Curve of Unintended Outcome
May1969 - The Down ‘Night Aberdonian’
IT WAS an ordinary spring evening at King’s Cross station on May 7, 1969, as passengers joined the sleeper train to Aberdeen, complete with its brakevan loaded with parcels, perishables, flowers and even a live pig in a crate. The motive power for the train was one of the Class 55 ‘Deltic’ locomotives, No. D9011 The Royal Northumberland Fusiliers.
The ‘Deltic’, together with its 11 coaches, weighed a total of nearly 506 tonnes, was 262 yards in length, with a reporting number of 1S60. The braking power was 382 tonnes or 75.5% of the train’s total weight. The oldest vehicle in the consist was 12 years old. All the coaches were coupled with the buckeye system except between the ‘Deltic’ and first coach, the corridor brakevan, this being a screw coupling.
Pre-journey checks had taken place ahead of the train’s departure, and these were all clear. The permitted speed of the train was 90mph as there were two brakevans within the consist, each of which were limited to a 90mph speed limit. The weather was clear and fine as 1S60 headed north, encountering a delay at Grantham of 17 minutes, which by the time the train had left Newcastle had been reduced to seven minutes. The driver was changed at both York and Newcastle.
Upon leaving Newcastle, No. D9011 and the ‘Night Aberdonian’ was under the control of driver L Byers and secondman C Graham, who had relieved the York crew. Byers had 29 years’ service on the railways with more than 20 of those years on the footplate.
He’d been a driver along
