Deltic memories to rev up Talisman sale

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RAILWAYANA: The mighty throb of the Deltics’ 18-cylinder Napier engines that so enthralled East Coast Main Line trainspotters on their debut in the early-1960s will be recalled in the appropriate setting of Newark on August 12.

Those memories, still vivid today due in part to the survival of six members of the 22-strong class, will be evoked at a Talisman Railwayana sale by an English Electric 1960 worksplate from D9003, later No. 55003, named Meld after a Lady Zia Wernher-owned filly that won three British classics in 1955.

ECML power: Deltic No. 9003 Meld heads the 3.05pm Newcastle-King’s Cross express at York on March 21, 1972. A worksplate (inset) from the Class 55 will be going under the hammer at a Talisman Railwayana auction at Newark on August 12. NORMAN PREEDY/TALISMAN RAILWAYANA

D9003 – like all members of the class it never carried its originally-planned number in the D1000 series – was withdrawn in December 1980, one of three taken out of service that year, and scrapped at Doncaster three months later.

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Another highlight of the auction is a silver rowing challenge cup presented to the Great Northern Railway Athletic Association by Sir Henry Oakley in November 1900. Oakley (1823-1912) joined the GNR as a clerk in 1850, becoming general manager in 1870 and a board member in 1897. He was also later chairman of the Central London Railway that opened from Shepherd’s Bush to Bank in 1900.

Other GNR items include a Stamford-Essendine single line tablet and an 1896 Great Central and Midland Railways GNR-pattern trespass cast-iron sign from Wakefield goods yard.

A single collection of smokebox numberplates, bought from BR by the vendor 55 years ago and comprising Nos. 61472, 63803, 64680, 68910 and 69611, will also be going under the hammer. The auction is at Newark Showground and starts at 10am.

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