As some of you may have noticed, I’ve been spending a lot of time scanning old pictures recently as I try to (finally) get my collection of rail, travel and social issues pictures taken over the past 30 plus years onto my Zenfolio website.
In the past, when I did this for my old Fotopic website (remember them?) my approach was more scattergun. Nowadays I’m much more methodical, scanning whole albums rather than selective shots. Recently I’ve been covering the years 1990 and now 1991, which was when there was an interesting transition.
I was very much an amateur photographer in those days. I never dreamt that one day it would become my profession. I was happy being a Housing Officer in East London – a job I really enjoyed. The money was good, I had no commitments and so I had a large disposable income and could afford to buy decent cameras. Nothing too flash mind, I wasn’t getting into medium format (too bulky) or expensive kit like Leica, just good mid-range auto-focus Nikons like the F801s which came out that year. Yep, back in those days auto-focus was a new thing. It was still a bit clunky compared to what we use today but it was a great advance on manual focus as it was one less thing to worry about and concentrate on.
What also came out then and really changed the game was a new slide film. Fuji Velvia.
Having taken the old advice I’d been using Kodachrome the standard slide film of the day since 1989 when I ditched print film. The problem was that Kodachrome was slow speed, grainy and difficult to get processed. It didn’t like dull days either.
Then Fuji Velvia arrived. I’d read about it in camera magazines but didn’t try it until a few months later, in February 1991. I’m now scanning the first roll I used. Wow, what a difference! Rated at ISO 50 it wasn’t much of a change in speed but the lack of grain and vividness of colour compared to Kodak was brilliant. Here’s a sample.
On the 17th February 1991. 4-EPB unit 5467 stands at Dartford before working the 13.30 to Charing Cross via Sidcup.
As I scan more slides I can see the transition I made from Kodak to the ‘upstart’ Fuji. Velvia became my standard film, even though it wasn’t ideal for everything as it was a high-contrast film with vivid colours (not great for indoor shots of people for example). But then Fuji soon introduced Provia and Reala.
I realise that to many modern photographers brought up in the digital age when all you do is flick a few dials and go through a few menus all this is gibberish. But in the early 1990s the world was very different. As I scan my old pictures I’m reliving those times. Would I go back? No. Do I regret not having gone digital before I did in 2004? Yes. But isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing?
Here’s another sample that also shows just how much the railways have changed since 1991. This is Gillingham (Kent) on a quiet Sunday when spare locos used to be stabled just outside the station. All these are ex-Southern classes which have now (mostly) disappeared, although the later versions of the Class 73 electo-diesels still put in sterling work on the Southern for freight company GBRf.
Some people never learn. In this case it’s the dwindling bunch of Nimbys who still oppose HS2 and think that their sense of entitlement somehow trumps the transport infrastructure needs of the UK, especially in this time of climate change, where we really do need the rail capacity to get folks out of planes and cars and onto carbon-neutral trains.
Despite everything that’s happened in the past few months, what with the Conservatives gaining a solid Parliamentary majority and half the MPs who previously opposed HS2 losing their seats since 2014 – the tiny band who fly the flag of ‘StopHs2’ haven’t learned a thing in a decade.
Short of any real plan, far less a cunning one, they’ve fallen back on the same failed tactics that have never stood them in good stead – even when there was lots more of them!
They’ve started another petition…
Because petitions have worked so well for them in the past, obviously!
Here’s a link to the latest one, which has got off to a less than stratospheric start (as I scribble this it has 867 signatures after 3 days). It’s been started by one Elizabeth Williams, whom I’m assuming is the same ‘Lizzie’ Williams who started StopHs2 until she had to hand over the reins of the groups as her behaviour was in danger of imploding it.
Why they still bother with these petitions is a total mystery as all they ever do is three things – get less and less signatures each time, prove the fact that the vast majority of folk signing them live in the 63 constituencies Hs2 passes through – and that the majority of those signing live on Phase 1! Here’s the petition map from today which (as ever) shows that – by total co-incidence – the most signatures are from constituencies on Phase 1. You can imagine my surprise….
This petition will do exactly the same as all the others. It’s doomed to failure from the start. It also shows that – despite have run several of these pointless exercises in the past – they’ve never actually twigged their limitations. Just say for the sake of argument they get 100,oo signatures (hell will freeze over first). What happens then? How will that stop HS2? It won’t. Here’s what it says on the front page of each petition.
“Considered for debate”. Debate, not vote. There is no vote. The petition is toothless. Mind you, even if there was a vote HS2 would win it hands down with a huge majority as the project has cross-party support! It’s an utterly pointless exercise.
Still, it does do one thing. It gives me a few numbers to crunch and empirical evidence of the weakness of the StopHs2 campaign. So, it will be interesting to compare it with the results of 2019, 2018 or even some of their earlier efforts.
Meanwhile, in the real world, construction of HS2 ramps up…
Don’t expect many updates on the progress (or rather lack of) of this petition. I may pop in once a month just to see how badly it’s doing, but it’s really not worth wasting more time on than that.
Sometimes, you really have to wonder. I’ve been occupied scanning old slides again this evening as Dawn’s busy on a Reiki course, so whilst I’ve been waiting for the scanner to perform its (slow) miracles I’ve been keeping an eye on social media – which is when I spotted this gem..
Seriously? F**k me, who knew that for thousands of years people have used various (mostly humane) methods to deter birds? Have the RSPB never heard of Scarecrows, or the farmers that set off shotgun cartridges on a timer – or Network Rail patrolling some of its stations like this? “Ethically dubious”?
If this is the desperate intellectual level some of our environmental groups are reduced to, you do have to start asking – what’s the point of you? What problems are you really going to solve with rubbish like this – and why on earth should we take you seriously?
Needless to say, it wasn’t long before arch HS2 critic Chris Packham piled in in his own unthinking fashion with this tweet.
Holding nature in ‘contempt’ by using birds to scare off birds? Talk about mental gymnastics! The sad thing is that knee-jerk rubbish like this only makes it easier for people to dismiss environmental groups as cranks. It gives ammunition to the opposition, nothing more, but nothing that Packham comes out with surprises me anymore. Let’s face it, a man who flies people half-way around the world on expensive bird-watching tours of the Gambia (for which he earns a pretty penny) trying to stop people in the UK from being able to travel on a carbon-neutral railway is the height of hypocrisy.
I’ll look forward to the next chapter of this madness, the RSPCA starting a campaign against people buying cats to scare away mice perhaps? For God’s sake – no-one tell them about Felix, the Huddersfield station cat!
It’s the 2nd day of the ACoRP conference and It’s a more relaxed one for me as I blitzed the event from a photographic perspective yesterday, so today I get chance to listen to the speakers and blog about some of the event.
The first speaker this morning was Neil Priest, Station Enhancements Portfolio Manager, Network Rail.
He’s given a very interesting talk about the perils and success of making stations more accessible and the fun and game of installing lifts on our Victorian network. He also exploded the myth that lifts can’t be installed at unmanned stations. As he explained. “When a lift breaks down, a bloke doesn’t come out of the ticket office with a bag of spanners, we call in a lift engineer” Nowadays lifts are monitored by CCTV and remotely, so it’s not an issue. Many of these schemes take years to complete and Neil explained why that happens, which can be anything from finding there’s disused mineshafts below the station to the fact someone else comes along and builds a new ticket office where you were going to site a bridge!
Afterwards, ACoRP’s Chief Executive, Jools Townsend gave a rundown of the organisations activities and coming programmes – as well as talking about the rebranding of ACoRP as Community Rail Network (CRN) later this year.
12:10.
A lot of the conference this morning has been taken up with three workshop sessions on very different topics. Youth engagement: Talking about ways to involve young people on a range of issues around the railways (including safety) and passing on life skills to teenagers are younger children. The second workshop was on involvement with the wider community, including the disadvantaged to encourage them to be involved through their local community rail groups – and also encourage them to use the railways. The session I’m sat in on at the moment is about tackling loneliness. Apparently, the UK is the loneliest country in Europe (and no, that’s not a political metaphor!) so the session is talking about causes of loneliness in the present day and how loneliness can be identified and counteracted. The presentation wasn’t just about facts, figures and methodology, it also included the experiences of a station group, the Friends of Beeston station, presented by the Secretary of the group, Sarah Hampton. Sarah gave some great examples of how the group has combated loneliness in their own community.
14:15.
We’re back after lunch in the hotel for the first session of the afternoon which is a look at a new reporting system that ACoRP are launching. The Impact Assessment tool, and how it can help organisations and the people involved in them to track their achievements and use the data in a number of ways, such as reports, data assessment and even fundraising.
During lunch I nipped out with ACoRP’s Martin Yallop, who knows my interest in architecture. He wanted to show me a couple of features nearby, including this…
During WW2 this length of tram track bexame a missle thanks to a German bomb. It was blown clean over a row of Georgian town houses and embedded itself in the nearby churchyard
17:10.
Conference finished mid-afternoon but by then my bit was done so I headed over to Temple Meads station early in order to make the most of the sunshine and soend an hour getting pictures before we caught our train North.
It was an interesting interlude as services have changed a lot since I last spent any time here. Now GWR green rather than FGW blue is the dominant colour. With many of the old DMUs having been displaced by former ‘Thames Turbo’ class 165 – 166 units and the HST’s with Class 800 series units from Hitachi although the venerable Class 43s haven’t vanished altogether as ‘Castle’ Class short HST sets (2×4) are used on Bristol – Cardiff services.
The lengthening of trains has also gone hand in hand with the four-tracking of the line North towards Bristol Parkway, enabling more services to run and allowing parallel arrivals or departures, which makes for some interesting photo opportunities like this, which isn’t the sort of sight you’d seen a couple of years ago…
166205 and 165119 arrive in parallel at Bristol Temple Meads.
17:45
Right now a group of us are speeding North towards Birmingham on yet another packed 4-car Cross-Country Voyager, all space has been taken and the vestibules are packed with bodies old and young.
18:50.
We’re now North of Derby on our way to our next stop at Chesterfield and I’ve lost count of the different passengers that have passed through this coach (D) on our trip from Bristol. I was glad to see the back of one at Birmingham, a young man who talked endlessly into his mobile phone and who reeked of BO…
20:27.
The numbers of folks on our Voyager thinned the further North we got. It was reasonably pleasent after leaving Sheffield but I wasn’t sorry to bail out at Leeds. We had 6 minutes to make our connection and hopped aboard the 20:12 to Manchester Victoria with a couple of minutes to spare. Only it’s now 20:26 and we’re still here! Lots of trains are on the move, just not us…
20:36.
Our Conductor has told us that our trains stuck because of a track-circuit failure, so we’ve all abandoned our nice warm, shiny Class 195 for a traditional Calder Valley classic in the shape of a Class 155 in the adjacent platform. We’re still not going anywhere mind…
20:42.
*Puts on best Victor Meldrew impression*…
I don’t believe it! We’d just settled in on our replacement train when it’s Conductor announced that – in fact – our original train was leaving first. Not only that but it had got the road and was leaving any minute now! There was a mad scramble as we all rushed back onto the 195, the only thing missing was the Benny Hill theme tune playing over the tannoy! We’ve even regained our original seats!
22:18.
That about wraps it up for today. We finally made it home around 21:30, considerably later than we expected due to the fun and games at Leeds. Now it’s time to relax and put the feet up ready for another busy day tomorrow. I’ll be working from home as I’ve a considerable amount of pictures from the conference to edit, as well as a new selection of rail shots. Then there’s paperwork to catch up on. At least there’ll be no track circuits to worry about! There might even be a bit of time for blogging on the latest funs and games with the anti Hs2 protests, which are generating a lot of hot air, but little else…
Ugh! The alarm went off at 05:30 this morning as we’re off to Bristol. Right now the house is buzzing with activity as we get ready to head off to the station ready to get the first train. According to the internet the trains are running to time this morning, so let’s see how things pan out. We’ll be meeting up with various other ACoRP shipmates on the train from Leeds…
07:20.
So far, everything’s going to plan on this fine, frosty morning. We took a taxi to the station (a luxury for me as I normally walk) and the 07:07 to Leeds turned up on time. Worked by a 3-car CAF Class 195 it had started at Hebden Bridge and had a healthy load of passengers by the time it arrived at Halifax. Now, leaving Bradford Interchange, there’s hardly a spare seat to be had.
As we climbed out of Bradford the skies were fascinating. A complex mass of grey clouds of different hues was turned orange by the rising sun as they appeared to be dropping a curtain of rain (or snow) across a quarter of the city. It was gorgeous.
08:55.
Changing trains at Leeds went without a hitch. We’d given ourselves plenty of time just in case, but the first day working day of Northern under new management didn’t present any problems. Thankfully we weren’t travelling down the West Coast Main Line as a landslip at Dutton viaduct has caused lots of grief as the saturated ground has started shifting, taking the line with it!
Back with Northern, I see that the Dft are already making changes. Former TPE Managing Director Andy Donovan has been announced at the new Northern MD, which sounds like a good move. He had a good reputation at TPE and eh knows the Northern patch. It will be interesting to if the change at the helm improves Northern’s reputation and the visibility of senior management.
Right now we’re on the 08:11 Cross-Country service from Leeds to Plymouth. It’s classic Cross-Country. This 4-car train was rammed into Leeds carrying commuters from York into work. Then it was busy taking other commuters from Leeds to Wakefield. We’ve just called at Sheffield and it’s only now that it’s starting to fulfil its long-distance role. Now there’s a few spare seats and I’ll be interested to see how the composition of our carriage changes along the route.
10:02.
We’re approaching Birmingham at a crawl after we were diverted via Water Orton due to a points failure. The Train Manager, a jovial Geordie, has been very good in keeping us all informed. It’s not a huge delay (4 minutes) but I’ll be interested to see if it has a knock-on effect in Birmingham.
Our two table companions (who’ve changed composition twice since Leeds) are preparing to leave. There’s only a handful of the original passengers left now and I expect more of an exodus at New St. Having been on this Voyager for 2 hours now and spent much of that time inadvertently playing footsie with the person sat on the opposite side of the table I’m starting to feel the cramp. These trains simply aren’t up to the job nowadays but we’re going to be stuck with them for who knows long now that the Dept for Transport has cancelled letting the franchise.
10:16.
We’ve just left Birmingham with only around 20% of the original passengers on board. I remember many years ago the average length of a journey on Cross-Country was around 50 miles. I wonder if that’s changed? I can’t help wondering if there’s not an argument for splitting the Cross-County network nowadays in order to improve resilience. How many passengers will travel all the way from (say) Aberdeen to Plymouth or Leeds to Penzance?
10:30.
Our late arrival in Birmingham didn’t cause us any problems as we still left on time. A crew change has meant the Geordie lilt of or previous Train Manager has now been replaced by a West Country burr of the new incumbent! More of the ACoRP team joined us too. There’s now 5 of us in the carriage.
11:20.
We’re currently heading for Bristol Parkway and the sunny weather we’ve had nearly all the way from Leeds is getting increasingly obscured by cloud. Like the rest of the country, the fields around the railways are muddy and waterlogged. I suspect we’re going to need a considerable spell of dry and sunny weather before they drain. Despite the fact it’s full again, passengers in our coach are remarkably quiet, mainly because most of them are plugged in and staring at one of a variety of electronic devices! Diagonally opposite me there’s on traditionalists old chap who’s actually reading a newspaper but he’s very much in a minority.
12:15.
We’re now ensconced in the Doubletree Hilton in Bristol, preparing for a busy afternoon with some interesting sessions to look forward to…
14:00.
ACoRP’s Chief Executive, Jools Townsend kicks off today’ Community Rail Conference.
There’s a good turnout for the conference too…
There was far too much going on at the conference to blog and take pictures, so picture taking came first. Hopefully, tomorrow will be more relaxed. AT the end of the day a few of us were given a tour of some sights of architectural merit. One of them was a CAMRA national inventory pub – the Kings Head!
Yep, today’s the start of a new month, not that there’s been much of a change, as we’ve had yet another storm warning! The only discernible difference is that the days are starting to get longer. I’ve spent much of the weekend scanning yet more old railway slides from 1990, which you can find in this gallery on my Zenfolio website. The latest batch of 60 are from Bristol and also the Tinsley loco depot open day, held on a dismal Saturday in September. Here’s a sample, featuring Bath Rd depot in Bristol – another place that’s long-gone.
BR Class 47 locomotives dominate this view of Bristol Bath Rd depot as the shed provided motive power for cross-country services from the South-West up to Birmingham and beyond, as well as passenger locomotives for the main line to London Paddington as well as servicing freight engines and local diesel multiple units.
As I mentioned in my last blog. I’m back in Bristol tomorrow for an ACoRP (Association of Community Rail Partnerships) conference. The programme shows that it’s going to be a busy event spread over two days but no doubt I’ll have some time to blog/tweet about what’s going on, as well as catch up with some old friends from the world of community railways.
To get to Bristol in time means the pair of us are up at sparrow-fart in the morning, so this isn’t going to be a long blog. I’d hoped to have time to compose one about the collapse of the StopHs2 campaign, but that can wait for another day! It’s not as if there’s anything going on with them anyway. They’ve been very quiet on social media since the Government announced the fact HS2’s been given the green light. Mind you, they’ve also been inactive in the real world too. Their ‘direct action’ campaign at Harvil Rd and Cubbington wood has been completely ineffective at stopping HS2. The penny finally seems to be dropping that they’ll never have the numbers of people on the ground they need. There’s only a couple of dozen regulars and a few ‘weekend warriors’ – who’re especially useless and HS2 Ltd don’t normally work at weekends so there’s nothing to stop! The fact that having a bunch of voyeurs’ watching you make fools of yourself on Facebook isn’t going to stop Hs2 seems to be slowly sinking in too – hence this rather revealing post of one of their Facebook pages.
I’ll blog about this in detail when I have the time. Right now it’s time to pack a suitcase…
Well, not just the rain, but it has been another wet and frustrating day. My cunning plan was to head over to the Wigan – Southport railway to get some shots of the new bi-mode Class 769 trains that are on test there to fill a gap in the library and also for a client.
I dutifully headed off in that direction this morning. The weather here in Yorkshire was less than ideal but I don’t have much time to spare at the moment as the diary for March is looking rather full.
The trip across the Pennines from Sowerby Bridge was uneventful. I was on a direct service from Leeds to Wigan Wallgate which was worked by one of Northern’s cascaded Class 158s. Once the staple of more express services, they’ve been displaced onto secondary duties that would once have been worked by Pacers. It was comfortable and not particularly busy until it called at Rochdale so I used my time wisely and got some work done. The lack of wifi and power sockets wasn’t an issue now I have my new ‘super duper’ Dell laptop so I managed to plough through and edit quite a backlog of pictures whilst keeping a wary eye on the weather which was worsening the further West I got.
Sod’s law being what it is, by the time I got to Wigan and checked the Class 769 workings on Real Time Trains it was obvious today’s runs had been cancelled. It’s always the luck of the draw with these things and the fact it was raining cats and dogs in Wigan (or ‘Wiggin’ as the local pronounce it) meant I wasn’t too disappointed. Instead, I admitted defeat to head back East and attempted to salvage the day by getting a couple of shots around Manchester Victoria, like this one which rather shows how much the railways around the city have changed in the past few years.
A pair of Hitachi Class 802s operated by Trans Pennine Express pass at Manchester Victoria. On the left 802215 works 9S12, the 1224 Liverpool Lime Street to Edinburgh. Yes, Manchester now has direct services to the Scottish capital – and from Victoria too! On the right 802209 was working the unfortunate 1P22, the 1047 Newcastle to Manchester Airport which was terminated at Victoria due to signal failure. It’s great to see the way Victoria has regained the intercity services that it lost decades ago – and with brand new state of the art trains providing them too!
Heading on East I managed to get home without getting drenched thanks to my trusty Siemens supplied umbrella and a new pair of walking boots that kept my feet above the many puddles I encountered on the way. This evening has been spent on different activities. Both Dawn and I love to cook and tonight the muse was upon me. Whilst Dee slaved away working from home I tried an Indian recipe I’ve never cooked before, Chettinad Chicken curry. It’s fiery due to the Kashmiri chilli powder and ground black peppercorns and aromatic due to the cumin, cinnamon and coriander seeds. Served with rice and a few pickles and chutneys it certainly brought some colour into an otherwise dreary day.
The weekend weather isn’t looking much better. In fact, it appears we’ve yet another storm on the way, so I doubt I’ll be getting out with the camera over the next few days although I might get a few more old slides from 1990 scanned – just to keep the momentum going. As chance would have it, the next ones to be done are from Bristol – a city that I’ll be back in on Monday as I’m at an ACoRP seminar on Monday – Tuesday. Hopefully I’ll have chance to get a couple of up to date shots as a comparison…
I’ve been moving around too much today to write a coherent rolling blog, so here’s a look back over the day.
After attending the Bradshaw address last night I stayed with an old friend who lives in Clapham. His flat overlooks the station and offers some excellent views of the changing city skyline beyond. It was great to catch up with him as it’s not easy nowadays because we all lead such busy lives.
When I left, rather than go into central London I caught the London overground via Wandsworth and Canada Water through to Shoreditch, which was an old stomping ground from the 1980s-90s. I’m always amazed how much that neck of the woods has changed in the past 35 years. When I lived in the East End London was still a city in decline, with a shrinking population. The Housing Co-op I lived in was set up by the local council (Tower Hamlets) because the block was on an estate where properties were considered ‘hard to let’. Can you imagine that now? So much of what was once considered ‘rough’ areas of London no-one wanted to live in are now chokka with new high-rise housing developments – and new transport links to serve them, like the Docklands Light Railway, or indeed – the London Overground! I still love coming back to London even if the memories are sometimes bitter-sweet.
One thing I realised on my tour was how many photographic locations have been lost because of all the new housing developments, especially on the part of the LO that runs on the reinstated line from Shoreditch through to Dalston. Later, when I can, I’ll post a couple of pictures as contrasts to show you what I mean.
Leaving London from Liverpool St I passed through more of East London. Areas I lived and worked in for nearly 15 years that still hold powerful and happy memories for me. Leaving the orbit of the capital I ended up in Essex, where the railways are changing fast. Trains that have plied these routes before I moved to London are being phased out completely. The Anglia franchise has gone for total fleet replacement, although that’s not entirely gone to plan as the new fleets are late! Hardly a unique story on UK railways…
My first port of call was Colchester, where the station approaches are rather photogenic, especially with a long lens. I didn’t linger long as the weather was less than inviting and I was dressed for a lecture, not the great outdoors! The station’s quite exposed and the wind was perishing! Even so, I managed a couple of useful shots of trains that will soon be a memory in that neck of the woods.
Moving on I headed for Ipswich, where I started to encounter the new Stadler built bi-mode trains that Anglia have bought in great numbers. To say these units are a leap in quality is rather like comparing a Boeing 737 with a DC3! When the full fleet’s in service (along with the Bombardier built Class 720s) there’ll be a rail revolution in Anglia, a regions that’s always made do with cast-offs for decades.
Three car unit 755329 stabled at Ipswich. Unlike any other new train, these Stadler sets are articulated and have a power pack containing the engines as a separate compartment which has a gangway through it. As you can see from the picture, it’s also slightly wider than the passenger vehicles.
My first trip on one of the Stadler units was from Ipswich to Bury St Edmonds and I had to say I was impressed. The build quality’s very good, the seats are very comfortable and there’s a good mix of bay seating with tables and airline type rows. Plus sockets are fitted at every seat although it took me a few minutes fiddling with one to realise they’ve been fitted upside down (which is no bad thing). Acceleration on electric power’s excellent and they’re no slouch on diesel power either. The PA system makes a human voice audible for once and the PIS screens – whilst not as good or as informative as the ones in the new Siemens Class 700 family – give you details of stops en-route. Ride quality felt superior to the new CAF units i’m used to on Northern, whilst noise inside the saloon was minimal. I’d certainly rate them as one of the best new trains we’ve got. I’m looking forward to trying out one of the intercity variants to see the difference, as well as doing a full train test on them with Pip Dunn for a future edition of RAIL magazine.
The saloon of the front car in set 755409.
At Bury St Edmonds I couldn’t get the pictures I wanted so I backtracked to the pretty little station of Thurston, which is a rarity nowadays in that passengers gain access to the Up platform by walking over a foot crossing at track level that’s only protected by lights and sirens.
755416 is about to pass over the foot crossing at Thurston whilst working the 14.57 to Cambridge. The pretty grade 2 listed, three-story station building is intact but disused. It was built in the Jacobean style by Frederick Barnes for the Ipswich and Bury Railway in 1846.
Moving on to Cambridge I stayed long enough to photograph the variety of trains (old and new) that operate a far more intensive service than I remember from a few years ago. Afterwards I headed North to Ely to connect with trains to Peterborough which were worked by EMR Class 158s and GA 755s. I was in time to get another of the GA 755s which made for a very pleasant trip across the flooded flatlands of the fens whilst watching the hailstorms from my cosy perch.
At Peterborough I didn’t have long to wait for a pair of 5-car LNER Azuma’s to arrive on a Leeds service and whisk me back to Yorkshire. A quick change to a Hull to Halifax service meant I was home by 20:30, which has given me time to scribble this – although I’ve more detail and pictures to add in the morning. Right now, it’s time to call it a day…
The snow returned overnight but thankfully only on the high ground above us, although we’re still seeing the occasional flurry. Here’s the view across the Calder Valley to Sowerby this morning.
I’m back in the saddle and preparing to head down to London for the next couple of days. From what I can see there’s no disruption on the railways that’ll affect me getting to the capital, so let’s see how things go…
12:00.
I left home later than expected due to having to sort out a few things, including recovering my Netflix account as some barsteward had hacked the account and changed the email address! The joys of cyber-security (or not)…
Right now I’m on the slightly late running 11:44 from Halifax to Manchester Victoria which is worked by the first of the 2-car CAF class 195s, number 001.
There seem to be a few teething problems still, it’s not exactly baking hot in here, in fact I’ve had to put my coat back on. The wifi isn’t working and the reservation screens are showing the code ‘DILAX’ (whatever that means). On the plus side, this is a reasonably fast journey now that several stops have been cut. We only call at Hebden Bridge, Todmorden and Rochdale. Of course it could be faster if some of the generous ‘pathing allowances’ were removed, which mean we amble through Lancashire! We even have a five minute layover at Rochdale, which the conductor announces.
As is often the case, the Pennines form a border between weather fronts. It’s actually been a sunny morning for much of the time in Yorkshire, despite the odd snow flurry. My walk to the station was really pleasant. Here in Lancashire the clouds are far more built up and threatening more than a flurry!
13:46.
I’ve now set up office on a nice warm Pendolino, which is such a contrast to the chilly CAF unit from earlier. This time of day/week the train’s reasonably quiet so I’ve got a table of four all to myself. My fellow passengers in coach U seems to be business travellers, mostly. A pair of them are holding a meeting on another table nearby. A quick look around the coach confirms my suspicions, 90% of folk in this coach are staring at a screen of one form or another, whether it’s a laptop, ipad or smartphone. Just two women (who look like leisure travellers) are actually sat chatting!
Outside my hermetically sealed and tilting bubble the world’s flashing by. Rural Cheshire doesn’t seem as badly flooded as many of the places I’ve visited recently although there’s still plenty of standing water on flat roofs, pavements and fields. Right, it’s time to knuckle down to work and clear some emails…
15:10.
I’m now within the orbit of the M25 and my email inbox has been considerably slimmed-down, although it’ll be a while yet before it’s a single page! Disappointingly, the sunshine the forecast predicted has failed to materialise. In truth, it’s far duller ‘dahn Sarf’ than it was up North, which is a bit of a bummer. Still, I’m sure I can find something to occupy myself with for the next few hours…
This morning the wind woke us up before the alarm clock got its chance! Our little refuge is getting a battering from the elements and as I made coffee the rain arrived, drenching the windows, making it difficult to see more than a few metres. A bush on the edge of the property provided a useful wind gauge as I could watch it shivering as each gust hit. I pity any birds planning on nesting right now! Stormy weather no longer seems unusual nowadays, it’s become the norm – a worrying thought.
We’re driving back to Yorkshire today, which might be ‘fun’. The weather forecast has just appeared on the TV news and heavy snow is predicted for the North – and not just limited to high ground. Our plans for doing some sightseeing before we head home may have to be binned…
09:45.
Packing the car in a howling gale was fun but at least the rain has abated and nothing got blown away. We’re now ready to sally forth from the warmth of our little retreat and brave the elements to indulge in a spot of weather-watching. Our first stop was just outside Beaumaris, where we spent some time observing a pair of vessels fishing close to shore in the Menai Strait, which was at high tide. This isn’t a sight you can normally get so close to. Watching them zig-zag up and down over a small area of the strait as they deployed and collected their dredging nets was really quite interesting. We worked out that they were probably after shellfish, but we’d no idea what. It was only when I looked up this trawler on the internet that the answer was revealed. Mussels.
According to internet records, the Belfast registered Mare Gratia is a 43 metre long, 315 gross tonnes mussel dredger built in Holland in 2003. The boat’s been a regular visitor to Wales for many years.
I’d hoped to have got some more shots of life around the Strait and the suspension bridge but the combination of high tide and low cloud didn’t lend itself to the sort of shots that I had in mind. Ah, well – we’re just going to have to come back another time! Mind you, as we’re planning to have a crack at that Penrhyn Quarry zip-wire in the summer…
12:20.
We’ve made our way back through the Ogwyn valley to Betws-y-Coed and boy is it wet! It was bad enough around the town itself, but then we headed North up the Conwy valley to get back to the coast and really hit the flooding. This is the B5106 across the valley to Llanrwst! The valley’s effectively been cut in half as this is one of only two few river crossings between Betwys and Conwy.
Here’s another view showing how badly the river Conwy has burst its banks. The actual bridge over the river is that hump in the road in the distance! Here’s the fields to the left of the last picture. The fields are flooded to a depth of 1-1.2 metres. There’s a hell of a lot of water out there.
18:30.
We’ve made it home with little incident, despite the weather. Once we left the Conwy valley the weather actually brightened up and for a period we actually had some sunshine! Even so, the countryside on both sides of the border was absolutely sodden. I’ve never seen so many flooded fields.
Bowling along the M62 we were fine until we passed Manchester when the leaden skies opened once again. Leaving the motorway at Ripponden the roads resembled lakes as the water was running off the hills in torrents. The only consolation was that the torrential rain had washed away the dusting of snow the area had received first thing this morning. We didn’t see any, which was a relief.
The pair of us are now relaxing at home in the warm, unpacking our kit and grateful the journey back wasn’t as fraught as it could have been.
Tomorrow I abandon the roads (flooded or otherwise) to get back on the rails as I’m heading back to London for the George Bradshaw address tomorrow evening at the IMechE. It’s always a great excuse to catch-up and gossip with friends and colleagues from the rail industry and media and – more often than not – hear from an interesting speaker. I’m staying overnight at the home of a friend, so my trip will allow me to fill some picture requests from clients and catch up with the latest changes to the capitals rail network, which I’ve neglected recently as there’s been so much happening up in the North. At least the weather in my old home’s looking better than it has been here in the North recently so the camera should be kept busy. No doubt there’ll also be time for a rolling blog…
Paul Bigland 