR’s Marconi microwave radio communication between York and Newcastle. Installed in 1964, it was in use until 1989. The secondman leans out of the cab of Class 55 Deltic 55015 Tulyar, looking for the ‘off’ with 1V93, the 11.25 Edinburgh to Plymouth on Sunday 20 September 1981. The plaque on the blanked off headcode panel commemorates Tulyar’s participation in the Liverpool & Manchester Railway 150th anniversary cavalcade the previous year. The cement wagons on the right are standing where the new platforms are being built, and the 44 milepost signifies the distance to York, most of which the Deltic will cover at 100mph.

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The driver and secondman of Brush Class 31/1 pairing 31249 & 31174 are in for a lengthy wait at Darlington Bank Top on the evening of 11th December 1981. The long exposure reveals the reason: a blur of activity on platform 1a, which is piled high with barrow-loads of Christmas mail for 1V50, the 20.00 Newcastle to Bristol mail. An hour later, the process will be repeated with 1A40 for London, which on this particular evening was hauled by Class 55 Deltic 55019 Royal Highland Fusilier. Sadly, all of this long-distance postal traffic is now on the roads.

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One of the few remaining branches in the northeast is the line from Darlington to Bishop Auckland, which follows part of the original Stockton & Darlington Railway route of 1825. On 25 June 1983, a Class 101 DMU has just departed from Bishop Auckland’s old Durham line platforms, which were around the curve to the left, and are now removed. Today’s Bishop Auckland to Saltburn trains use a platform off to the right. At the time of the photograph, which was taken with permission from Bishop Auckland East signal box, this was a freight-only line to Eastgate cement works, and is now the heritage Weardale Railway to Stanhope.

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A scene full of interest at Shildon, an intermediate station on the Bishop Auckland branch on 15 June 1984. Another Class 101 Metro-Cammell DMU heads for Darlington and Saltburn while Brush Class 31 31218 shunts the sidings that lead to BREL’s wagon works. The overgrown stone structure between the trains is the original Stockton & Darlington Railway coal drops. Shildon station remains in use while the historic S&DR infrastructure, including Timothy Hackworth’s cottage and locomotive workshop, has been conserved as part of the NRM’s Locomotion museum, which is slightly further east. In 1975, Shildon hosted a memorable cavalcade of locomotives to mark the 150th anniversary of the S&DR.

At Norton Junction, north of Stockton, trains can either travel northwest to Stillington and Ferryhill, or east towards Hartlepool and the coast.

There is also a freight-only east-west link connecting Ferryhill to Hartlepool. East of the triangular junction is Norton-on-Tees where Class 46 46026 Leicestershire And Derbyshire Yeomanry is seen passing the site of the former station with 1N35, the Saturdays-only 10.35 Scarborough to Newcastle via Sunderland train on 23 July 1983. 46026, formerly D163, gained minor celebrity status as the solitary named Class 46, and was one of the last seven in service, all of which were withdrawn from Gateshead shed in November 1984. Note the truck on the level crossing behind the train.

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On Sunday 1 July 1984, 1M69, the 11.55 Newcastle to Liverpool was among the trains diverted from the East Coast Main Line. At its head is Brush Class 47/4 47588, threading its way past depleted signal gantries beside North Shore signal box, which is just out of shot to the right. The train is adjacent to the site of the old steam shed, and approaching Stockton station. It would have left the main line at Ferryhill, and will regain it at Northallerton. Appropriately for a town with such railway history, Stockton-on-Tees used to boast a fine North Eastern Railway station designed by William Bell. It lost its impressive overall roof in 1979 and today it is very much a shadow of its former self.

HST power cars 43115 and 43106 (on the rear) snake their way across the formation at Eaglescliffe North Junction on 3 July 1983 with the 16.37 King’s Cross to Middlesbrough, ‘The Cleveland Executive’. Upon arrival it would reverse and continue up the coast to Newcastle. At Eaglescliffe, trains from the Stockton or Middlesbrough direction can either head west to Darlington or south through Yarm to join the main line at Northallerton. Where once there were two large island platforms, today there is one, with a much-simplified track layout. One of these HST units, with power cars 43102 & 43159, holds the world speed record for diesel traction, achieving 148.5mph between Northallerton and York in November 1987.

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Left: In uncharted territory. In the 1960s, the Southern Region’s BRCW Type 3s, as they were then known, appeared at York on a regular basis working the CliffeUddingston cement trains and rarely travelled any further north. On 14 March 1984, push-pull fitted Class 33/1 33113 departed York for Newcastle with a special train travelling the country to promote British Rail’s new Gatwick Express service. The stock of a Scarborough train stands in the bay platform to the left and an HST waits on the right beneath Thomas Prosser’s magnificent arched roof.

Right Top: An illustrious pedigree. You can almost hear the twin Napier Deltic engines amplified by York station’s cavernous train shed. A lone enthusiast watches as the driver of white-cabbed 55007 Pinza waits for the right-away, having arrived at York with the 18.05 from London King’s Cross, on 5 May 1980. Finsbury Park’s allocation of eight Deltics continued the LNER Pacific tradition of being named after racehorses. When that depot applied the white cabs to its six remaining steeds in 1979 it was a welcome sight at a time when everything was plain corporate blue. Pinza’s namesake was the 1953 Derby winner and at least eight of his ancestors had Gresley Class A3s named after them.

Right Bottom: Photographed at York in the middle of the night, as Craig was on his way to Crewe Works open day, Class 55 55013 The Black Watch is on 1N12, the 00.05 King’s Cross to Newcastle on 6 June 1981. The Deltics were quite unlike any other class of diesel locomotive and attracted a dedicated following among enthusiasts, especially towards the end of their working lives, similar to that of the Western diesel-hydraulics whose demise was a few years earlier. Once it was clear that the Class 55s’ days were numbered, we tried to travel on as many Deltic-hauled trains as we could afford. The last service train ran on 31 December 1981, followed two days later by the farewell railtour.

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Left Top: Seen earlier in the book at Newcastle on the afternoon return from Merseyside, 40024 Lucania was photographed at York with 1M73, the 11.18 Newcastle Central to Liverpool Lime Street on 29 December 1981.

Steam is issuing from below the coaching stock but its passengers will be grateful the boiler is working on this freezing winter’s day. 40024 was one of 25 Class 40s, out of a class of 200, to be named after ocean liners, as they were originally allocated to Euston-Liverpool boat trains. Their stylish nameplates were removed during the 1970s but in their latter years, the names were restored in paint.

Left Bottom: Holy logistics! On 31 May 1982, York was visited by Pope John Paul II, who held a mass at the racecourse. BR operated multiple extra trains to the city from several directions that day to convey crowds of the faithful. Of course, enthusiasts like to apply nicknames to almost everything and these additional services went down in railway folklore as the ‘Popex’ trains. The young man seated on the barrow adds Brush Class 31 31268 to his already full notebook, after its arrival with 1G23, the 09.09 Durham to York. On the same day this locomotive also visited Huddersfield & Middlesbrough.

Right: Railway enthusiasts turned out in large numbers at York that day to witness the Popex trains, and afterwards, there were long queues of returning passengers outside the station. Those worshipping diesel traction saw unusual motive power on 1N31, the 09.42 departure from Poole, consisting of airconditioned stock. Class 40 40012 Aureol, with its former name painted on, worked the Newcastle portion from Sheffield. The remaining portion went to Leeds, and this was probably hauled by the more usual Class 45/1 or 47/4, either of which, unlike the 40, would be able to operate the air-conditioning on the Mk.2D stock. 40012 is now preserved on the East Lancashire Railway, with proper nameplates.

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Operating on one engine only, English Electric Deltic 55019 Royal Highland Fusilier has terminated at York with 1L43, the 14.03 from London Kings Cross on 30 December 1981. The class had been demoted to secondary workings such as this since the arrival of the dreaded HST, and locomotive haulage on the East Coast Main Line would soon become a thing of the past. Paying their respects is a small crowd of young enthusiasts with their mandatory sports holdalls, knowing that 55019 would be withdrawn the following day. 55019 is one of three Class 55s that was saved by the Deltic Preservation Society. We were willing volunteers when it arrived on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway in August 1982, together with 55009.

With the freight avoiding lines curving to the left and York station in the distance, BR Sulzer Class 45/1 45147 passes beneath the massive Holgate Bridge with a Newcastle to Poole service on 14 March 1984. During busy periods, these trains could be strengthened with additional vehicles or relief trains could be operated. On today’s railway, with fixed formation units, no spare stock and no flexibility, passengers simply have to put up with overcrowding. 45147 was withdrawn in December 1984, following a serious collision at Eccles in which, tragically, its driver and two passengers lost their lives.

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Deltic 55008 The Green Howards arrives at a very quiet Doncaster with 1D02, the 12.05 King’s Cross to Hull on 6 June 1980. 55008 was one of just three Class 55s to retain its black headcode panels until withdrawal, the others being 55020 Nimbus and 55022 Royal Scots Grey. A visit to Doncaster usually led to us sneaking around the back of the works and finding a hole in the fence to see what interesting sights we could see. I have a very poor quality photograph of two Southern Region Class 71 electric locomotives with Deltic 55012 Crepello outside Doncaster works.

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There is no railway here today. Power car 43085 acts as ‘tail gunner’ on a seven-car Class 253 forming a Cross-Country service as it heads south away from Fence Houses on a Leamside line diversion on 28 November 1982. With their screaming Paxman Valenta engines and smelly brake applications, and the fact they displaced the Deltics, I disliked them at the time. I still don’t like them much now, but I have to acknowledge that BR’s High Speed Train, branded as Inter City 125, was one of the most successful trains of modern times. Some are still in service today, albeit re-engined and on secondary services, having been introduced in the late 1970s.

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Twilight of the Deltics. We close with Craig ‘trying a Dunnett’, as he puts it. Malcolm Dunnett was one of those iconic 1960s photographers who poignantly captured the end of BR steam, often with moody backlighting. Earlier we saw Class 55 Deltic 55017 The Durham Light Infantry at Central station on 1V93, on 7 March 1981. Later that day 55017 crosses the King Edward VII Bridge over the Tyne to Newcastle with the return working, 1S27, the 07.22 Plymouth to Edinburgh. The tower cranes are engaged in the construction of the new Redheugh Bridge. Today’s passengers may reach their destinations a little quicker than we did, but at what cost? We got around more cheaply, in greater comfort, without the overcrowding, ridiculously arcane ticketing and repetitive announcements over train tannoys. And we did it behind Class 40s and Deltics.

Tracking Down 2: In Search of BR 1980s Passenger Turns

My school friends had no idea what I got up to on Saturdays and during the holidays. Craig, on the other hand, was fortunate to be part of a peer group at his school which appreciated railways and locomotives. Our shared outlet was platforms 9 & 10 at Newcastle Central station, where we hung out with our railway mates. We are still friends now, and for old times’ sake we still do railway stuff together, when we can. Little did we realise, at the age of fifteen, that 45 years later Craig’s photography and my words would be combined in print.

I lived right next to Tynemouth station. On Saturdays and school holidays I would be on the first DMU to Newcastle Central, at about 5.40am. My mates would join me on the same train en route.

We would arrive in time to see the arrivals of some of the overnight sleeper trains from King’s Cross, which were invariably Deltic-hauled. With Ranger tickets in pockets we would board the 07.05 Edinburgh train if it was a Deltic or a Class 40, as far as Berwick; or the 07.00 departure for Bristol, which got us to York in time for the 05.50 King’s Cross to Aberdeen, a near-guaranteed Deltic turn. Thus each day was spent hurtling up and down the main line or spontaneously jumping on a diversion to Carlisle. All that our parents knew was that we were somewhere within an 80 mile radius of home and that we would be back in the evening; tired, grimy and hungry, but very pleased with ourselves.

ISBN 978-1-913893-61-3

Following on from our previous volume illustrating 1980s BR freight workings in the northeast, we stay in the same region and era but take a look at the more glamorous world of passenger trains. In this volume we attempt to rekindle happy memories of teenage independence, discovery and camaraderie, as we travel around Northumbrian Ranger territory.

£13.50

by Craig Oliphant and Colin Alexander

At that innocent pre-O Level (GCSE in today’s language) age, the school holidays were spent travelling thousands of miles in a week. This was thanks to British Rail’s amazing Northumbrian Ranger ticket, which lasted seven days and cost only £2.60!

Tracking Down 2: In Search of BR 1980s Passenger Turns

by Craig Oliphant and Colin Alexander