Words by Gary Thornton
We got back to Kings Cross about an hour before the tour was due in and found the concourse already overflowing with enthusiasts and being strongly managed by the station staff, strictly no access to platform 2 being allowed. The concourse and surrounding area was absolutely wedged when, a few minutes before 55022 arrived, the ITN film crew turned up and plonked themselves on platform 2 in front of us all...to much jeering as we'd all been waiting in the cold for quite a while to get the best position for photographs! From the moment 55022 appeared at the end of the platform it was an experience I'll never forget. With horn blaring and everyone cheering she slowly eased her way to a halt at the buffer stops and was promptly besieged. The Deltic era on the mainline was, quite simply, over (at least, for 15 years....not that we knew it then) but no-one there that night really wanted to see it end.
Still trying to control the crowds, the station staff soon gave up when the gates were opened to allow the tour passengers off the platform as we all simply stormed on to the platform to be near 55022, the tour passengers weren't going anywhere! 55022's engines were shut down and restarted a number of times, her horn blared, all to much cheering, strains of Auld Lang Syne and various rounds of "three cheers for". People kissed RSG, people held on to her, one or two were lucky enough to be allowed into the cabs. Somewhere I probably still have my spotting book from that time with, on the back page, a large dirty thumbprint which is circled with the words "55022 dirt, 02/01/82" written next to it... Trying to get decent photographs was simply impossible (did I seriously expect I could have set up my tripod that evening?) so it was a case of holding the camera above my head, point in roughly the right direction and hope for the best (oh, for a digital camera with a swivel screen in those days)! Eventually the stock was gone and her engines were started for one last time and the crowd fell largely silent as 55022 rolled very slowly along platform 2 and into history, allowing everyone plenty of time to pay their last respects. No more cheering as she vanished into the blackness, only clapping. Farewell to Thy Greatness - the headboard said it all.
I'd spent much of the last three years chasing the Deltics up and down the ECML so it was a very long, sad, journey back to Northampton on the last train that night. The three of us even shunned a taxi for the 6 mile journey home from the station and walked it, at 2am in freezing conditions with snow on the ground, all the way recalling many of our Deltic experiences over the years. Somehow the long walk seemed to allow us to hang on to the highs and lows of our day out for just a little longer. In fact, it was almost six months before I ventured out on the railways again after "that fateful day in January".