Smokin' at York

A new photograph from Ian Simpson

Class 55 Deltic 55018 'Ballymoss' accelerates past Dringhouses on the southern approach to York, working 1A31, the 18.14 service to London King's Cross, on 2nd September 1981. Behind it trails the locomotive's exhaust, that unmistakable Napier blue and grey, drifting low across the running lines and out towards the houses beyond.

There is a particular energy to a Deltic picking up speed out of York on a working bound for the capital: two engines pulling hard, the exhaust note carrying across open ground, smoke hanging in the evening air long after the train itself has gone. The yard alongside the running lines is still busy that evening, doing the ordinary work of a railway that has not yet finished with goods traffic on this stretch of line. Nothing about the scene looks like anything other than routine: a train leaving on time, a locomotive doing exactly what it was built to do.

By September 1981, that routine was itself becoming unusual. High Speed Trains had already taken over the bulk of East Coast Main Line expresses, and the Deltics that had defined the line's principal services since their introduction were being squeezed into a shrinking number of diagrams, covering turns the new sets had not yet claimed. 55018 had been a York engine since May that year, which is why it is pictured working out of its own depot rather than passing through. A York-based Deltic on a King's Cross working that September was not yet a rare sight, but it would not remain a common one for much longer.

Within weeks of this photograph, working out of Finsbury Park and King's Cross, 55018 suffered a casualty on a service towards Hull: a report of low air pressure saw it fail and be forwarded onward from Doncaster behind another locomotive, and at York it was declared out of service with a traction motor failure. It never returned to revenue traffic. Later that October it was towed away to Stratford, where components, including a power unit, were taken to help keep a sister locomotive, 55007, running a little longer. 'Ballymoss' had been scrapped by January 1982. The yard it is pictured alongside was cleared in 1987 for a new housing development and the running lines are now electrified.

Why this photograph?

What the photograph holds is the ordinariness of it: a locomotive with only weeks left doing exactly what it had always done, at exactly the time it was supposed to do it, with nobody needing to know the end was close. It was not posed as a farewell, and it does not need to be read as one to still carry the weight of being one of the last.

Available as Prints and Frames

Browse the Smokin' at York print and framed editions, or see more of our Deltics Class 55 photography.

The photograph

• Locomotive: Class 55 Deltic 55018 'Ballymoss'
• Location: Dringhouses, York
• Date: 2nd September 1981
• Working: 1A31, the 18.14 York to London King's Cross
• Also in frame: the locomotive's exhaust drifting across the running lines; the yard beside the line, since redeveloped as an Asda supermarket
• 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.