I’ve been based back at home today after yesterday’s commission in Merseyside so I’ve been kept busy editing the pictures for my client as well as the library shots I took on the journey. Well, that and dealing with an overflowing email inbox, Ebay sales and trying to get fitter after shaking off our self-imposed lockdown lethargy! There’s been a lot to juggle and the days just don’t seem long enough to fit it all in. Oh yes – there was also a blog update on the past 6 weeks events on HS2 (our new high-speed railway). I hadn’t realised it was that long since my last update, or just how much had happened in the intervening time.
Because of the ‘action-packed’ programme I didn’t get out to complete my 12.5k steps until late this evening – which was interesting as it’s the first time I realised there is an impact from the latest lockdown(ish). During the day the levels of road traffic seem unchanged – especially when it comes to the school run. This evening was different as there wasn’t a soul on our local roads. Why would there be – there’s nowhere to go! Everyone’s at home in the evenings which makes it the perfect time to go out for a wander. There was just me, the odd fox and the occasional cat as I bimbled along the road through Scarr Woods and back.
OK, It’s late and I’ve a busy day ahead tomorrow, so here’s the picture of the day, which I scanned earlier. I took this in Mid August 1998 from the rear deck of our Homestay at Lake Maninjau, Sumatra late one evening as the sun set beyond the volcanic crater edge. Having a place that was built on the water’s edge is superb. I’d discovered the Homesty a few years earlier when I passed through on a solo trip in 1992 and I was more than heppy to find it unchanged 6 years later.
If you’re interested in looking through more photos from Sumatra (or the rest of the epic trip), you can find them in this gallery on my Zenfolio picture website. I’ll be adding many more shots of other exotic Indonesian Islands over the next few weeks…
Meanwhile, I’ve a favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
Ugh! I’d almost forget what it’s like to have the alarm set for before sparrowfart. Those nights where you know it’s going to go off at 05:30 and you have fitful sleep because you keep waking up in anticipation. I don’t miss mornings like that – especially this time of year, although today’s started off mild – and dry. The walk down the hill to Sowerby Bridge station was rather pleasent until I got into the town itself. Compared to ‘Lockdown 1’ there’s far more people out and about (me included) so the roads were busy.
I’m currently waiting for the 07:00 to Wigan Wallgate via Manchester. Having left Leeds on time its dropped several minutes already and isn’t expected to arrive until 07:12. Thankfully, I have plenty of time to make my connection in Manchester, so as long as it doesn’t lose any more time…
A York service has just departed with the 3-car carrying just a handful of passengers and there’s only half a dozen of us waiting for the 07:00.
07:20.
I’m on my way, 11 mins late – and no idea why! One of Northern’s 3-car Class 158s (displaced from top-link duties by the new Class 195s) crept into the station to take us to Manchester. After leaving Hebden Bridge there’s now a grand total of 6 of us in the leading car…
07:50.
We’re now speeding towards Manchester after calling at Rochdale. I’ve counted two dozen in our car now, hardly pre-Covid levels but an improvement on the last lockdown.
09:00.
I’m now on the 08:47 Manchester Oxford Rd – Liverpool Line St after walking across a pretty much deserted city centre from Victoria. It’s eerie seeing what’s normally such a thriving place so quiet. This time of morning you expect to see people streaming into work but the only things open that I could see were food outlets – all vieing for what little trade there is. Walking up the ramp to an equally deserted Oxford Rd station was a first! Normally I’d be ducking and diving though the commuters flooding off the station!
The train I’m on is equally quite, although a few dozen did alight when it arrived. Its made up of a 150/156 combo, so there’s no guessing which I chose. It’s refurbished set so we even have the luxury of USB sockets at our tables. I count 3 of us in the whole car…
09:21.
We’re just passing the quiet bulk of Fidlers Ferry power station and it’s almost time for me to get to work. I’ll see If I can post a picture or two from what I’m up to later…
Back when I’m free…
15:00.
Well, that was an interesting few hours work with a film crew PR company and the staff of a major train building firm at their plant in Widnes. There’s a clue in the picture.
I’m beginning to build up a range of masks that’s rivalling my collection of high-vis vests..
Alstom’s Widnes plant is a busy place at the moment. Yesterday, an off-lease Class 321 arrived for experimental conversion to a ‘Breeze’, Hydrogen powered train. 321437 has lost its trailer car (which has gone for scrap) but the remaining 3 cars will be used as a test bed for a potential fleet conversion.
Another part of the plant is busy with the internal and external refurbishment of Transport for Wales Class 175 DMUs (Alstom Coradias, built in the first batch of new trains after privatisation). Two sets were receiving attention whilst I was there. Meanwhile, the plant continues to grow, with new facilities in place ready for the start of the internal refurbishment of the Avanti West Coast which will start in 2021.
21:00.
I’m home and it’s time to bring today’s events to a close. Getting back to work in the thick of an industry that’s kept going throughout the pandemic as it has such a vital role to play’s been really enjoyable. Hopefully, normality will continue to resume now that we’re looking to coming out of the latest restrictions and several vaccines are on the horizon.
Travelling back through Manchester and a city centre where so much is inactive due to Covid makes me realise that normality can’t return soon enough – although I don’t think everything will return to the way it was before. If nothing else, 2020 has given many people pause for thought.
I did grab a few more pictures on my journey home as I stopped off on the way a couple of times, but most of those shots will be saved for other times and other blogs. As it was dark by the time I was walking across from Oxford Rd to Victoria I thought I’d have a play, so there is this shot…
In contrast to many other trains I’d been on today, the 16:58 I caught from Manchester Victoria back across the Pennines was straining at the edges of overcrowding as protocols stand right now. Life is returning and once vaccines are rolled out I’ve little doubt passenger numbers will ramp up rapidly. Will they ever return to pre-Covid norms. I have a view on that, but that’s shared (along with the reasons for it) in Part 3 of my round Britain Trip for RAIL magazine which will hit the newsagents on December 2nd, so I’ll refrain from saying more until then!
Tomorrow I’m back to working from home as I’ve a shedload of new pictures to edit and other work to catch up on. But I hope it won’t be too long before I’m out and about again…
I’ve a favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
Another busy day during ‘lockdown’ – or what passes for it this time. The pair of us have been occupied with work all day apart from making a determined effort to get out and get some exercise – despite the rather biting wind and dull weather, although that kept many people at home and out of our way, so it wasn’t all bad!
My routine involved swapping between scanning yet more old slides and replying to emails, along with a bit of housekeeping and cooking. Not exactly the ‘rock and roll’ lifestyle, but at least things are moving in the right direction and getting us prepared to exit what’s probably been the shittiest year on record on an even keel – which is more than some poor unfortunates will be able to do.
I’ll end today’s missive with a picture of the day from today’s batch of old slide scans. It was taken at a Homestay at Lake Maninjau in West Sumatra in August 1998. I’d spent time here back in 1992 when I used it as a base for a jungle-trekking trip to the Mentawai Islands, and there was no way I was going to miss stopping there again as it’s so spectacular and so peaceful. This photo opportunity came out of the blue as one of the many kittens around our homestay decided to explore by leaping onto a backlit table just as I had my camera to hand.
If you’re interested in looking through more photos from Sumatra (or the rest of the epic trip), you can find them in this gallery on my Zenfolio picture website. I’ve been busy scanning throughout the day in order to get this album finished before the end of the week, so another 50 have been added.
I won’t have chance to add any more old slides tomorrow. Instead you’ll be treated to another rolling blog as I’m off to Widnes in Merseyside to carry out a rather interesting railway industry commission – which will also allow me to get some contemporary rail pictures too. Watch this space…
I’ve a favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
It’s not exactly been a lazy Sunday – even if it has been a fairly quiet one. My wife’s been busy much of the day on her ‘virtual retreat’ and the various yoga/exercise and meditation classes that involves whilst I’ve been pottering around at home scanning slides and catching up on some email correspondence. The weather’s hardly been conducive to doing much more as we’ve had intermittent rain thoughout the day. Even so, we did manage to get out in between Dawn’s sessions to food-shop and get a walk in through our local woods and up around Savile Park whilst dodging the showers.
Back at home, I took another trip down memory lane whilst scanning the latest batch of old slides from Sumatra. I reckon that with any luck this album will be done and dusted by the end of next week – which is rather pleasing. That means it’s only 22 years it’s taken me to get them to a wider audience! So, without further ado, here’s the picture of the day, which was taken in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province at the very Northerm tip of Sumatra on the 3rd August 1998. This is the city’s Baiturrahman Grand Mosque, which I couldn’t resist visiting at sunset. Here’s why…
Aceh has a fascinating if turbulent history going back centuries. It’s seen more than its fair share of conflicts, but its biggest challenge happened a few years after Lynn and I visited. On Boxing Day 2004 the city and surrounding area was devastated by a Tsunami. It’s estimated that the disaster killed 167,000 inhabitants and destroyed more than 60% of the city’s buildings. It was the hardest hit of all the places struck by the Tsunami. Lynn and I had a lucky escape from the Tsunami. On Boxing Day 2002 and 2003 we were on beaches in Southern Sri Lanka that were badly damaged by the disaster, but in 2004 we’d delayed travelling as we’d a lot of plans for that year. You can imagine how we felt when we learned of the devastation caused to places we’d visited and knew well. There, but for the grace of God…
If you’re interested in looking through more photos from Sumatra (or the rest of the epic trip), you can find them in this gallery on my Zenfolio picture website.
I’ve a favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
Today’s not quite been the one I expected, but it’s been an interesting one nonetheless. The ‘other half’ has been on day 2 of a 3 day ‘virtual retreat’ via the power of the Internet. This meant Dawn was up early – and so was I, which has given us both some productive time rather than just lazing around thinking “Sod it, it’s a Saturday in lockdown”…
This morning I penned a blog about the latest weapons-grade dishonest about the HS2 rail project. It’s certainly created a stir as no other Journalist seems to have bothered to question the guff about HS2 ‘desecrating’ a children’s memorial.
With that done and the weather having returned to being crap, I stayed in and spent time editing the pictures from Thursdays railway foray on the Harrogate loop as well as continuing to scan more old slides – one of which you’ll see in a minute. I’m gradually working my way through an album of travel pictures taken on the ‘grand-tour’ that Lynn and I took in 1997-99 and right now those pictures are of Indonesia. Looking back 22 years is quite a bitter-sweet experience, not least because of the fact Lynn’s been dead for seven years now, but also because it really was a different age – and one in which we had a ball! Let me explain. In 1998 Asia had suffered an economic crisis that crashed the currencies of many of the countries we were travelling through – Indonesia especially. For the Indonesians it was a terrible time that led to a destabilisation of the country and eventual downfall of the country’s dictator President. It also caused racially based riots as the countries Chinese community were made scapegoats by some. But, for tourists and travellers who arrived once things had settled down, it was very different. I’d been in Indonesia 3-4 years earlier. Then, £1 would have bought you around 3,500 Indonesian Rupiah. When Lynn and got the ferry over from Malaysia to Sumatra in July 1998 the exchange rate was 22,000 rupiah to the pound – yet prices for most things (in rupiah) had hardly changed! You were rich! To say this took the pressure off a couple backpacking would be an understatement. You didn’t have to count the pennies at all and as the pair of us were frugal anyway, money went a loonngg way. It was a vintage time to be travelling through SE Asia.
One place we pitched up at was a magical little place off the North Coast of Sumatra, Iboih on the island of Pulau Weh. Our time there deserves a blog in its own right as we had a fabulous time with a group of people who all really jelled. Because it was hard to get to – you must have really wanted to be there – and that made all the difference to the place. This was in the days before backpacking became ‘flashpacking’ where young people would parachute in and out of places via cheap airlines. Then, you went the ‘hard’ way by train, bus or ferry. So, here’s the picture of the day, the small but beautifully formed beach at Iboih, seen sometime between mid-to the end of July, 1998. We liked it so much our planned week turned into 16 days and even then we had to force ourselves to leave…
Just out of shot to the right is Rubiah Island, which you could swim to (and a group of us once did). The coral around here was gorgeous and it was absolutely teeming with different varieties of fish. Facilities at Ibioh were basic, the wooden bungalows were simple and had no showers. You bathed out in the open with water from the communal well! The group of people we met there had pitched up from all corners of the globe, but formed a community. Looking back at the pictures I’m scanning I realise that it was one of the few places we went to where I took lots of pictures of fellow travellers – some of whom I’m still in contact with today. So it will always hold special memories for me as a perfect moment in time – which is why I’ll never go back…
If you want to see more pictures of our travels, you can find them in this gallery on my Zenfolio picture website. I’ll be adding shots almost daily over the next few weeks.
I’ve a favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
After the excitement of breaking free from the office on a sunny day yesterday, and the chance to get some interesting and historical pictures to boot – today’s been back to the usual pattern in more ways than one. The glorious sunshine was a flash in the pan and here for one day only. Today we reverted to heavy grey skies, rain and the light levels that would make a troglodyte feel at ease.
This has meant I’ve worked from home all day, juggling the mundanities of everyday life with editing and scanning pictures and arranging a couple of commissions, so my times been well spent – if a little frustrating at times as I watch the latest political shenanigans on the news. That the Home Secretary’s found to have been bullying her staff is (obviously) a resigning matter. Only it’s not the perma-smirking Priti Patel that resigns – it’s the Senior Civil Servant who conducted the investigation into the allegation and who was hung out to dry by Johnson! So, no change there then. The old film adage about “who do I have to f**k to get a part in this movie” has turned into “what do I have to f**k-up to get the sack around here”? Nothing, apparently – unless you count making up a derogatory nickname for the Prime Minister’s latest squeeze! Honestly, how this country ever managed to rule 1/3 of the planet is beyond me…
Still, I did manage to get out for a long walk in the drizzle and murk, which was good. After being in self-imposed isolation its lovely to be building up the exercise again. This weekend Dee’s on another ‘virtual retreat’ as part of an online group she really enjoys being part of – so it’s a good excuse to get out from underneath her feet and get a few more miles walking under my belt. Admittedly, I have other plans too as I’ve still loads of stuff to get onto eBay. Methinks this will be a productive weekend because of it. After all, it’s not like we’ve got much else to do during this lockdown – and I’d much rather feel the time was being spent doing something useful rather than sat on a sofa watching TV…
Today’s picture of the day is one of the latest batch of slide scans. I’m slowly working my way through an album of pictures from Malaysia and Indonesia. 95% of them have never made it onto my picture websites before, so it’s great to finally bring them to a wider audience. Today’s image was taken in the Batu Caves outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in the first week of July 1998. The caves are an important site for Malaysia’s Hindu community and well worth a visit, both to enjoy the caves themselves but also some of the shrines to Gods in the Hindu pantheon.
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Today’s been another wild and windy one here in the Pennines, so I’ve spent most of the day cooped up at home scanning old slides from Malaysia whilst catching up on emails, eBay and sending off pictures to magazine. Work’s picking up, which is good, and tomorrow the weather’s meant to be rather good, so I’m having a day out to record more changes to our railways – you’ll be able to see what I’m up to in a rare opportunity for a rolling blog!
As it’s late I’ll now go straight to the picture of the day which is one of the batch I scanned earlier. Taken in Melaka, Malaysia at the end of June 1998 it shows a sigh at a Chinese temple which caused me to do a double-take!
I’ve a favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
Apologies for the break in the daily picture. It wasn’t because I didn’t have any – exactly the opposite. I’ve had a very busy couple of days scanning old slides. So much so that I’ve finally finished the last album of old UK railway images which has left me elated as its taken donkey’s years! At least it’s a positive legacy from 2020 and Covid, as without lockdown 1 and 2 I’d never have found the time and I’d still be ploughing my way through them. Of course, it’s not quite the end of the story. I still have a couple of albums of foreign railway pictures which total several hundred pictures. Then there’s the thousands of old travel pictures – but I’ve already made a start on those today. The good thing about the travel shots is they’re simpler to caption and there’s an awful lot of duplicates in the later albums, so scanning them won’t take anywhere near as long (says he, optimistically).
I’ve added all the rail shots to various galleries on my Zenfolio website which you can find by following this link. The current batch of travel shots all be added to a single gallery as they’re from the ’round the world’ trip that Lynn and I embarked on between 1997-99. You can find that one here. I’ve set it up so that the most recent additions will appear at the front of the gallery and the oldest last – although I’ll change that when it’s complete.
With lockdown part 2 here and work sparse and sporadic, I should have time to get through quite a few old slides before the country starts reopening next month. In the meantime, here’s today’s picture. I took this in May 1998 at the indoor market in Kota Baru on the East Coast of Malaysia. I find Asian markets fascinating places because they’re so vibrant and colourful – stocked with an amazing array of produce and people. Kota market had the advantage of a circular balcony which made a great vantage point for photography – as you can see. It allowed me to get this candid shot as the two women were unaware of my being there.
I’ve a favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
I’m just about to come to the end of scanning my old albums full of UK rail slides as I’ve less than 60 pictures left to go. By chance, the final album is from the years 2000-2001 (I went digital in 2004 but the other albums jumped the queue) and it’s been quite an eye-opener because whilst many of the pictures remained fresh in my mind, a couple were real surprises. The picture they paint is of a railway industry that was still in the early stages of privatisation, with many old train fleets still in service, but also new routes that were attempted but that never survived, either because they were developed purely as ORCATS* raids to poach fare revenue from other operators, or because the trains and the routes they were used on made little commercial sense in their own right. Here’s a couple of examples which I scanned earlier today.
Until I scanned this picture earlier I’d forgotten this service even existed! This is a West Yorkshire PTE liveried Class 158 at Glasgow Central on the 27th March 2001, prior to working the 14.10 to Leeds via the West Coast Main Line to Carlisle, then down the Settle and Carlisle. That’s a long way to go in a 2-car, 90mph diesel unit that wasn’t fitted out to Intercity standards! The service was introduced by the Arriva Trains North Franchise in September 1999 but only lasted a few years before the franchise was broken up. The long-distance routes were hived off into the Trans-Pennine Express franchise, but this one didn’t survive.
Here’s another one from the same year that didn’t last long either.
Thames Trains 165134 stands at Bristol Temple Meads before working the 12.30 to Oxford, which used the Didcot West Curve. Introduced in 1998 but withdrawn in 2003 at the request of the Strategic Rail Authority (90mph units on a 125mph main line weren’t a good use of capacity) these were the only time ‘Thames Turbo’s’ were seen in Bristol until recently. Thames Trains were merged with the Great Western franchise in 2004. Now these units are a common sight around Bristol as they were cascaded to the area following the electrification of the Great Western Main line between Paddington – Reading – Newbury.
Back in 2001 there was a lot of old stock eking out their twilight years a long way from the routes they’d been built for. Here’s another one from Scotland.
305519 stands at Edinburgh Waverley ready to work a service to North Berwick on the 26th March 2001. Built in 1959 at Doncaster works for the former Eastern region these units worked services out of London Liverpool St before many of them were displaced by the Class 315 units built in 1980 onwards. Several ended up being reduced to 3 -car sets working in the North-West operating service out of Manchester Piccadilly to Dinting whilst 5 4 -car sets were sent to Scotland to operate the line to North Berwick which was electrified in 1991. They survived in service until January 2002 when they were replaced with Class 322 ‘Stansted Express’ units which were also cascaded from services out of Liverpool St!
It wasn’t just regional services that were changing either. The Cross-Country network was about to see see a major shake-up as loco-hauled trains were going to be replaced by ‘Voyagers’…
Virgin Cross-Country’s 47844 hauls a service bound for the West Country past the site of Malago Vale carriage sidings in Bristol on the 1st April 2001. With the decline in loco-hauled Intercity fleets and demise of parcels trains many sidings like Malago Vale were redundant. Today the site is covered in houses.
Many old BR built locomotive fleets were in decline with hundreds stored around the country before being stripped for spares and sent for scrap. Sights like this one at London’s Old Oak Common depot were common.
On the 14th April 2001 the former ‘Coronation’ and Van sidings adjacent to Old Oak Common diesel depot are full of stored locomotives, electrification maintenance coaches and Freightliner container flats. From nearest the camera locomotives include. 47535. 33205. 47492. 73132. 73138. 73119. 73141. 73110. 73107. 73114 and several Class 31s. This area is now the site of a mass of electrified stabling sidings for Crossrail trains as well as empty land where the new High Speed 2 railway station is being built.
As you can see from just this small selection, scanning these slides has been an interesting look back nearly 20 years, showing how much has changed in that time. Of course this isn’t the end of the story, I’ve still got albums of foreign railways to scan, including a large collection of Indian steam pictures. Then there’s all the travel shots going back decades – so expect plenty more trips down memory lane!
* Operational Research Computerised Allocation of Tickets to Services
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Well, the year may be in its final phase but it’s finally taken a turn for the better. OK, apart from the weather which remains resolutely crap here up in the Pennines, but after the warm glow from last week knowing that the orange shit-gibbon has been ousted in the USA we’ve now had the good news that a vaccine for Covid could be ready before the end of the year. Needless to say, the financial markets reacted very positively as businesses have been given the hope that normality may be resumes sooner rather than later. How all this may come to pass is speculative at the moment, but after a constant battering from bad news, it’s good to hear some optimism for once.
My day’s been spent holed up at home, knuckling down in order to get the last album of old rail slides scanned before the end of the week, thus ending a process that’s taken decades. I’m trying to get them done before Friday as that’s the day we’ve completed our self-isolating and are free to venture out again – so we’re going to make the most of it – whatever the weather!
Today’s picture has been chosen from one of today’s scans as it’s a view that’s changed completely since it was taken. This is a view of Battersea power station with the approaches to London Victoria in the foreground. I took it on the 25th February 2001.
I’ve a favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
Paul Bigland 