What a stunning day for travelling! The weekend weather in Surrey’s been superb. Yesterday’s Tilford fete was a ball, but now it’s time for me to leave Dawn & the rest of the Platt family behind and begin the trek North – whilst doing a bit of work on the way.

Right now I’m on the 12:30 from Farnham to Waterloo which is a busy four-car Desiro. The air-conditioning is welcome. The teenage lad sat opposite, gossiping about his mates relationships on his mobile phone less so. I feel like i’ve been press-ganged into taking part in a Surrey soap!

The weather was so good I opted to stop off in Woking to get a few pictures to top up the library. Last time I was there was in in 2010 after giving a picture show to a local group. The shots I got afterwards appeared in a number of magazines but the weather was nowhere near as good as today. mind you, the skylines changed a bit too. Here’s a couple of shots from today.

Freightliner’s 66955 pulls away from Woking with a Romsey to Eastleigh engineers train that had been recessed in the yard.

450085 leads a sister unit out of Woking on the road to Guildford.

I stayed for an hour then headed on in to London before wending my way North. I had planned to stop off again but the closer I got to home the more the clouds rolled in, so I called it a day and headed home.

There’s always tomorrow…

There’s a very slow rolling blog today. Not because I’m sat at home (far from it) but by the time I realised that I’d left my mobile phone on charge at home it was far too late to go back and get it! So, I’m enjoying a phone free existence today, which is quite liberating. It meant that when I caught the train from Sowerby Bridge to Preston I had time for window-gazing – rather than dealing with emails or keeping abreast of the news (or Twitter)! The line via the Calder valley and Copy Pit to Blackburn really is rather beautiful, but I do it so often I tend to take it for granted.
Not today.
Today I remembered to look and appreciate just how much the landscape’s changed in the past 100 years. The name Copy Pit will be meaningless to most people. To railway people it’s synonymous with coal trains and banking engines (engines that would literally help push a heavy train from behind to assist it up a gradient). Of course, now all this has gone. The sights and sounds have disappeared, and the line is quite rural. There’s barely a freight train a day rather than the succession of coal trains there used to be. Coal is no longer king.
What hasn’t changed is the destination of many of the passengers: Blackpool.

After a busy day taking pictures of the Sussex Power Supply Upgrade for a client client I’m heading back to Yorkshire. It’s been a fascinating day for a number of reasons. I’ve learned more about the investment that’s being made in our railways and had the chance to explore towns I’ve never visited before.

The Sussex PSU is a multi-million pound project to strengthen power to the 3rd rail on sections of the Sussex coast line in order to allow more (and longer) trains to run. Feeder stations are located in several sites and I visited Goring-on-Sea, Adur (near Shoreham-by-Sea) and Heatherwick. Although the equipment installed at each site is similar, each site presented its own challenges and solutions, whether that was building a haul road through a school, across a flood plain, or building sheet piling to form a raised level site alongside an embankment. Of course, each site had unique environmental considerations too and every efforts been made to mitigate the impact of this vital work.

Whilst the weather was ideal for pictures, it wasn’t as kind when you’re wearing full PPE and carrying a sodding great camera bag. It was a little ‘toasty’ at times, making me wish I’d left my jeans at home and worn shorts under my PPE instead.

The day ended in Shoreham-by Sea, which was a real find after the disappointment of Worthing. It’s a pretty little place. Well, if you ignore the harbour area with its scrapyard and stay in the old town anyway. The old town is lovely, it’s full of quirky old buildings, pubs, alfresco dining cafe’s and shops. I’d certainly come back again and use it as a base to explore the area.

After doing a very good impression of a blue-arsed fly this past week it’s time for a slight change of tempo. The pair of us are swapping the rural delights of West Yorkshire for the hustle and bustle of metropolitan New York in order to celebrate Dawn’s half-century in style!

I’m not sure how much time I’ll have to blog, but I’m sure that a few words and pictures will come out at some points throughout the week.

Right now we’re on an absolutely rammed Grand Central train down to London. When this service started back in 2010 you’d be lucky to get 25- 30 passengers on a 5-car train. Now, even 42 seat First Class is full before Doncaster! This means the pair of us are doing a Jeremy (Corbyn) and sitting on the vestibule floor – only on this train there really are no free seats!