Tulyar

.......a cold and murky morning stood by the ecml waiting for the last Deltic if I recall. December 1981 had been pretty cold with some snow and ice in the southern half of the UK

I'd seen 55009 for the last time on a special via Grantham on 19/12/81 northbound on the down slow.
55007 Pinza was towed dead behind 47146 on an up train to London 0n 30/12 and 55021 took a northbound train on the down slow on New Year's Eve as the sun was going down.

 

Same here: I went to Spital Bridge at PBO with nearly everyone else to record the last run in daylight but on the return run I took a camera and my venerable Grundig C410 cassette recorder down to the brickyards at Farcet to photograph and record 55 015 on its run back. I also saw the piece on ITN news which my godfather recorded for me (but sadly went over) on his shiny new Sony C5 video recorder.

I had also knocked back an invitation to some girl's 18th birthday party that night, preferring to see my beloved Deltics one last time.

I saw enough of 'that girl' later anyway: she became Mrs. TGH.

 

I do like a story that ends well!
Video recording was beyond my reach at that time and I seem to recall they were 'big' beasts too. I do have some old cine I need to dig out though!

 

Sony C5s were very heavy indeed, pretty much a domesticated version of their industrial/professional "U-Matic" recorders. Heavy steel and die-cast chassis in them.

 

I booked on that only to be told I couldn’t have the day off - it was the family business but no favours granted - so I sold my tickets and dashed out to see 15 near Biggleswade. The light was awful, as was my picture.

 

"Snap", if you'll forgive the pun. I'm amazed my Zenit E and cheap flashgun pulled anything out of the gloom but the lights at the front of the kilns helped a teeny bit.

 

shameful quality in very poor light. It would have been too blurred had it got any closer to the camera! Olympus OM1 with Ectachrome slide film I believe. No flash available

 

One of Finsbury Park's finest where it belonged (blasting up the ECML)
Bugga the quality, it's a great photo.
Thanks for posting it.

 

Just north of New Barnet?

 

Quite a bit north of New Barnet as there's no OHLE. The photo file name says Cadwell, which is just beyond Hitchin and at that time, would have been beyond the limit of the GN Suburban electrification. I think I recognise those gasometers as being just beyond Cambridge Junction, north of Hitchin.

 

Thank you Victor - much appreciated

 

Indeed so @The Green Howards I should have made it clearer when I posted.

The line from Kings Cross to Hitchin & Royston was electrified by 76/77 but north of the Cambridge junction (now enhanced with flyover) lies Cadwell where a signal box of that name stood with gates to a Railway house on the east of the ecml, now completely vanished. The foot crossing is the Icknield Way footpath that climbs towards Letchworth (Wilbury Hills). The crossing is now a high metal bridge and the line side is fenced as we might expect. The children from nearby Ickleford village don't watch trains any more.
The gasometers on the edge of Hitchin's ind area are also long gone, as are the Deltics and the racehorses that went before them. For those living alongside the South Western or in the North West of England, you got a few more years of steam than those living on the Great Northern approaches to London.

 

I have a series of small paperback books by Ian Allan that describe the lineside (one of a series of ten, I think) of various lines and Cadwell is mentioned as having "oil sidings". When I was still commuting by train, the site of them was overgrown but discernible. Rather like the undergrowth that semi-concealed a six-wheel tank wagon just north of Hornsey (I think).

 

My memories of Deltics when I moved to London. I spent a lot of time photographing them:

 

Whoops, this is embarrassing. I should've recognised that - Cadwell is less than 2 1/2 miles from where I live! And it's not as if I see the industrial estate every day going to and from work...!

 

Quite. My brother remembers a quiet Sunday afternoon in his youth where he observed a gleaming Manna running light to London. Around here, I have a book showing a gleaming Manna, fresh out of Doncaster after its last major overhaul. I am left wondering if this ties in with my brother's observation...

 

Your link was broken - I assume you meant this?




BTW: is the picture at 1:10 the old Hitchin South Yard?

 

Yes, I couldn’t get the link to work.

 

Yes, now all replaced with housing for the "poets estate". Photographed from Benslow Bridge with Hitchin south box on the right.
This poor diy B&W image is looking the other way (north) and depicts 55012 Crepello in 1981