Pt1:Scottish Series 2 (The Far North Challenger) Deltic "Royal Scots Grey"

For this new series we stay in Scotland, but head outdoors. This series involved for us, some serious road mileage & driving. With so many great locations to choose from, your spoilt for choice!! So will be returning to the area to do some of the other locations.

For this series we head up to the far north & the Caithness area. Here we see what we believe is possibly the 2nd time only, a Deltic has ever visited this area. The tour departed Edinburgh on the friday night (June 17th), traveling overnight to the far north of scotland.

The tour visited Georgemas Junction (uk's most northerly junction), as well as the towns of Thurso & Wick. We pick up the tour (around 5:20am) as it passes through Helmsdale station.

From Helmsdale the route detours inland from the coast. The east coast north of Helmsdale was too formidable in the terrain & cost, in attempting to build a railway to Wick. To avoid the hilly terrain of the east coast, the railway builders took a more longer route inland.

After Helmsdale, we then leap ahead of the tour by road to see it's arrival into Georgmas Junction. We also see one of the local workings as well. We'll feature a more detailed look at Georgemas Jn station later in this series.

The Loco in question is non-other than Deltic 22 "Royal Scots Grey". This twin Napier engined loco is celebrating it's 50th year. It's also recently been featured on BBC One TV's breakfast program. Look out for the big Deltic 50th event at shildon later this year. All remaining 7 deltics will be there, so one event not to miss.

The tour whilst at Georgemas Jn, moved east out of the station. This was to allow for the Inverness bound DMU, returning back from Thurso to enter the station. The DMU then changed direction & headed off south west to Inverness.

With WCR class 37 on the rear of the tour train now leading, the tour then headed up the branch line to Thurso.

In the next part we see the tour into Thurso (Uk mainlands most northerly town), & on the Thurso branch. Coming next....

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• north
• scotland
• wick
• thurso
• helmsdale
• caithness
• train
• railway
• railroad
• Deltic
• deltic
• twin
• napier
• english
• electric
• 55022
• royal
• scots
• grey
• scottish
• class
• station
• JVC
• jvc
• evrio
• DSLR
• dslr
• Nikon
• nikon
• D90
• d90
• camera
• digital
• live
• far
• challenger

[joecool280]

CAITHNESS! :D

[ay76]

@joecool280 Yep :-) very nice area.

[ay76]

For the prototype only one livery, light blue with white stripes. The purple one google portabrook deltic for photo's. Will pm you a link in a mo.

[Zontaar]

@ay76

Is there a photo of that one anywhere on the net?

I ordered a Dapol Deltic model from acrossed the pond there, so I will be building it, and need to figure out a color scheme. I kind of like Royal Scots Gray paint job, but the model is of the Deltic prototype, so the snoot isn't quite the right shape.

Thanks for all the info you give me! :)

[ay76]

:-) Don't forget the one off two tone purple & grey livery!! Upset a few deltic fans did that one.

[Zontaar]

@ay76

Not sure, I don't know the names of them all, Zontaar was thinking of painting it up in a new paint scheme, possibly. Perhaps using Alien grenn, or something, but the blue Deltic looks nice also :)

[ay76]

So which of the missing Deltics will his zontaarness re-build i ask??

[Zontaar]

@ay76

Yes, I noticed that they didn't save many Hawker Typhoons or Tempests either! (Powered by the Napier Sabre)

>:((

Still working on those Deltics, a new supercharger mould hopefully will materialize tonight :)

[ay76]

Sadly yes :-(, numerous railway works & depots have been flattened over here. Some could of been saved & put to other good uses. That's the british authority's for you!!

[Zontaar]

@ay76

Knocked the building down!!!! >:((

Zontaar is going to have to rebuild his Ray Gun, so it can turn back time!!!! :)