Another week and yet another day in ‘splendid’ isolation – working from home, staying out of the cold! The weather’s changed here in the Calder Valley. We’ve had clear skies and a sunny day but the temperature has plummeted. There’s no doubt that winter’s just around the corner. Even so, I’ve been making a concerted effort to up the ante on the exercise front so I’ve braved the cold and clocked up 5 miles – even if it was by ping-ponging up and down our road! Well, it passes through some lovely woodland and there’s great views across the valley so it’s not like walking round the block in a city. You never know what critters you might bump into, especially in the evening. I often encounter foxes and deer aren’t unknown, although I’ve never encountered any of the local badger population. Owls regularly make their presence known through their hooting, but they’re so silent when they fly you’d be lucky to see one. I’m toying with the idea of getting an infrared wildlife camera just to see what I might find exploring our back terraces at night.

The rest of the day’s been spent catching up on paperwork, filing and admin jobs plus a small amount of picture editing, just to keep the ball rolling – and dispatching a few eBay orders, although that’s taken more of a back seat this month as I’ve not had time to upload many new pictures or other railwayana. Hopefully next week once other jobs are cleared away as I’ve still got a lot of stuff to dispose of. Part of the next tranche features as the picture of the day. at the weekend I picked up several new slide albums to join the queue for scanning over the winter. One of those albums is full of foreign railway slides like this. I took this picture on the 17th October 1991 in Delhi, India. Steam locomotives were dying out but hundreds still plied their trade on Broad Gauge network – although not for much longer. By 1996 they’d all gone, so on my 12 month trip away in 1991-92 I was determined to get pictures and had arranged a photographic permit that allowed me access to several locomotive depots, including the one adjacent to old Delhi railway station, where I found this WG Class 2-8-2 No 8009 being moved on the depot turntable. The WGs (W indicated it was Broad gauge and G a goods engine) arrived in India in 1950. The first 100 were built in England by the North British Engine Co, whilst hundreds of others were produced by American, German and Japanese firms before Chittaranjan Locomotive Works in West Bengal took over construction. the last were produced in 1970 after 2450 had been built. Sadly, only a handful have been preserved with most of them being static exhibits.

If you’re interested in looking through more rail photos from this trip or of, Indian railways in general you can find them in this gallery on my Zenfolio picture website.

Meanwhile, I’ve a favour to ask…
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