Category Archives: Down memory lane

Rolling blog. Welsh wanderings…

21 Friday Feb 2020

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11:00.

The pair of us have had a busy morning at home getting ready for our weekend wanderings to Wales as we’ve both needed to finish up some stuff before we left. I’ve been slaving away over a hot computer, invoicing, setting up commissions and adding yet more vintage pictures to my Zenfolio website. Here’s another sample that shows just how much has changed in 30 years.

This is Bristol Bath Rd locomotive depot which was right next door to Temple Meads railway station. In fact, this shot’s taken from the platform end. The depot was home to a varied collection of freight and passenger locomotives plus diesel multiple units and shunting engines. There was a constant stream of movements on and off shed. Sadly, the depot closed in 1995 and the site was razed. The advent of privatisation and the separation of railfreight and passenger services has rendered such depots redundant.

You can find the rest of the series of pictures in this gallery.

Now it’s time to turn to finishing the packing and head off West. The weather looks like its going to be ‘interesting’ to say the least, so let’s see how the day goes…

13:26.

Oh, the joys of the M62 ln a Friday afternoon when you’re queuing to get past a broken down vehicle…

Not how you want to see any motorway – especially when you’re on it…

17:45. Anglesey

There wasn’t much time for blogging on that journey as both of us were too busy concentrating on the road as the journey over here from West Yorkshire was pretty challenging. It got off to a bad start when (unusually) we joined the M62 at Ainley Top by Huddersfield rather than our usual route via Ripponden. We ran slap bang into a queue of traffic which had built up to due to a broken down lorry in the slow lane. Imagine our chagrin when we passed it, just before the Ripponden junction! The snarl-up added nearly an hour to our journey and the weather conditions we encountered didn’t make it any less stressful. A combination of high whind and heavy rain kept the pair of us on alert.

Swinging off the M62 onto the M6 wasn’t any better, apart from the fact the queues were going in the opposite direction. When we joined the M56 traffic eased, although the clouds of spray thrown UP by HGVs wasn’t much fun. It was only when we crossed the border into Wales that the weather began to pick up somewhat. Speed restrictions on the A55 for imaginary roadworks added more time to our trip but we briefly saw some sunshine around Conwy. It didn’t last. The weather got progressively worse the further West we headed. Looking across the Menai Strait to get our first glimpse of Anglesey we had to struggle to make the island out through the murk! At first, Puffin Island was the only discernable feature, then as the channel narrowed the outline of the island became visible. Dawn didn’t have much time to look, all her concentration had to go in keeping the car steering in a straight line due to the fierce wind that was gusting along that part of the A55.

Once we crossed the iconic original Menai Bridge we took a break and picked up supplies at the nearby Waitrose. Yes folks, they’ve got posh in Anglesey and Waitrose have been canny enough to build their supermarket right next to the old bridge in order to attract as many tourists arriving on the island as possible. It was only 16:00 when we got there but the skies were so heavy and dark it felt like dusk. It wasn’t what we were hoping for but if there’s one thing no-one has any say over it’s the weather.

In the best ‘Blue Peter’ tradition, here’s on I prepared earlier! This is a shot of Thomas Telford’s Menai Bridge that I took back in 2000 that was used in the original Lonely Planet guidebook to Wales. In the background you can see Snowdonia. As is often the case, it’s generating it’s own microclimate where you can have T-shirt weather by the coast but need your thermals on just a few miles down the road.

The rest of the drive along the narrow Beaumaris Rd (which hasn’t changed since I was a kid back in the 1960s) wasn’t too bad as we were in the lee of the wind dues to the roads steep sides, but once through the town and out into the countryside we caught its force again. We’re now tucked up in our lovely Airbnb which has a fabulous (if exposed) location. I’m sure the views will we wonderful once the weather permits. Right now, we’re just glad to be off the roads and in a warm, dry cosy cottage, listening to the wind and rain attacking the place from outside!

We have the ground floor of this custom built property, Tanrallt Bach 1, outside Llangoed near Beaumaris.
And relax! The cosy kitchen/living room area. A great space to rise out the storm outside. Our thoughtful hosts have even left a bottle of red wine on the kitchen table for us…

Tomorrow, whatever the weather throws at us we’re going to get out and explore before heading off to a friends 50th birthday party in evening. I’m not promising a rolling blog, but I’m sure something will appear.

Swapping between worlds…

19 Wednesday Feb 2020

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The past couple of days have seen me busy working from home which has been no bad thing as the weather’s been miserable and hardly conducive to wandering the world with the camera. OK, maybe the world would have been fun – but this corner of West Yorkshire hasn’t been!

Instead, I’ve been tucked up in the warm, editing the pictures I took around Manchester on Monday whilst mixing them with yet another batch of old slide scans from 1990. This little spree has added over 130 new pictures to my Zenfolio website. The contrast are quite fascinating as the UK’s railways have changed massively in the past 30 years and that rate of change is accelerating. Here’s a couple of examples to illustrate what I mean. This is how Sheffield and Cross-Country services looked like in 1990.

Here’s 47849 calling at Sheffield whilst working a Cross-Country service to Poole which is made up of 8 coaches, a far cry from the 4 or 5 coach Voyager DMUs that would replace such trains 13 years later. But then Virgin (who ran Cross-Country) ran far more frequent services than BR ever did.

Meanwhile, in 2020…

Here’s one of Trans-Pennine Express’ new Hitachi built Class 802 units at Manchester Victoria on a service from Newcastle to Liverpool Lime St. These bi-mode units have only entered service over the past few months, adding much needed capacity.

The new selection of 1990s pictures includes shots from London, Ely, Newcastle, Scotland and Tonbridge. You can find them here. So far this year I’ve added nearly 1000 new or historical pictures, which means there’s plenty to look at or buy!

Tomorrow I’ll be more focussed on family matters rather than photography. After that Dawn and I are off to North Wales for a few days as it’s a friends 50th birthday. We’re going to be staying on Anglesey but I’m sure there’ll be time for a bit of blogging in between all the partying and photography. Let’s just hope that the weather picks up as Anglesey is a very photogenic part of the world and where we’ve booked to stay for a few days is an ideal location from which to explore.

Another trip down (travel) memory lane…

12 Sunday Jan 2020

Posted by in Down memory lane, Indonesia, Musings, Photography, Travel

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Despite it being a Sunday I’ve had a busy time in the office scanning old slides as I continue my efforts to wade through the archive and get everything on to my Zenfolio picture website.

Eschewing the recent series of rail pictures I picked out some old travel slides that I’d placed with the old ‘Lonely Planet’ picture library back in the 2000s before they were sold to the BBC and then on to Getty. The world of travel pictures was very different then and it was rather a nice income stream. Those days are long gone. I had the original images returned by Getty a few years ago when they joined the rest of the archive awaiting scanning. This morning I scanned a selection from Indonesia taken on my travels in 1992 and 1998. Here’s a look at a few of them.

This is an image taken at Lake Maninjau in West Sumatra back in June 1992. I spent several weeks on the island which was a fantastic place to travel. In those days you could enter the island by ferry from Georgetown on Penang Island Malaysia. A hydrofoil would carry you across the Straits of Malacca to Belawan in Northern Sumatra which was the port for the main city of Medan. In those days backpackers like myself would travel overland and the next stop for most (including me) was the volcanic Lake Toba. But, I’d been tipped off by other travellers I’d met heading in the opposite direction to me that there was an even more amazing and magnificent volcanic lake – Maninjau – in West Sumatra. They were right. As much as I enjoyed Toba and the Batak culture, Maninjau and the local Minangkabau people were even more interesting. Ever visited a matrilineal Muslim community before? No, neither had I! The lake itself is 16 km long, 7km wide and averages a depth of 105m. It sits at the bottom of a volcanic caldera and it’s an amazing place to arrive at when you reach the lip of the crater then drop down a road with 44 hairpin bends before you reach the main village on the edge of the lake. The picture as taken from the back deck of the little homestay I was residing in. You could bask in the sun, have a swim and then watch the weather change like this, as a rainstorm crept in from the West and boiled in over the crater edge. You knew you still had 20-30 minutes before it reached you. It was a beautiful place to stay, kick back and relax and enjoy activities like walking or cycling around the lake – or just sit and read a book before heading out for some delicious Padang food. I’d love to go back as I was last there in 1998.

This picture was taken on the same trip. I left West Sumatra by ferry from Padang and headed to Java, making my way slowly Eastwards across the island by rail and bus until I arrived here at Mt Bromo.

It’s the most incredible landscape as it really doesn’t look like it belongs on this planet. This is the view from the edge of the original volcanic crater which was taken one sunrise in June 1992. Three smaller volcanos sit in the ‘sea of sands’ inside the original crater. It’ll take you 45 minutes to walk across to them. The volcanoes are still active and have erupted several time in the past 20 years the last time being 2015. Indonesia is famous for its volcanoes, many of which remain active. I visited several but Mt Bromo has to be the most spectacular.

Here’s something a bit different from another trip Lynn and I did across Indonesia back in 1998. This shot was taken at a big cremation ceremony in Ubud, Bali back in October 1998. I’ve long admired the way the Balinese have managed to hang on to their distinctive culture despite mass tourism and being part of an overwhelmingly Muslim country. You might not see much of it if you stay in the tourist traps of Kuta and Sanur on the islands most Southern tip, but get into the hills and it’s very different. The reason I took this shot is because of the juxtaposition of the traditional and modern. Here’s an important and wealthy man in traditional Balinese dress who’s helping run the whole ceremony and he’s on his mobile phone. This is 1998 remember. In those days only 1 in 5 people in the UK had one. Lynn and I were still communicating with most people via ‘snail mail’ and poste restante letter drops as the few places you could find internet access in Indonesia were Post Offices where you used slow, expensive and unreliable dial-up internet. How things have changed in 20 odd years!

If you want to view the rest of the pictures from Indonesia, click on this link.

Friday memories…

06 Friday Dec 2019

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Today’s been yet another wet and windy day in the Calder valley and one I’ve been glad that I’ve not had to venture afar in. Most of it has been spent working at home, apart from an afternoon ‘constitutional’ stroll along the canal and a trip up to my local pub, the ‘Big 6’ to meet up with friends and take part in the Friday quiz which is read out my Mel, in her broad Lancashire accent. Guessing what she’s saying is almost as challenging as getting the answers right (sorry Mel!). To give you an idea, heard of the film Ben Hur? In a Lancashire accent Hur is ‘hair’!

It was a pleasant interlude and nice to spend time having a laugh with friends as my other half is down in London this weekend with the ‘girls’. Right now I’m having a quiet night in and trying to sort through more old pictures. Looking through them makes me very conscious of how time’s flying by. Recently I’ve been adding hundreds of old rail pictures to my Zenfolio website. What I’ve neglected is the 1000s of travel pictures in my collection. Tonight I came across one of my old portfolios which I used to tout around the national newspapers and travel magazines when I first turned professional and lived in London. The internet was in its infancy then so you used to ring up newspapers and magazines to try and get appointments with their picture editors to show off your pictures. Sometimes it would go well, other times not. The worst were some of the travel magazines where Mummy or Daddy had got someone a job through their connections. I’m naming no names, but I remember turning up at one (well known brand) where the bright young thing didn’t even have access to a loupe or a lightbox, so held up a sheet of slides to one of the overhead fluorescent tubes and said “oh, these are pretty colours”…

Here’s a couple of the pictures from those old portfolios and the story behind them. This is a mother Orangutan and her baby trying to pinch some of the bunch of bananas from her mouth which was taken in the Bukit Lawang sanctuary in Sumatra, Indonesia back in July 1998. We were very privileged to see such amazing creatures in the wild.

Lynn (my ex-wife) and I were travelling around the world for 18 months at the time and spent several months in Sumatra. Then, SE Asia was in the doldrums of their ‘Economic Crisis’ which was terrible for them, but good for us as the value of the pound was amazing. I’d been there a few years before when £1 would get you 3,500 Rupiah. When we were there it would buy you 22,000 Rupiah! I look back on those times and realise just how lucky we were to be travelling then, because so much has changed since. Here’s the next picture, which has a very different tale to tell.

This picture was taken as a wedding in Bhavnagar, which is in the Gujarat state in Western India. It was taken on the 19th February 2000. One of the reasons I like it is the way one young girl was distracted and looked away, but that’s not the full story. Bhavnager isn’t on the tourist trail (far from it).

Lynn and I had been out on holiday in South India but I stayed on to explore the railways as the Gujarat was the last place steam locomotives operated. Sadly, I missed them by a couple of weeks, but that’s another story. Bhavnagar is also where Gandhi went to college, so I was interested in it to get travel pictures too.

Whilst I was there I was invited by this family to attend a wedding. It’s not an uncommon experience and Indian weddings are a delight for photographers like me and also a great way to get to meet local people. But there’s yet another layer to this tale…

On my way home I lost some of my notes, including the family’s address, so I was never able to send them the pictures, or keep in contact. Almost a year later, on the 26th January 2001 an earthquake struck the Gujarat. Measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale and lasting about 110 seconds, it was the most powerful earthquake to strike India in half a century. 20,000 people died and when I see this picture I often wonder what the fate of these young girls was.

I wish I had more time to scan these old slides. There’s so many stories they can tell, and so many memories…

The cat’s getting fed up of me!

26 Tuesday Nov 2019

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I’ve spent so much time at home recently due to the foul weather and my determination to catch up on paperwork and scanning old slides that I think our cat’s getting fed up of me getting under his feet (isn’t that normally the other way around? Ed). Thankfully, there’s a number of events on the horizon that’ll see me out and about a lot more over the next couple of weeks including a few jaunts back South to London and the South-East for both work and social reasons . I must admit that I’m starting to yearn for sunnier climes but I can’t see any chance of getting away until next year now – there’s simply too much to do. Once the dust has settled on the results of the general election I’ll have a better idea of my options. Such as – will it be planning for a holiday, or looking to seek political asylum away from Brexit Britain? It’s a good job I’ve been concentrating on scanning old rail slides at the moment rather than the 1000s of travel pictures I have, otherwise I’d really be feeling sick. Images of places like Wigan create little in the way of itchy feet compared to some of the exotic stuff I’ve got in the queue like Brazil, Indonesia or Tanzania. Here’s a good example why. Now, this is no dig at Wigan per-se (Honestly Sheila!) as I have exactly the same sort of shot of Clapham Junction in London, but this is what a shit-tip our railways looked like in 2002.

Thankfully thinks have changed dramatically. It’s not that folk don’t still sometimes throw rubbish onto the tracks, it’s the fact Network Rail continually clean them and TOC staff no longer sweep crap off the platforms onto the rails as if it’s no longer their problem. Images like this remind me more of Indian railway stations than UK ones nowadays.

Expect one last update of 2002 slides tomorrow, then I’m firmly back in the present day…

A good day to stay at home with the cat!

25 Monday Nov 2019

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The weather here in West Yorkshire has continued the miserable run that we’ve had for several days now. Most of the day the other side of the Calder valley’s been half-hidden in the murk or had the valley tops disappear completely in low cloud. This gloomy weather does nothing to lift the spirits, nor does the persistent rain encourage one to venture out. Luckily, I’ve not had to. Jet (our cat) and I have stayed warm and dry at home, him in his basket and I in the office from 06:30 this morning, clearing up paperwork and scanning dozens of old rail slides from 2002. If there’s one silver lining about the weather, this is it – I’m making steady progress getting the old pictures (many of which have never been seen by anyone but me) onto my Zenfolio website after 17 years sitting around in albums. Here’s a small selection of the ones that have been added in the past 24 hours.

On the 16th July 2002 Hull trains 16.30 service from Kings Cross to Hull waits to leave the capital. These Class 170s were hired in from Anglia trains for several years before Hull acquired their own. Later this year Hull Trains will be introducing their 4th train fleet in less than 20 years when the Hitachi built ‘Paragon’ trainsets enter service to replace the Class 180s which will be cascaded to East Midlands Railway.
A day later, here’s a signal gantry on the Chiltern line at Sudbury and Harrow which is being held up with cables and straps! Railtrack, who were still in charge (just) at the time were often criticised for the state of their assets. This is a good example. Railtrack were finally wound up in October 2002 when Network Rail were formed to take over management of rail infrastructure.
However, the picture wasn’t all doom and gloom. Here’s a view of the old Kings Cross Goods yard taken on the 1st September 2002. In the background are newly laid sidings which would allow spoil from boring the new High Speed 1 tunnels under London to be moved by rail to Calvert in Buckinghamshire. In the foreground is the trench which would eventually allow Thameslink services to run from the East Coast Main line into St Pancras Thameslink.
Here’s another view taken the same day. This shows the old Midland Railway bridges which carried the line into St Pancras station which is just out of shot to the right. All these have disappeared as the area is now occupied by the East Midlands Railway platforms, whilst the area beyond the bridges is the Eastern side of the new station which is used by South-Eastern Trains Javelin services to Kent.

The weather forecast for tomorrow’s looking even worse than today, although I’m not sure If I’ll have time to scan anymore old slides as I’ve other things that need my attention. That said, you never know. I’ve just 50 left to scan from the present album, so maybe by tomorrow night…

In the meantime, if you want to have look at the full selection that I’ve added to my Zenfolio website, follow this link, which will take you to the ‘recent’ section and show you which galleries they’ve been added to as there’s quite a mixture.

Expect some modern pictures as I get out and about on my travels later in the week.

Different days…

23 Saturday Nov 2019

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This wasn’t quite the Saturday that I had planned but sometimes life has a habit of not being what you hope for. I won’t go into details but I found myself stuck at home today in absolutely miserable weather. For most of the day the valley’s been hidden behind a bank of low cloud, rain or fog or combinations thereof. The sun stood no chance!

So, whilst Dawn was out with friends and family, I spent the day holed up in the office scanning old rail slides from 2002 and managed to get 80 done in a marathon effort. As I was a resident of London in those days the current batch of slides are very focussed on the capital as I was always nipping out and about.

On the 29th May 2002 66073 backs into Kings Cross Goods Yard to pick up empty cement tanks to take them back to Ketton. The whole area was being redeveloped as part of High Speed 1 and there’s virtually nothing in this picture that still exists – including the location I took the photograph from! This is now a residential and commercial area full of high-rises. The cement terminal was relocated on the approaches to St Pancras.
On the same day a pair of North of London Eurostars stand at Kings Cross whilst on hire to GNER for the ‘White Rose’ services between London and York.
Here’s another scene that’s vanished and been completely transformed. On the 10th June 2002 a Silverlink Class 313 leaves Stratford Low Level in East London whilst working a service from Richmond to North Woolwich. This section of line closed on the 4th December 2006 and part of it was converted into the Docklands Light Railway.
The Trellick Tower in the background gives this location away as Old Oak Common in West London. on the 15th June 2002 the buildings which were going to be the maintenance base for Great Western’s new Class 180 ‘Adelante’ fleet was still under construction. Now all this has disappeared under stabling sidings for the Crossrail fleet. How quickly times change.

You can find the rest of the pictures on my Zenfolio website by following this link. It’ll take you to the ‘recent’ section which will allow you to see which galleries the pictures have been added to.

Not the day I expected…

17 Sunday Nov 2019

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The pair of us have had a quiet weekend at home for a change, mainly because Dawn’s been recovering from a bout of the lurgi and migraines, another two of which struck last night leaving her feeling drained today. Even so, we’ve managed to get some things done – if not everything we intended.

I’ve found myself concentrating on scanning old slides which is good in one way as I’m finally getting the pictures onto my website. I’ve almost finished an album of images from 2003 and it’s been a nostalgic experience as I was a rookie pro photographer who’d suddenly found themselves doing all sorts of unusual stuff with famous people like Richard Branson, Stirling Moss and Prime Minister Tony Blair to name but a few. It was the year before I made the leap from film to digital and looking back, I wish I’d done it sooner, but isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing? 2003 was packed full of really interesting events. Here’s just a small selection from the ones I’ve been scanning over the past few days

On the 27th September 2003 the first section of High Speed 1 from Fawkham Junction to the channel tunnel was officially opened by a press trip from London to Paris on a Eurostar. When passengers arrived we were greeted at Waterloo International by acrobats performing on the concourse.

We were then whisked across to Paris on a Eurostar set specially branded the ‘press express’ and fitted with TV screens which relayed the view from a camera placed in the cab. Here we are passing through Kent on HS1.

Then, in October…

Virgin Trains were maximising the publicity they could get from rolling out their new Pendolino train fleet. On the 20th October their PR people commissioned me to accompany Richard Branson and the Virgin team up to Liverpool where 390031 was to be named “City of Liverpool”. Amongst the VIPs joining in on the event at Liverpool Lime St station was the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, Louise Ellman MP (2nd left) and Miss Merseyside (right).

It’s funny looking back at these pictures now and seeing just how the railways companies starting to regain their confidence after the turbulent Railtrack days and the spate of fatal accidents that helped see the organisations demise. It was still a rocky road as tragedies were still to happen but it was clear that things were improving. How different things look now, when the main problem the railway face is the lack of capacity!

I’ve added over 60 slides to my Zenfolio website this weekend. You can find out which galleries the rest of them are in by following this link. There’s still another 40 slides from this album to add which should be done this next week. After that, it’s time to delve into the storage box and see what comes to hand next…

Another days mixture…

14 Thursday Nov 2019

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There was no time for blogging yesterday as I was still in ‘nurse’ mode as Dawn remained under the weather and a lot of my time was taken up with to-ing and fro-ing from the kitchen to the bedroom with a supply of hot water bottles, cups of decaffeinated coffee and Marmite crumpets!

The rest of my time was taken up with working within earshot in the back office, scanning old slides and sorting through emails and paperwork – although I did manage to nip out for an hour or so and get some exercise. This being the Calder Valley, a walk around here has a certain profile. Flat, it ain’t – which is great for working off a few calories and getting in my five a day. No, not vegetables – miles!

Meanwhile, here’s a couple of yesterdays slide scans, which all date from an album I took in 2003.

On the 3rd September 2003, 150245 waits to work the 15.10 to Ipswich from Lowestoft. In those days local rail services were run by the Anglia franchise which ran from January 1997 until March 2004 when it was merged with First Great Eastern to form a franchise that covered the whole of the route through from London Liverpool St to East Anglia. This particular Class 150 is now working out of Cardiff for Transport for Wales

A few weeks earlier, on the 15th August, 4-CEP number 1590 leaves London Victoria working the 13.11 to Dover Priory. At that time services out of Victoria in the old BR South East and South Central areas were operated by French company Connex. It wasn’t a happy marriage. Connex were stripped of both franchises. They never re-entered the UK market afterwards.

Misty Monday…

04 Monday Nov 2019

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It’s the beginning of another week and it’s certainly got off to a soggy start! When I opened the bedroom blind this morning I couldn’t see more than a couple of hundred metres, never mind to the opposite side of the valley! The fog’s persisted throughout the day whilst the rain’s been intermittent and annoying, so it’s been a good day to stay at home and scan more old slides, which is what’s kept me occupied for most of the morning.

In between showers I did manage to venture out for my afternoon constitutional and drop off some old railway books at the Jubilee Refreshment rooms on Sowerby Bridge station. On December 5th they’re having a sale of books donated by the estate of the late Theo J Gray, and I’ve added a few of mine to help. All the proceeds will go to the station friends group, so if you’re in the area, pop along! Details are in the link.

Right now I’m back at home, catching up on admin and preparing for a busy week ahead. In the meantime, here’s a few samples of the pictures I’ve been scanning.

In 2003 I went on a Virgin Trains press trip which was a two day event on the UK’s longest train journey. This was aboard the 08.55 from Aberdeen to Penzance, which took fifteen and a half hours and crossed three of the UK’s most famous rail bridges (the Tay, Forth and Royal Albert) on one train. I wrote about the experience for RAIL magazine at the time. The weather was mixed, but by the time we got down to Cornwall we were treated to a classic summer evening. Here’s a shot taken from the HST as we sped through Cornwall to Penzance. The picture was used in both RAIL and Virgin Trains own magazine.
Here’s the view from the cab of HST power car 43154 earlier in the day as we crossed the Forth rail bridge with a coal train hauled by a Class 66 approaching from the South.

You can find the rest of the pictures by following this link to my Zenfolio website. I’ve added nearly 300 old slides from 2000 and 2003 in the past few weeks, meaning there’s plenty to look at! I’ve still a couple of hundred pictures from 2003 to scan which I’m hoping to have done in the next couple of weeks. After that I’ll see which album next to be dug out of storage and added to the queue. There’s still plenty of slides from the 1990s to be done yet, therefore I may step further back in time for the next one…

In the meantime, expect plenty of new pictures to be added in the next few days. I’m working in both London and Birmingham on Wednesday, then returning to the capital at the weekend for quality time with old friends.