Class 55 Deltics From the Final Years to Preservation

by Alexander, Colin; Beattie, Ian

• ISBN13: 9781445656953
• ISBN10: 1445656957
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2016-08-15
• Publisher: Amberley Publishing

Summary

Named after the Napier Deltic diesel engines that powered them, the Class 55 Deltic locomotives served on Britain’s railways from the early 1960s until the last examples were retired at the beginning of 1982. While in service, the Deltics dominated services on the East Coast Main Line between London King’s Cross and Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Six are now in preservation.Obsessed by the Deltics since his childhood, Colin Alexander has photographed these charismatic locomotives in main-line service, in withdrawal and in preservation since the 1970s. Supported by the photographs of his long-time friend and fellow enthusiast Ian Beattie, his pictures make a wonderful and personal record of the Class 55 locomotives, the Deltics.

Author Biography

Colin Alexander has been a railway enthusiast for more than thirty years and volunteered on preserved Deltic locomotives. He was born in Northumberland, and has a life-long passion for local and transport history, sparked by his mother’s copy of The King’s England – Northumberland. Appreciative of the county’s unique place geographically and historically, he has explored most of its once-inhabited hilltops and its mediaeval castles, and walked the length of its greatest defensive monument – Hadrian’s Wall. He lives in Whitley Bay.