Rare Species at the Nature Reserve

SATURDAY

I managed to snap this huge and powerful beast at the top of Cromwell Bottom Nature Reserve this morning. Once common in these parts of Yorkshire in the 60s, the species was driven to the verge of extinction within two decades. Sightings of this 100+ mph  brute are now rare.


Sunday 27th December 1981 was the last day that the legendary ‘Deltic’ locomotives worked scheduled services across the Pennines to Liverpool, when 55009 (D9009) ‘Alycidon’ worked the 12:05 Newcastle - Liverpool forward from York, later returning on the 19:10 Liverpool - York. 

Today the train is making a special excursion, some 36 years on. It set off from York and headed westward via Brighouse and the challenging Copy Pit climb into Lancashire, through Blackburn and St. Helens, and scheduled to arrive in Liverpool’s Lime Street station early afternoon.

After a three hour break ‘Alycidon’ returns east, taking exactly the same routing as 36 years previous, via Manchester Victoria, over Diggle and through Huddersfield and Batley, Leeds and to York.