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Paul Bigland

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Paul Bigland

Category Archives: Community rail

Rolling blog. One last thing…

27 Friday May 2022

Posted by Paul Bigland in Community rail, Community Rail Network, Photography, Railways, Rolling blogs, Travel

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08:30.

I wasn’t expecting to be staying in Sheffield last night. But, there’s one last photographic opportunity for Community Rail week that seemed daft not to fit in – especially as it’s at such a scenic location Edale in the Hope valley. A group of Network Rail staff are joining the station friends to give the station a heavier spruce-up. Many hands make light work and all that.

So now I find myself sat on a 2-car Northern Class 156 ready to depart Sheffield and trundle up the valley.

Raring to go…

Job done, I’ll be heading home to Halifax for the weekend and a time to edit the plethora of pictures that I’ve taken over the past few days.

08:45.

It’s a lovely morning to be heading for Hope, there’s high cloud around and a fair bit of wind too, but plenty of sunshine. The train’s already busy with a mixture of students, walkers and cyclists heading to college or for a day out.

08:45.

Heading West I’ve noted a substantial amount of work being done around Bamford station by Network Rail contractors. They appear to be putting in a haul road on the North side of the line, although I’ve no idea why. I’m assuming its to do with the capacity improvements planned for the route.

12:45.

That was in interesting interlude. Edale station’s a lovely little place that’s seen a lot of inhancement work recently. All the station fencing has been renewed (paid for from car-parking charges) whilst the station friends have added new planters, artwork, running-in boards and old pictures of the station. This has been added to with Ukrainian flags and bunting.

On time, the volunteers from Network Rail, Transport for Gtr Manchester and the local station friends arrived and set about tackling various jobs such as litter-picking and tree-trimming in the old goods yard whilst others had a big clear-up of the tree-lined station footpaths which were in need of a good clear-up.

The group getting a safety brief before beginning work.13

13:45.

Having photographed what the groups were getting up to I took my leave after a couple of hours and headed back to Sheffield to finally head home. The 2-car Northern service had room but the 8-car Arriva Cross-Country train I caught back to Leeds was full and standing. I shared a vestibule with a group of off-duty S Yorks police officers off to York for a stag do. Leeds station was just as busy as the train. There’s a lot of people dragging around big suitcases right now!…

Rolling blog. A man of Kent…

26 Thursday May 2022

Posted by Paul Bigland in Community rail, Community Rail Network, Kent, Photography, Railways, Rolling blogs, Travel

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Community rail, Community Rail Network, Kent, Photography, Railways, Rolling blogs, Travel

08:00

Well, for a day anyway! I’ve woken up to be greeting by a fabulously sunny day here in Folkstone, a town I’ve been pleasantly surprised by. I’ve stayed in the Ship Inn overlooking the harbour. It’s a quiet little pub and my room is lovely. Here’s the view.

I’m preparing to head out for the day and explore a little before I’m due to begin work in Ashford later this morning at another Community Rail Network event celebrating Rail Week. I’ll blog about what I get up to…

10:30.

It’s not often that I’m pleasantly surprised by a town in the UK nowadays but I have to admit Folkestone is the place. It’s reinvented itself in recent years and a damned fine job they’ve done of it too. The Ferry port is long gone but the harbour and the harbour railway and pier have been transformed into an excellent tourist spot. I’ll add a load of pictures later and blog about it in detail but the town (unlike its cousin Dover, which is a shithole) is really attractive with a bohemian vibe due to artworks and quirky shops and bars.

Looking back on the tiwn from the harbour breakwater.

14:30.

Well, that was a stressful few hours. Firstly problems on the rails meant I thought I was going to be late getting to Ashford. As it was I made my train with just 3 minutes to spare rather than the relaxed 25 mins I was expecting. Then I got a text from a nag saying “could you get those Crossrail pics to us – only we’re on press today”? So, with no notice I managed to pull a rabbit out of a hat (after some wifi false starts) and get them over. As if that wasn’t enough I gad to go straight to work photographing students from Ashford college getting lessons in all aspects of the railways (safety, ticketing etc) on a round trip on the train to Maidstone East. That was actually good fun. The students were lovely and watching their delight in being let loose on making announcements over the station PA at Maidstone was priceless.

Now I’m taking a minute to get my brath back before getting some library pictures before beginning the trek back North…

17:10.

This visit to Kent is coming to an end. Whilst I was here I decided to nip over to Dover to get a few pictures as my records show I’ve not been there since 2011. Not a lot’s changed around the station to be fair and what little of the place I’ve seen hasn’t changed my opinion of the town. Whilst I was there I did have time for a quick pint and enjoyed the last rays of the sunshine outside The Priory, the pub opposite the station which is where I stayed all those years ago. It’s one of those rare beasts – a pub which still hosts live music.

Now I’m on one of SET’s high-speed services back to London to head back to Yorkshire. I’ve a fast mobile office back to the capital with plug-sockets and wifi – what more do I need? (A bar and restaurant car? Ed)…

17:33.

My mobile office is now speeding along High-Speed 1 to London. A railway that exposes all the anti High-Speed 2 environmental scaremongering as just that. It’s 15 years since this line opened to passengers and the scars from building it have long healed. I really must come back and spend a couple of days taking pictures along the route as the last ones I took were for a client and I’m not allowed to use them.

17:45.

I’m curious. On both my trips on SET ‘Javelins’ the Train Manager has announced which toilets are working, so by implication – this is a problem. This set (like all class 395s) has two toilets, a fully accessible one and a cubicle. The access one seems to have conked out. Is this a common issue?

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, 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 me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

Thank you!

Rolling blog. Community rail week starts today…

23 Monday May 2022

Posted by Paul Bigland in Community rail, Community Rail Network, London, Photography, Railways, Rolling blogs, Travel, West Yorkshire

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Community rail, Community Rail Network, London, Railways, Rolling blogs, Travel, West Yorkshire

07:30.

I’m preparing to head off to the opening of Community Rail week which is kicking off with events in Bradford and Bingley. This year the message will be centred on increasing confidence and encouraging people to travel by train with the simple call to action, ‘Give the Train a Try’. You can find out what’s happening where and when by following this link.

Afterwards I’ll be heading down South as I’m staying in the London area tonight ready for the opening of Crossrail tomorrow where I have another assignment.

Feel free to keep popping back to see how my day goes…

09:08.

The journey begins. I’m off to Bradford for our first event of the day. Taking me there is a Northern 2-car Class 195. Unsurprisingly, it’s busy!

09:45.

I’ve strolled across from Bradford Interchange to Forster Sq to await the arrival of the rest of the Community Rail Network team. It’s a walk I always enjoy as ‘Bratfud’ (as the locals pronounce it) has some fantastic buildings. I keep promising myself that I’ll have a day out in the city taking the camera for a wander to photograph some of the delights the city holds. I passed this small slice of history on the way.

Sadly, the modern versions of the city’s stations are hardly architectural gems and are vastly reduced in area and stature.

15:30.

I’m back! It’s been a very hectic few hours so I’ve not had time to blog at all as the day job’s taken precedence. We all rendezvoused at Forster Square where CRN staff were joined by colleagues from Northern Rail and other organisations as well as the women from East meets West. The idea behind this group is to bring women together from different communities by using the train. The women selected have very little or no rail confidence so travelling by train with Community Rail Partnership officers and community group leads inspires them to take further trips – alone, with friends and with their own families. The group enables the women to have different experiences which they can access locally by train. Some of the women are single mums and are from isolated backgrounds so the project has really helped raise their self-esteem and provide them with a sense of community. They were all very excited to be taking part in the the event. Before we left we were joined by Rail Minister Wendy Morton, who is the MP for Aldridge-Brownhills. Needless to say, I was kept fully occupied taking pictures on the train and at Bigley station where the Minister met other Community Rail Officers and the local station friends. It was all extremely informal. To her credit the Minister was open and approachable to all, not surrounded by SPADs or ‘minders’.

Afterwards we we took part in a walk from the station to the top of the famous Bingley five-flight locks on the Leeds-Liverpool canal, guided by staff from the Canal and River Trust. Walking backwards along a canal bank whilst taking pictures of dignitaries isn’t my favourite job as there’s always the worry that you’ll end up either going arse over tit or in the cabal, but I managed it without accident!

At the top of the lock we took over the small cafe for a lunch of tea and sandwiches before retracing our steps to the station and disappearing off in different directions. I headed into Leeds and found a quiet corner of the Leeds Tap to download and edit some pictures before sending a batch out to the various PR and Media people on my lists. Now I’m sat on LNER’s 15:15 service to London which has become a mobile editing suite as I sort out a bigger picture selection. Meanwhile, here’s a few for your delectation.

Rail Minister Wendy Morton (seated, left) talks to some of the women from East meets West on the train to Bingley from Bradford. Standing is Karen Bennett. Karen is community rail education officer at Community Rail Lancashire, and a CRN Board member.

Everyone poses for a group photograph at Bingley station with some of the excellent work of the station friends on display behind.

The Bingley station friends having a laugh and a giggle with the Minister.

Gerald Townson Chairman at Leeds-Lancaster-Morecambe Community Rail Partnership gave a presentation to the Rail Minister on the work CRP’s are doing to encourage rail travel, supported by Community Rail Officers Brian Howarth and Catherine Huddleston.

17:25.

We’re now approaching London after an easy (albeit slightly late) run from Leeds. The weather’s picked up too. It looks like there’s a nice sunny evening in the offing. I’m not going to be staying long in the centre but there is one place Im going to stop at on my way through Euston…

23:00

It’s time to call it a day folks. As I was staying in the Watford area I hooked up with a local friend whom I met when I was spending a lot of time down here working for Network Rail on the 2014-15 Watford blockades. Alan Harte is a fellow railway person, cat lover and beer aficionado – so it would have been rude not to meet up for a couple of jars.

Right now I’m back at my accommodation, repowering all my devices and editing pictures ready for another busy day tomorrow as Crossrail finally opens. Watch this space…

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, 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 me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

Thank you!

Rolling blog. Yorkshire roundabout…

26 Tuesday Apr 2022

Posted by Paul Bigland in Community rail, Photography, Railways, Rolling blogs, Travel, West Yorkshire, Yorkshire

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Community rail, Photography, Railways, Rolling blogs, Travel, West Yorkshire, Yorkshire

09:30.

Today sees me travelling around the shire from West to South as I’ve a variety of things to do. First off this morning is one that’s familiar – and local. The friends of Mytholmroyd station are having a big volunteer event where Northern Rail staff volunteers are descending for the day to add extra bodies and muscle-power to help tackle some of the bigger and more complex jobs around the station that could do with a hand (and younger sinews). As an old friend of the group I’m dropping in to capture shots of the day, documenting what these partnerships can achieve and also showcase what the community rail sector gets up to.

After Mytholmroyd I’ll be travelling across to South Yorkshire to visit Sheffield where I’ll be catching up with at least one old friend (and maybe more). Feel free to keep popping back to see how things pan out as I document the day.

10:25.

Not the greatest start. Having walked down to Sowerby Bridge station for the short hop to Mytholmroyd I find my train is losing time by the minute. Due in at 10:24 it’s now scheduled to arrive at 10:29, having slipped as each minute’s passed. It’s a minor inconvenience in the scheme of things but it makes me late for the briefing and being late is one of my personal bugbears.

10:30.

Hmm, a 2-car 195 working all the way to Chester. That’s going to be cosy!

12:15.

I arrived just in time to miss the group briefing in the local church hall, but as I’m very familiar with the station and the group it wasn’t a big deal. Seventeen volunteers from Northern rail had turned up to offer a hand and they were allocated a variety of tasks such as digging up old Daffodils, repotting the planters on the platforms, general weeding or moving larger plants that had outgrown their spaces. The place was a hive of activity as people dressed in high-vis buzzed around like a swarm of angry bees! Here’s some examples of the activities.

Northern Rail volunteers clearing out old plants from the recycled plastic planters on the platforms before replanting them with a fresh display.
The platform approaches at Mytholmroyd have steep banks on either side. Here, volunteers clear the entrance to the car park of old Daffodils and weed the area before replanting.
Doing the hard work (digging out and moving plants) under the watchful eye of one of the station friends.
The latest art installation is these terracotta impressions of the various station friends!

Sadly, I couldn’t stay for lunch so I bid adieu and caught the 11:53 to Leeds via Bradford Interchange, which gave me enough time to download, edit and post the pictures as a Class 195 makes a decent mobile office – unlike the train I changed onto in Leeds where a Class 150/2 was waiting to take me to Sheffield. These things have neither tables nor power sockets and I dislike balancing my laptop on my knee. So, it’s back to typing via my smartphone.

My steed awaits…

18:45.

Well, that’s been an interesting day…

Due to timings Richard Clinnick and I ended up catching the same train to Sheffield. I joined it at Leeds whilst Richard picked it up at Wakefield where he’d been to meet the staff at the Rail Business Daily offices where he was inducted into his new role as Editor of Inside Track magazine. On arrival at Sheffield we met up with another rail industry partner in crime – Lucy Prior. The three of us spent over an hour swapping intel and gossip before I headed off to explore parts of the region I wasn’t familiar with. In this case, Rotherham. Having taken a short break between towns I now know why I’d never had it on my radar. It’s a depressing place. Ignoring the fact the station is famous for turning into a place where you’re more likely to use a canoe than a train in heavy rain, the town itself isn’t exactly what I’d call buzzing. Here’s my introduction to the town centre after leaving the railway station.

Nice…

Frankly, if you wanted to make a ‘zombie apocalypse’ film, Rotherham’s your place. Not only does it have the right levels of decay and dereliction it’s also pretty much deserted. Plus, many of the few souls still shambling around the town centre could easily be signed up as extras – and it wouldn’t cost you much money in make-up either…

I didn’t hang around. One lap of the centre was enough. After that I was on the train back to Sheffield!

– but not on one of these tram-trains, seen here approaching Rotherham Central central station earlier. I caught the Northern rail service following behind. At least the fact I managed this shot was worth the trip…

21:15.

I’m now back at Bigland Towers after uneventful journey’s home. Neither of my Northern trains back to Halifax was particularly busy but then neither was Leeds station. Mind you, Halifax was even quieter – almost everything seemed to have closed down for the night despite it being before 8 ‘o clock. Even the pubs had given up and decided to shut up shop.

Now I’m having an easy evening editing pictures from the day. I might as well make the most of my time – Dawn’s gone round to a friend’s for supper, so there’s only me in! Ah well, it’s another day tomorrow…

I’ve a favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, 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 me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

Thank You!

Rolling blog. Conference call…

08 Tuesday Mar 2022

Posted by Paul Bigland in Community rail, Community Rail Network, Nottingham, Photography, Railways, Travel

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Community rail, Community Rail Network, Nottingham, Photography, Railways, Travel

09:00.

It’s a sunny but chilly day here in Nottingham and we’re all getting ready for day 2 of the Community Rail Network annual conference. I’ll be photographing/blogging through the day before heading home after the conference finishes later this afternoon….

09:15.

We’ve kicked off with a briefing on the new Great Britain Railways structure and plans from Sarah Williams, Community Rail Lead, GBR Transition team.

09:35.

Now we have CRNs Deputy Chief Executive Brian Barnsley talking about the growth of CRN and the challenges for the future.

10:00 following the first talks there was a busy and active Q&A session. Here’s Maisie Axon from Siemens Mobility posing one.

It’s 11:45 and the conference has broken up into three workshops to discuss ‘planning in uncertain times’. There’s been some really interesting discussions but it’s not all been doom and gloom by any means as can be seen by this light-hearted suggestion board and picture of CRN’s Denise Havard at one of the workshops.

15:30.

The conference is now over for another year. It’s been a great event and I’ll add a few more pictures later. Right now I’m beginning the trek back to Yorkshire after bidding adieu to some old community rail friends who decided to wait for their train at the Micropub on the station which is located in the old wooden taxi office on the South side of the building. I’m taking the ‘scenic’ route via the Robin Hood line to Worksop in order to do some photographic reconnaissance. I’ve not taken pictures along the central and Northern sections for many a year so this was a good opportunity to have a look. My chariot is another ex-Scotrail 3-car Class 170 and it’s well loaded.

The first section of the line proper parallels the NET tram system which provides an interesting contrast in transport modes.

15:51.

After a delay caused by the fact the line’s single-track towards Hucknall so we had to wait for a Southbound service to clear the section we finally reached Hucknall where the tram tracks end. Now we’re on our own over old railway infrastructure that’s a shadow of its former self due to de-industrialisation and the mass closure of colleries. That said, the line hits a bit of a rural oasis after escaping Hucknall’s clutches. Well, until we hit Newstead – formerly called Newstead Colliery Village where the proliferation of Silver Birch trees (the first coloniser of old industrial sites) tells a tale.

16:03.

There’s not much to see at Kirby-In-Ashfield where a line trails on from the left and we’re back on double track, because the station’s situated in a cutting. At Sutton Parkway, the station’s sat in the middle of an modern industrial estate but at least it provides more passengers.

The shift between new housing. industrial dereliction and pockets of green continued as far as Mansfield where the the original station stone built building survives on the Worksop platform. Nothing original survives on the opposite side – and I’m not just talking about the station! The town’s undergone various phases of redevelopment and not all look successful or aesthetic!

16:15.

We’ve arrived at Mansfield Woodhouse which used to see Robin Hood services terminate. The old goods shed was converted to provide shelter for trains which used a spur off the main line. Now only a few peak hour services from Nottingham end their journeys here.

At Shirebrook an original building survives as a ‘business centre’ but the fans of sidings and old locomotive depot that serviced coal trains are long gone. Only the old Midland Railway signalbox that guards Shirebrook Jn lives to tell the (much quieter) tale…

Now the line becomes rural once again until it hits Cresswell where we encounter semaphore signals a very derelict and abandoned old station building and a new(ish) basic station just to the North of the original. There’s even an ancient wooden-post semaphore signal here, a rare survivor nowadays.

I’m beginning to regret not having brought my rail atlas. This section of line’s unfamiliar so trying to piece together the railway’s geography is difficult. Where did some of these severed sidings and abandoned lines go to or serve? I’ve no idea…

19:10.

Sorry – another break in the narrative as I was too busy in the real world! Approaching Worksop was fun as the still-extant sidings that once used to be full of coal wagons now have a very different purpose. Rail businessman Harry Needle has leased them from Network Rail and invested millions in re-fettling them and making the sites secure. They’re an ideal vehicle storage centre and there’s plenty of stuff needing his services for a variety of reasons. My train passed off-lease LNER Mk3 loco-hauled coaches, a variety of off-lease Class 321 EMUs, plus brand new Alstom (formerly Bombardier) Class 701 and 720 trains waiting to go to the TOCs that ordered them. There’s also a few heritage locos and coaches, plus a brace of Class 92 electric locos up on jacks as they’re sans bogies. It’s a very surreal sight.

I had chance to mull this over whilst I had a pint in ‘The Mallard’ the friendly, cosy little pub on the station where I spent a pleasant time chatting to people before getting my train North-Westwards…

I’m now heading for Leeds on a Northern Class 158 from Lincoln. The train’s been busy throughout the trip, firstly to Sheffield, but now on the way to Leeds. We had a crew-change at Sheffield and the young woman who took over as conductor is excellent. She’s not afraid of the intercom or public speaking. Her explanation of why we’re late (tresspassers) was spot on and struck just the right note.

21:59.

I’m now back at home and lounging with a beer before hitting the sack. Today’s been a fascinating and diverse one that’s left me with lots of pictures to edit and words to process – starting first thing tomorrow morning. But, I’ll leave you with one last picture from yesterday’s trip on Crossrail now that the embargo’s expired. Here’s a driver’s eye view of the new railway seen from the cab of a Bombardier built Class 345 as the train’s sat at the platform at Paddington. I don’t know about you, but having spent a lot of time in modern train cabs there’s one thing that really catches my eye. It’s the Screwfix style 3-pin plug socket above the driver’s head!

The Community Rail Awards 2021…

09 Thursday Dec 2021

Posted by Paul Bigland in Community rail, Photography

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Community rail, Community Rail Network, Photography, Railways

I’ve been too busy to blog today as we’ve been preparing for tonight’s Community Rail awards at the Guildhall in Southampton. We should have been here last year but Covid put the mockers on the event so we postponed it for a year. Tonight’s event will be hosted by Jools Townsend, Chief Executive of Community Rail Network plus Mark Hopwood, MD of GWR and Claire Mann, MD of Southwestern Railway. As I’ll be busy throughout the event I’ll add pictures when I can to give you a flavour of the evenin – so stay tuned. We’re kicking off in 10 minutes (at 17:00) when the drinks reception begins – so stay tuned…

Rolling blog. Southampton cruise…

08 Wednesday Dec 2021

Posted by Paul Bigland in Community rail, Community Rail Network, Photography, Railways, Rolling blogs, Travel

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Community rail, Community Rail Network, Railways, Rolling blogs, Travel, West Yorkshire

10:00.

Well, I hope our trip’s a cruise! We’re currently aboard Northern’s 09:44 from Halifax to Manchester Victoria on the first leg of out trip. Despite yesterday’s storm the railways seem little affected, which is great news. OK, out trains a couple of minutes late due to slippery rails and low adhesion, but when the weather’s as wet and windy as it has been that’s hardly a surprise. One of my first tasks this morning (well, after making coffee, obviously!) was to peruse various website to check on real-time train performance. Suitably reassured I’m relaxed about the trip.

Having stopped at Hebden Bridge where we picked up another member of the CRN staff we’re now on our way West though a dank and dismal Calder valley. At least Hannah and Dawn have added some colour!

12:05.

Everything’s going to plan! Our journey across Manchester went without a hitch and we rendezvoused with the rest of the CRN advance party at Piccadilly. Now we’re settled in on a 4-Car Arriva Cross-Country Voyager for the long trip to Southampton, which wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea (4 hours 18 mins on a Voyager probably qualifies for an ‘Iron Man’ award!) but so far, the train’s relatively empty so we’ve room to spread out.

The weather’s improving as we head South too. The rain was hammering on the roof of Piccadilly but here in Stoke-on-Trent we’ve managed to encounter some sunshine and a smattering of blue-sky. Meanwhile, the CRN staff have turned the train into a mobile office, sorting out some last-minute changes to the awards.

Yep, I’m outnumbered by the fairer sex…

14:10.

Leaving Birmingham we called at International where a railhead treatment train was sitting between turns Seeing these vehicles working this late in the year seems unusual, but as some leaves are still clinging on to trees by their metaphorical fingernails it’s hardly surprising. It’s been a long autumn!

Right now we’re heading for Oxford in the best weather I’ve seen for days as we’ve blue skies spattered with high cloud rather then the wall to wall dullness that’s been the norm. Our train’s filled up but seats are still available and the atmosphere’s stress-free.

15:30.

And it was all going so well…!

After an amble along the Thames Valley to Reading as we were already 5 minutes late we ended up kicking our heels for quite some time as one of the train crew who was meant to be joining us was stuck elsewhere. Five minutes became ten, then twenty, then twenty five, then – finally, whoever we were waiting for turned up and we got away twenty six minutes late. But we’d lost our path, so we were nearly 30 down by the time we passed Southcote Junction. We’re now at the mercy of signallers regulating the service and slotting us in as they can…

17:00.

Made it! As I predicted, we lost more time en-route, finally arriving in Bournemouth 39 minutes late. Judging by the amount of young women hardly dressed for the season who were joining the train as we departed there’s a concert in Bournemouth tonight!

We’re currently relaxing at the hotel sorting our kit out whilst watching the latest political omnishambles unfold via the TV. The PM’s Press Spokesperson, Allegra Stratton has announced her resignation but I don’t that’s going to stop the awkward questions. Such as – which press members of the Lobby attended, because it’s painful to watch some sections of the media completely ignoring the story. The suspicion is that there was a lot of colluding going on here and a lot of people have questions to answer – including the Metropolitan police. Now we’re being told there’s going to be a Prime Ministerial announcement at 18:00 which is sounding like another attempt to say ‘look over there’. Meanwhile, we’ll be watching the announcement with a drink in hand, hoping Johnson’s not going to try and pull a stunt that could affect tomorrow’s awards…

Rolling blog: Kicking off Community rail week…

18 Monday Oct 2021

Posted by Paul Bigland in Community rail, Community Rail Network, Green issues, Photography, Railways, Rolling blogs

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Community rail, Community Rail Network, Green issues, Photography, Railways, Rolling blogs

It’s a reasonably early start for me as I’m off to Manchester to join colleagues from Community Rail network to kick off Community Rail week, a new event with an exciting range of activities taking place across community rail, this year championing the message Go Green by Train, as part of the build-up to COP26. The essential message is quite simple. Ditch the car and go by train. Here’s why;

Our opening event is at Manchester Piccadilly station from 10:00 – 15:00.

Community Rail Lancashire, Mid Cheshire CRP, Calder Valley CRP and Liverpool to Manchester CRP will be promoting the Go Green by Train message, highlighting how visitors can explore a wealth of attractions and activities by train.

I’ll be blogging and posting pictures through the day…

09:10.

I’m en-route to Manchester although my train’s running late. I was in plenty of time at Halifax so caught an earlier Blackpool bound train as far as Hebden Bridge in order to get a few library shots and admire the old pictures of the railway displayed in the waiting room.

The Manchester service was running behind us but was several minutes late. Made up of a pair of Class 195/0s the service lost even more time outside Todmorden as (I’m assuming) it was stuck behind another service). Having crossed over the border into Lancashire we’re now running 16 minutes late.

I finally arrived at Piccadilly ‘on time’ but 22 minutes later than I’d planned. The lateness of our train turned out to be because of signalling issues around Todmorden. ho hum! Still, I managed to get the pictures we needed, including this one for the official launch of Community Rail Week.

Meanwhile, on the concourse, various community rail groups (and Network Rail) had set up a stall filled with leaflets and various goodies to give away…

16:00.

Whist some of the CRN team stayed at Manchester some of us had another appointment back in West Yorkshire. The friends of Mytholmroyd station were unveiling artwork painted in conjunction with a local school, so I headed back across the Pennines with Jools Townsend and other CRN colleagues to cover the event. For once, the weather let us down! Rain had set in as we left Manchester and it followed us home. Even so, we had a station building in which to shelter from the rain and also some delicious food laid on for us to enjoy before the pupils of ‘Spider Class’ at Scout Road academy could join us. Here they are with the artwork they’d contributed to, which is on the theme of ‘Transport through the ages’.

20:30.

I’m now back home in the warm and dry, preparing my kit for the next few days adventures which will be a marked contrast to today. Early tomorrow I head down to London and (hopefully) the South coast for an assignment which will no doubt generate a rolling blog. On Wednesday I’ll be looking at the opposite end of the railway spectrum and checking out work on constructing Hight Speed 2 at Euston. There’s a massive amount of work going on on hundreds of sites along the HS2 route at the moment, and of course Euston is one of the main terminal stations, with the challenge of building complex tunnel approaches without disturbing the existing railway. It should be a very interesting visit…

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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 appreciate all the help that we can get to aid us in bouncing back from lockdowns. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Thank you!

The Friends of Mytholmroyd station win the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service.

24 Saturday Jul 2021

Posted by Paul Bigland in Community rail, Mytholmroyd, Railways, West Yorkshire

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Community rail, Mytholmroyd, Railways, West Yorkshire

Earlier today the Lord Lieutenant of West Yorkshire, Ed Anderson presented the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service to the members of the Mytholmroyd Station Partnership at a ceremony in the restored station building which the group has put so much time and effort into bringing back into use.

The award was presented to Sue and Geoff Mitchell who received it on behalf of all the members of the groups, many of whom were able to attend – along with representatives of the rail industry and local councillors. As friends of the friends, Dawn and I went along to celebrate their outstanding achievement. Needless to say, I took my camera along, so here’s a few pictures from the day

The Lord Lieutenant of West Yorkshire, Ed Anderson greets Geoff Mitchell in traditional Covid ‘arm bump’ fashion…
The Lord Lieutenant meeting local Councillors and community representatives
Addressing the stations friends and their guests inside the restored station building.
The Lord Lieutenant presenting Sue Mitchell from the station friends with the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service
The Lord Lieutenant presenting Sue Mitchell from the Friends of Mytholmroyd station with the engraved award and the certificate signed by the Queen.
Everyone came together outside the building for the obligatory group photograph to celebrate the (well earned) award.

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Thank you!

You learn something new every day…

01 Thursday Oct 2020

Posted by Paul Bigland in Community rail, Environment, Railways, Travel

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Community rail, Environment, Travel

In my case, today was the discovery of the fact there’s a Bilberry bumblebee!

I’d been on a Zoom call with the friends of Buxton station as part of my role as a Judge for the Community Rail Awards. Buxton has an excellent friends group who’re a great example of the work station friends do in their community beyond their local railway station. Whilst we were talking about their recent achievements Dave Carlisle mentioned that they’d built a huge flower bed outside the station using old railway sleepers donated by Network Rail (and there’s a long story about getting them from Crewe to Buxton during lockdown, but I won’t tell that here), what surprised me was that Dave mentioned 1/3 of the flowerbed was being dedicated to helping a local endangered species – the Bilberry Bumblebee!

Now, I knew there was many species of bee in the UK through working with my former CRA judge, Paul Cook of the Royal Horticultural Society. One of the delights of visiting different stations during the judging was seeing station flower beds literally buzzing with bees, but Bilberry bees? Here’s what Buxton have been up to (in their own words)…

“Buzzing Stations” project – along with Friends of Glossop Station, FoBS initiated this idea that has crossed the whole Peak District to included stations at Buxton, Edale, Glossop, Hadfield, Hope, Bamford, Grindleford & Hathersage.

The High Peak is home to the Bilberry bumblebee, under threat of extinction. Our work aims to help it thrive and survive. We built a huge (2m x 5m) planter unit from recycled railway sleepers (negotiated donation from Network Rail’s Redundant Assets team at Crewe and encouraged long-term partners, DB Cargo to collect them for us!), filled it with donated compost (from SITA/Suez) and plants, mostly donated (some from Morrisons, through their Community Champion, Rob Harrison). The plants were chosen to provide nectar to our bees prior to hibernation.

We are proud that the Bumblebee Express (the name of the planter unit devised as a media vehicle) was built under strict socially-distanced controls during lockdown.

We also intended to run Bumblebee Safaris from the station, but covid ruled this out, so we prepared a Self-guided version in leaflet form – launched on Heritage Open Day to complement their theme of Hidden Nature, 2,000 leaflets were printed. We were very proud when Jimmy Doherty commended our work as part of his recent TV campaign work, Jimmy’s Big Bee Rescue.

Legacy bumblebee artwork takes the form of an interpretation panel, bumblebees of the Peak District “spotters guide” (we negotiated permission to use the artwork directly with the Artist, Becca Thorne), “Make a Bee-line to Buxton” travel promotional poster (we purchased a special Licence to use the 1950’s image by Kenneth Steel) and commissioned a bespoke “special bees on a special landscape” mosaic from local community Artist, Jo Spencer.

Here’s Becca Thorne’s very attractive work.

It’s great to see the co-operation and information sharing that goes on between station friends groups and the innovative work this inspires. Living in the Pennines in West Yorkshire where bilberries are plentiful and bilberry pies are a local delicacy I was curious to find out if the bees existed here. Sure enough, they do, Here’s an illustration how the bees look from ‘Blooms for Bees’. The fun bit for me is how they remind me of railway workers high-vis!

Copyright Blooms For Bees

You can find out more about this type of bee here from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.

It’s fantastic to see the work community rail volunteers are doing in so many ways – despite the depravations of Covid and the difficulties that social-distancing and lockdowns have caused.

Perhaps, when all this is over, you might want to pop along and visit one of these stations and see the great work the groups are doing to grow the railways, help the environment and build their local communities. Your visit might even inspire you to get involved…

You can learn much more about the work and world of community rail here – an if you want to learn more about the Friends of Buxton station you can find them on Facebook here.

I’ve a favour to ask…
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Thank you!

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