On Saturday 7th June 2003 The Deltic Preservation Society ran a charter train hauled by Class 55 Deltic 55019 ‘Royal Highland Fusilier’ from Newcastle to London Kings Cross via Lincoln and Spalding.
This was my first mainline Deltic haulage since 1981 and I joined at Darlington. Who would have thought on that dark day in 1982 that we would see Deltics back on the mainline – marvellous!
With a friend joining at York, we headed down to London via Lincoln for 6 hours and a trip on ‘The London Eye’ for us.
On arrival at Kings Cross we were about to head off when somebody said “There’s another Deltic” What! Two Deltics in Kings Cross on the same day – never.
And there it was – D9016 (55016) ‘Gordon Highlander’ in full Porterbrook purple livery (not my cup of tea I might add). D9016 had arrived to collect the ECS.
We had a great day out and returned to Kings Cross to find the purple machine had returned the ECS and we headed back north at 18.35hrs.
An uneventful journey – but after 22 years – it was great to be back!
