Monthly Archives: August 2021

Rolling blog. Colne valley reprise….

03 Tuesday Aug 2021

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11:30.

We have another lovely day here in West Yorkshire so I’m repeating my photographic travels in the next-door Colne Valley, hopefully hunting down some of the diverted freight services that are gracing their rails for the next 10 days, plus adding some library shots of a line that will be changing dramatically over the next few years as part of the multi-billion pound TRU (Trans-Pennine Route Upgrade).

Right now I’m making my way from Sowerby Bridge to Huddersfield via Dewsbury aboard one of Northern’s refurbished Class 158s. I much prefer them to the old as there’s actually some leg-room at the table seats, plus they’re fitted with USB charging points. The 11:23’s a quiet train with just a handful aboard. I’ll be curious to see what others look like later. Stay with me to find out…

12:45.

Beat laid plans and all that, eh? I stopped off at Mirfield to get photographs of the extended garden looked after by the station friends. They’ve done an excellent job (as you’ll see later). Whilst there I checked to see how the freight services I was hunting were running only to find they’d been cancelled! Now I have to come up with a plan B. There’s no point sticking the the Colne valley so I’m going to venture West across the Pennines to (hopefully) look at some of the TRU work around Manchester. Watch this space…

Right now I’m on a stopper heading for Stalybridge form Huddersfield which is busy with folks on days out. I’m please to report the vast majority are still wearing masks.

After calling at Greenfield and Mossley we got even busier with folks heading into the city.

16:00.

Sorry for the break but I’ve been busy travelling. I abandoned my TPE chariot at Stalybridge in order to sample what are one of the most hated phrases in the English language. The ‘rail replacement’ bus service! Trains to Manchester Victoria via Ashton-under-Lyme are being substituted by buses to Ashton, thence Guide Bridge where you can rejoin the railway. I gave it a go and I have to say it worked without a hitch. Double-deck buses run every half hour. They’re clean -and empty as most people have already found alternative routes. I actually qute enjoyed it as it took me places in East Manchester I’d never been before although it was a mixed bag of derelict mills and churches leavened with a lot of closed shops with the occaisional hint of what a prosperous area it must once have been. That said, as someone who enjoys architecture, I loved some of the buildings. The lovely red Accrington brick dominates here.

18:45.

An intresting and varied day. On arrival at Guide Bridge I caught a train to Manchester Piccadilly. The weather was excellent and the city centre full of life so I decided to visit the top floor of a car park I knew near Oxford Rd that provides a great vantage point over the rail connection known as the Castlefield corridor – although bottleneck is more apt. This two-track section of line is horribly overcrowded with both passenger and freight services.

Having had my fill of rail photographs I nipped into bearby Chinatown to pick up some culinary supplies as we’ve run out of fish sauce and the evil red birdseye chillies. I found fish sauce without a problem but – despite trying several Chinese supermarkets – I couldn’t get the chillies for love nor money. I believe they’re imported from Thailand. As that country’s struggling to get its population Covid vaccinated this nay have something to do with it.

I was tempted to risk coming back via the rail replacement service via Rochdale but decided I’d had enough ‘bus fun’ for the day so returned via train to Huddersfield instead.

The trip was quite sad because I sahed the front portion of the train with an elderly, wheelchair-bound woman and her middke-aged son who was acting as her carer. The dynamic was awful. The pair of them obviously had ‘issues’ which made me feel so incredibly grateful for my life and circumstances. Never forget – there but for the grace of God (even if you don’t believe in Gods)..

Public transport has a myriad of functions. One of which is to showcase how the other half lives – and I’ll always be appreciative of those lessons.

22:30.

I’m pausing this blog now as I’ve more thoughts and pictures to add – but that’s not going to happen until tomorrow as I’m back at home and it’s time to relax. I’m working from home all day tomorrow which will give me time to finalise this blog, edit the past two days pictures – and finish filleting Simon Jenkins Guardian nonsense – which has turned into an epic as there’s so much rubbish to refute with evidence. Until then – goodnight!

I’ve a favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Thank you!

Rolling blog: Colne valley wanderings…

02 Monday Aug 2021

Posted by in Photography, Railways, Rolling blogs, Travel, West Yorkshire

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13:15.

I’ve had a rather unplanned break from the office today and taken the camera exploring instead. Dawn had to pop into the Community Rail Network offices in Huddersfield so suggested that I tag along so that I could help carry some boxes, meet her new Boss, then get out for a while whilst she worked. It seemed like too good an opportunity to miss for several reasons. One being that due to the major engineering blockade on the railway into Manchester Victoria at Miles Platting several freight services are being diverted from the Calder to the Colne valley. Due to capacity constraints and the intensive passenger services along the Colne valley freight is normally rare, so it was a good chance to capture something unusual before the day comes when the overhead wires that will inevitably arrive change the route completely.

My donkey work done I caught a train West along the valley to Marsden. The 3-car local stopping was busier than I’ve seen it for ages as folk return to the railways

13:45.

I’m now playing cat and mouse with the sun, clouds and odd freight train, leavened with a selection of Trans-Pennine and Northern services, including some unusual empty stock moves. I’ll add a selection of camera shots later, right now you’ll have to settle for some phone pix…

For those of you who don’t know Marsden it’s a lovely little village surrounded by high Pennine hills. The last railway village in West Yorkshire and location of the famous Standedge tunnels (two rail, one canal). Here’s a flavour..

15:00.

As well as the railway Marsden hosts the Huddersfield narrow canal a popular inland waterway that’s busy with boats in the summer. The village was also a popular (perhaps too popular) stop for people on the trans-Pennine ‘Rail Ale Trail’ although Covid has killed much of that and the popular Riverhead pub in Marsden remains closed. Despite that, there’s still plenty of pubs, cafes and resturants to tempt visitors.

21:30.

That was a busy day! I stayed in Marsden for several hours until the skies began to close in and I had many of the pictures that I wanted. Despite me visiting some new locations there’s only so many shots that you can take before they become repetitive. Heading back to Huddersfield I spent an hour wandering around the town centre trying to get a feel for the place as it comes out of lockdown. I have to day, it feels sad. There’s clearly a lot of shops that are never going to open and the claims of Brexiters that being in the EU was what was holding us back have foundered on the rocks of reality – as you notice when you visit the supermarkets and gaze upon the empty shelves. Brexit hasn’t swept the streets of rogues and vagabonds (as promised) either as the vast majority of them are (of course) indigenous.

Once Dawn finished work we headed home to enjoy a quick drink in the garden watching the sun set on a glorious evening as the clouds had melted away here in the Calder Valley, leaving us with a perfect sky. We couldn’t linger long as we both had food duties to perform. Dee wanted to have another practice run with wedding cakes so whilst she did that I prepared a massive chick pea, tuna and veggie cheese salad with lots of trimmings that’ll keep us going for the next couple of days. Now, whilst Dee’s perfecting her baking I’m editing pictures.

First up is a shot from Marsden featuring an empty stock move from Newcastle’s Heaton depot to Manchester’s Newton Heath shed. Renumbered 150003 this is Northern’s newly converted 2-car Class 150116 which has been modified to run as a 3-car by the insertion of a 150/2 vehicle (57209). Three more of these units are to be converted, bringing the total to 6. This isn’t a new idea. Several trains ran in this formation when they worked for Central trains in the Birmingham area back in the 2000s.

Trans-Pennine Express unit 802202 speeds past Marsden whilst working 9M26, the 12:43 Newcastle to Manchester Piccadilly.
802210 rounds the long curve from Marsden station (which is just out of shot around the corner) whilst working 1P29, the 1438 Manchester Piccadilly to Newcastle. The loop here is seldom used now that the former Northern stopping service from Huddersfield to Manchester is worked by TPE Class 185s. The fact this was once a four-track main line is evident from the width of the formation.

DB Cargo’s 66152 heads West with 6M16, the Monday’s only Tees Yard to Knowsley (Liverpool ) empty ‘binliner’. These waste trains were once a regular sight in the Colne Valley but changes in the locations served and the fact this trans-Pennine route no longer has the capacity to cope means the trains now normally run via the Calder Valley.

I’ll be adding these shots and many more to my Zenfolio website later in the week. But for now, it’s goodnight!

I’ve a favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Thank you!

1st August picture of the day…

01 Sunday Aug 2021

Posted by in Engineering, Musings, Photography, Picture of the day, The USA

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It’s been a lazy Sunday here at Bigland Towers. The pair of us (well, the three of us really, as Jet our cat was in no rush to do anything either) had a slow morning drinking coffee, catching up on the news and watching the world go by. The only thing missing was having a Sunday newspaper spread out on the bed, but those days are long gone. I can’t think of the last time I bought one. Partly because there’s no local newsagent for miles, but also because the world’s moved online and I can pick and choose from loads of different news sources now. The difficulty is finding a reliable one! Talking of which, I was planning to dissect Simon Jenkin’s latest fact-free rant about HS2 in Saturday’s Guardian, but that can wait until another day. It’ll have exactly the same effect as all his other rants going back a decade. In other words, Zilch. Instead, I spent a couple of hours researching, reading through the minutes of last months Transport Select Committee meeting which heard from Birmingham’s Mayor, Andy Street and also HS2’s CEO, Mark Thurston. When you read their words verbatim it becomes obvious just how lazy the media reporting of their words was. I’ll be including excerpts when I fillet Jenkins rant.

The afternoon was far less lazy. Dawn went into ‘Domestic Goddess mode and spent several hours in the kitchen, experimenting with cake-baking recipes in order to perfect a cake for a friend’s wedding whilst I retreated to the office to sort out more old pictures. I have to admit the smells coming from the kitchen were divine. Dee’s a brilliant cook and really enjoys baking. It’s not something I’ve ever got into personally, my forte is more Asian and starters and main course dishes rather than sweets and desserts.

The day wasn’t all about food, we did both manage to get out for a stroll, even if it wasn’t far, just through our local woods along the promenade overlooking the Calder valley and thence around Savile Park, but it was good to be able to feel virtuous by hitting our daily exercise marks.

Now we’re home for another quiet evening, but as it’s going to be a busy week that’s hardly a problem. So, I’m going to leave you with today’s picture which is taken from another of the batch of old slides taken in the USA back in 1990. No animals today, this is very much a man-made structure. I took this shot of Big Creek bridge on State Highway 1 on the California coast on the 25th October 1990.

Opened in 1938, this graceful bridge is a 589 feet long, 24 feet wide open spandrel, concrete deck arch structure designed by Christian Theophil Gutleben. Each span is 178 feet wide and 65 feet above ground level. It’s quite an impressive sight when you first glimpse it as you approach along the coast from the South, but then the California coast road is a lovely route with several similar structures. There parking places at either end so that you can stop, admire the bridge, sea or cliffs and take photographs.

I’ve a favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of the impact Covid has had), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Thank you!