DPS Railtour - The ‘Fusilier Farewell’, 28th December 2005

I had completely forgotten about this railtour – probably because my frozen body didn’t want me to remember – but following some social media tweets one Christmas remembering the tour – I found the matching pictures from York station and the memories came flooding back.

This DPS railtour ran to mark the withdrawal of Deltic 55019 'Royal Highland Fusilier' from mainline operation. Because from Jan 1st 2006 all heritage traction certified for running on the mainline would need to be fitted with OTMR (data recorder – a ‘black box’). The cost of this equipment was prohibitive - £20k per loco. More recently some railtours using heritage traction had poor bookings and the DPS after cancelling their October tour decided not to have OTMR fitted to 55019 and thus this tour became the mainline farewell.

The morning was a fresh one in North Yorkshire as we made our way to York station to join the train with a dusting of overnight snow on the ground. It had been over two years since my last Deltic mainline railtour.

55019 'Royal Highland Fusilier' looked in great condition complete with black marker lights signifying the occasion. We watched as the loco ran round and made our way into our allocated coach which felt a little chilly.

We made our way towards Leeds and onto the Calder Valley. I'm sure the winter scenery as we headed past was spectacular – we had no idea as we couldn't see anything out our windows for the frost on them.

An onboard fitter slid past a few times and it became clear that there was an ongoing problem with the Electric Train Heating (ETH) system. The loco was producing current - but it wasn’t getting through to all the carriages.

By Leeds the sun, but more like passing air friction, had caused the windows to clear a little – but it was Baltic inside. We decanted to the platform briefly for some warmth.

We were given vouchers for free hot drinks to stave off the effects of the sub-zero temperatures. The stock provided by FMR, with at least one coach with no lighting and at least one toilet U/S was poor - and I know the on-board fitter took some flak from some passengers – it wasn’t his fault.

We ran up the Calder Valley, through Hebden Bridge, Blackburn, Chorley and round into Manchester Victoria. Returning to York via Stalybridge, Huddersfield and Wakefield Kirkgate. All too soon however we were back at York and another run-round. A wreath was added to No19 at this point, as this was the last time RHF would be "doing the honours" on a DPS mainline railtour for, well, for now at least.

We shot into the nearest pub to warm up!