22nd December picture of the day…

22 Tuesday Dec 2020

Posted by in India, Musings, Picture of the day, Railways, Travel

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I was full of good intentions today but only some of them came to fruition – and catching up on blogging wasn’t one of them! I had an appointment at our local doctors surgery this morning to have may annual flu jab. Despite these trying times the surgery have been very good about keeping in touch and responding to problems although (thankfully) I’ve not required their services. Now, because of Covid, the waiting room is dark and barricaded. You talk to the receptionist via the intercom outside and wait to be collected. The practice Nurse who gave me my jab was lovely but threw me with her first question;

Nurse: “you did get the text we sent you about the flu jab, didn’t you”?

Me: “No, why”?

Nurse: “It was to tell you this vaccine isn’t currently approved in the UK. Because of all the difficulties at the moment we’ve had to source it from the USA where it is approved, do you still want it?

Me: “No problem, but if I suddenly start talking with an American accent I’ll be straight back here”!

With all the madness over vaccines and the idiocy of the anti-vaxxers, plus the strain these poor Nurses are under right now I’m glad I was able to make her laugh. Oh, and it got me out of the house and away from the computer which was an added bonus. Plus, the walk back along the canal was lovely as it was a rare moment of peacefulness and serenity in what’s an increasingly crazy country, although I’m doing my best to ignore the shit-show in order to enjoy Christmas.

I’m winding down work – including slide-scanning – to focus on the forthcoming festivities (truncated as they are). I’m actually looking forward to it as so many decisions are outside of our control, so why worry? Dawn and I are going to have Christmas day in the little bubble we have with John and Norah, Dee’s parents. After that we’ll be heading home to spend some quality time together and enjoy some walking as well as catching up on some of those jobs there never seems to be time for (did someone mention a bathroom? Ed). Who knows, I might even be able to catch up on some blogging too!

In the meantime, here’s the picture of the day, which is another nostalgic look at some of the slides I’ve been scanning from a country we’re currently banned from travelling to – India. I took this shot at the old Bombay Victoria station (as it was then) on the 14th November 1991.

British rail enthusiasts might think the body-styling is familiar. They’d be absolutely right. The WCM1 Class of locomotives were built by English Electric at the Vulcan Foundry in Newton-Le-Willows in the early 1950s. Seven of them were manufactured to haul passenger and freight services from Bombay (Mumbai) and lasted in service until 2000. I was lucky enough to capture this one on film. Oh, notice an early Indian Railways double-deck coach in the sidings behind?

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Thank you!

21st December picture of the day…

21 Monday Dec 2020

Posted by in India, Picture of the day, Railways, Travel

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Happy Winter Solstice folks! Today’s been the shortest day of the year so soon we can look forward to longer days – although that may take a while to kick in, especially here in the Pennines as the weather’s been thoroughly damp and dismal all day with visibility down to a few hundred metres at best, so there’s no chance of any planet gazing or observing the predicted meteor-shower tonight. I’d have been lucky to see the other side of the valley today, never mind any celestial bodies!

Instead I’ve hunkered down at home and got on with paperwork and scanning old slides. I’d hoped to get a blog written but in the end I eschewed the idea in order to get more pictures scanned that would form part of it. So, whilst the country falls apart due to Covid and our new found Pariah status do to the virus I’ve been bust taking a trip down memory to revisit a country that we’re currently barred from. India. Today’s tranche of old slides have covered a lot of the sub-continent – all the way from balmy Tamil Nadu in the South right up to Darjeeling (West Bengal) in the North, within spitting distance of the snow-capped Himalayas. The pictures were taken in 1998 and so much has changed since then, which Is why tomorrow I’ll be writing a blog about the Indian metre-gauge railway network which is fast disappearing.

There’s so many interesting and historical pictures that I’ve been struggling to decide which one to choose for the picture of the day. I’ve plumped for this one as a contrast to yesterday’s shot from Tamil Nadu. I took this shot on the 6th April 1998 at the ‘Toy train’ station in Darjeeling, West Bengal.

Here’s B Class locomotive no 806 shunting the station yard whilst marshalling the coaches it will haul as the 14.20 departure to Ghoom. 34 of these little 0-4-0 saddle tanks were built between 1889 and 1925 to a design by Sharp-Stewart & Co who constructed the first 12. A couple remain on the line for hauling tourist trains between Darjeeling and Ghoom, but the rest (including this one) have been preserved or scrapped. I’m glad I got to see them in the years when they were still the only locomotives working the railway as it really was like stepping back in time. If you want to see more of my old Indian railway shots, just follow this link. I have to admit, going through the pictures after all these years is really making me want to return to India and explore what’s left of the narrow and metre-gauge lines before many finally disappear forever.

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20th December picture of the day…

21 Monday Dec 2020

Posted by in India, Musings, Picture of the day, Politics, Railways, Travel

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I don’t know where to start – really…

There’s been so much going on these past few days whilst we’ve been trying to prepare for a tiered Xmas I really haven’t had time to blog – despite a spleen that’s become so engorged on political stupidity that it really needs venting before it ruptures. Hopefully next week will allow time for some catharsis.

Fortunately, we took the view that Christmas was likely to be yet another shambles way back in November so we’d cancelled our plans to head down to Surrey and stay in West Yorkshire. That said, I can’t help feeling sorry for those people who believed in this farce of a Government and banked on being able to travel to have family gatherings in the five-day window before (yet again) Johnson did a U-turn. That window never made any sense as it seemed like an open invitation to spread Covid. I can’t help feeling that this Government has completely lost control of the pandemic now. Well, what little control it seemed to have anyway. Personally, I’m resigned to the fact we’ll have stricter lockdown conditions imposed in January after the festive fiasco where Covid is spread by people who’ve lost all faith in official advice and headed back to their families anyway. The fact this is going to screw many peoples businesses for the foreseeable seems to matter not. I’m fortunate in that I’m in a better position than many to weather the shitstorm on the horizon, but I do feel for those caught up in what’s coming. And, as if Covid wasn’t bad enough, on the 1st January the UK declares economic sanctions on itself with Brexit. After 4 years of lies about ‘taking back control’ and ‘they need us more than they we need them’ we’re now just 11 days away from the the shit hitting the fan without the faintest idea if there will be a deal or not – never mind what that deal will look like. Talk about a clownshow! How on earth did we end up like this?

So, Christmas is going to be an interesting one to say the least – and New Year even more so…Forget the pubs, Xmas parties and other social events, for many people it’s going to be an isolated or introspective Christmas with little to look forward to in the New Year – unless you’re on of those brainless Brexiters who’ll be letting off fireworks at midnight on December 31st to celebrate their new ‘freedom’.

Hmm, looking back at what I’ve just written it seems my spleens already leaked! OK, so here’s todays picture of the day as a bit of light relief. I’ve been busy scanning more foreign rail pictures and the latest batch were taken in Southern India back in January 1998. To say things have changed since then would be an understatement. I’m going to write a separate blog once I’ve got them all scanned as there’s a story to tell, but here’s the first one. I took this at Pondicherry, the former French enclave on the East coast of India on the 27th January 1998.

A metre gauge YDM4 class loco waits to leave the sleepy, single platform station with a train for Villapuram Junction on the main line to Madras (now known as Chennai). This scene has totally disappeared. The line’s now been converted to Broad Gauge and Pondy station has four modern platforms. It’s a reflection of how India has rebuilt much of its rail infrastructure over the past few decades.

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Thank you!

18th December picture of the day…

18 Friday Dec 2020

Posted by in Picture of the day, Railways, Travel

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Which is a very quick one today as most of my time’s been spent preparing for Christmas as well as continuing to scan vast quantities of old slides. There’s a huge amount that I want to blog about, including the latest National Infrastructure Commission report into new railways in the Midland and North, but I keep running up against the fact there’s only 24 hours in a day.

So, here’s one of today’s slide scans which I took in Copenhagen, Denmark on the 26th August 1994. So much of this scene has changed now as the rail yard in the foreground and to the right (which were just outside the main station) have disappeared. They’ve been replaced by new building as this area of the city has been redeveloped. It’s an object lesson in how an everyday scene can quickly become history. The site’s now occupied by the Danish Energy Agency…

Oh, and notice one of my favourite landmarks in the background? Many of the slides I’ve been scanning at the moment are also of of what are now times past – which is really starting to make me feel like an old bugger – as they seem like the blink of an eye to me!

I hope to catch up with more blogging this weekend…

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Thank you!

16th December picture of the day…

16 Wednesday Dec 2020

Posted by in Australia, Musings, Picture of the day, Travel

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Remember that concept called the work/life balance? No. Neither do I…

Right now the balance has swung very much in one direction, but that’s not entirely a bad thing. Here in West Yorkshire we’re in the run up to Christmas and we’re in Tier 3 – with no realistic chance of coming out of it in the near future, so you can forget the season of Xmas parties, pubs and general socialising. Plus, now London’s gone into lockdown there’s no chance of me returning South to catch up with old friends. Oh, and the weather’s been pretty crap here too – so there’s little incentive to wander out with the camera.

Instead, I’m holed-up at home most of the day, spending time living in the past, present and future. The past is because a lot of my time is spent scanning old pictures from 20-30 years ago in a concerted effort to have a decades long project finished by next year. There’s an irony in this in that by getting all these pictures uploaded to my website – it actually frees me from that past as it becomes history once more – and not something I have to spend hundreds of days of a year reliving. Yet – there is a link with the future here too. Some of the pictures I’m scanning have meant I’ve had to read through old diaries to check where I was – and when. I’ve always meant to write some of those experiences up as travel blogs about what it was like to travel overland though S-E Asia in the early 1990s but without having the pictures scanned it was impractical. It won’t be from next year, which will be the 30th anniversary of my first big solo trip…

The present is the everyday stuff we all do to keep our lives and my businesses ticking over. This can range from the mundane like shopping, cooking and housekeeping to those moments when you can simply stop and admire something that reconnects you with the here and now, no matter how random, or seemingly inconsequential.

The future? That’s a little more complex. It’s knowing that 2021 will be a very different year to this one so I can make up for some lost opportunities – and the work I’ll have done in 2020 will have cleared time and space to indulge myself a little after a year of lockdowns. All I have to hope for is that our sagacious and revered Government don’t screw up the economy and trash the pound in the next few months as the Brexitshambles reaches the denouement. OK, fair point – it’s a big ask…

Right, whilst I’ve been writing this I’ve also been scanning more slides – so here’s the picture of the day which was taken at the amazing Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) during the Ashes test between England and Australia at the end of December 1998. Our friend Alison had booked tickets for what was a great day. I love the Aussies forthrightness – which is on display here. The reason I took this photo – other than to show the crowds? look at the adverts on the middle row…

“If you drink, then drive, you’re a bloody idiot” Can’t say fairer than that!

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Thank you!

14th December picture of the day…

14 Monday Dec 2020

Posted by in Australia, Picture of the day, Travel

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Yes, It’s late I know. It’s 22:43 and I’ve only just knocked off after a marathon work day and scanning session. I was sorely tempted to venture out today as we’ve actually had a reasonable amount of sunshine. Instead, I just got stuck into paperwork, phone calls and a long session scanning old rail slides and then (to break the monotony) a batch of Australian travel slides. The rail images I’ve been scanning date from 1992 and the reason some of them have never seen the light of day before is because they require quite a bit of retouching in Photoshop to remove scratches and blemishes, so it’ll be a while yet before the most seriously damaged ones appear on my website – although many others have and you can find them in the India and Sri Lanka rail galleries (just click on the country names).

I’ve another busy day tomorrow which includes a trip to an Osteopath in Huddersfield (another story) so I’m going to be brief tonight and go almost straight on to the picture of the day. I took this shot of the Balconies in the spectacular Grampian national park in Victoria, Australia on the 8th January 1999. I only wish we’d had visibility and temperatures like this here in the Pennines today!

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Thank you!

13th December picture of the day…

13 Sunday Dec 2020

Posted by in History, Musings, Railways, Sri Lanka, Travel

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Apologies that blogging’s becoming erratic at the moment. It’s the old ‘spinning plates’ syndrome and the closer we get to Christmas the more plates there are to spin! To say we’re living in ‘interesting times’ at the moment isn’t exactly helping either. I’m treading a fine line between trying to ignore the inevitable Brexitshambles whilst trying to prepare for it and really wanting a cathartic spleen-venting at the same time. Oh, and the weather’s been shit and I haven’t been getting my exercise in either, plus we seem to be living in a Covid hotspot right now – so I’ve not had a vintage week. I’d love to see 2020 ‘do one’ – but January’s hardly likely to be a fantastic month as the Brexitshambles shit will finally hit the fan. I have a feeling it’s going to be a brooding sort of month, whilst making plans…

On the positive side, the pair of us have had a productive weekend decluttering and Dee’s done a fantastic job of making the living room a festive space at the same time. We don’t often bother as we’re not normally here, but this year we’ve done what a lot of people have and made the effort to inject a bit of joy into the place. OK, I promise, there’s no inflatable Santa’s on the roof or the outside lighting that requires the entire output of a power station. In the words of the the famous Cupid Stunts (aka Kenny Everett)- “it was all done in the best possible taste”!

In the meantime I’ve got a busy week ahead. A couple of writing jobs have been confirmed and I’ve plenty to keep me occupied otherwise – although the office party season’s looking a bit thin!

Right, on to the pictures of the day. I’m still ploughing my way through old slides and recently I’ve deviated from the travel stuff from 1999 to go back in time to 1992 and some historic railway pictures. Here’s one I scanned this evening. I’ve always been fascinated by railway signalling which is a complex art in itself – especially when the Victorians designed some wonderfully Heath-Robinson semaphore systems like this. I took this picture in Kandy, Sri Lanka back in January 1992 – although when I was there just 3 years ago it still existed.

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Thank you!

11th December picture of the day…

11 Friday Dec 2020

Posted by in India, Photography, Photojournalism, Picture of the day, Railways

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To say that this hasn’t been the most exciting day of the month would be an understatement! The weather’s been uniformly crap all day, we’re still in tier 3 so there’s nowhere to go or people to see – so I’ve stayed warm and dry at home, scanning yet more old Indian rail slides. Only now it gets difficult. Many of the latest batch have very visible scratches on them. This is due to the conditions I was taking them in and not being experienced enough to understand how film cameras needed the film backplate kept clean – a lesson learned too late as these aren’t exactly pictures you could just nip out the next week to recreate. Thanks to the wonders of Photoshop these scratches can now be removed, but it takes time. Now I realise why I’d never put them on my website before, but they’re such a historical archive I’m glad I kept them as everything captured has vanished – and we’ll never see the like again.

My engagement with the past hasn’t been restricted to old pictures. During the trip they’re from I kept a daily diary (well, almost daily) which I haven’t read for decades but now it’s a useful resource to date some of the pictures. Re-reading it sure as hell takes me back to a very different time. Young, single and free…That said, looking back on my feelings, experiences and aspirations 30 years later is really interesting. If only I knew then…

But, to be fair, the day’s not been about unbridled nostalgia. It’s Friday so it was time for the ‘Big 6’ online quiz via Zoom which was lovely as there was actual interaction, jokes and banter despite the (social) distance. In some ways the quiz was just an excuse to interact with friends and the amount of times we all digressed was lovely – even if we did finally answer all the questions!

OK, enough of me rambling and trying to get my thoughts in a semblance of order, here’s the picture of the day which is from my latest slide scans. I took this shot in Jaipur steam locomotive depot on the 30th October 1991. It was shift change and a group of workers were washing at a hydrant inside the shed. Hardly private and not exactly the best environment, but that’s how it was in those days – and I consider myself extremely fortunate to have seen it.

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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 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/

Thank you!

10th December picture of the day…

10 Thursday Dec 2020

Posted by in Down memory lane, India, Photography, Picture of the day, Railways, Travel

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Sorry for the lack of a blog yesterday. That was because last night was spent at the online Community Rail Awards – which was a brilliant event! Yes, it was sad not to be able to see people in the flesh, but the platform used by Community Rail Network to deliver the event had a lot of features that allowed interactions beyond just watching the ceremony so it was the nearest best thing. If you missed it and want to see the fantastic work done by community rail volunteers you can find the awards here on YouTube. Enjoy!

Now the awards are over today’s been spent playing catch-up on the slide scanning front. Only now I’ve started scanning my old world railway slides in tandem with the travel stuff that I’ve been doing these past few weeks. Today I’ve added another 60 old slides that I took in India in 1991 when steam locomotives were in everyday service. Many of the pictures have never seen the light of day before as I never got around to scanning them in the past. It’s been a real trip down memory lane for me as – despite the fact they’re almost 30 years old – as soon as I saw them it seemed like yesterday, but my – how the world’s changed since then! So here’s the picture of the day, which I took just a few days after my 32nd birthday, in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India…

A metre-gauge Class YP 4-6-2 ‘Pacific’ No 2000 comes off a train and passes one of the many semaphore signal gantries that guarded the station at the time. This scene’s changed out of all recognition in the 21st century, so I consider myself fortunate to have seen it like this. I remember UK railways in the age of steam, but I was too young to get out and about to appreciate those days. Experiencing the end of Indian steam was the nearest I got and it gave me an inkling of what it must have been like. In those days India had a massive metre-gauge network that covered almost the entire country. Now in 2020 most of it has been converted to broad-gauge and electrified. You wouldn’t recognise Jaipur station now.

Over the next week I’ll be adding more – including steam shed depot visits at Delhi, Jaipur and Jodhpur. I’ll also be adding more travel pictures from Australia, so it’s not all about railways.

If you want to see more of the Indian railway scans, follow this link.

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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 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/

Thank you!

Today’s ‘all star’ Stophs2 farce at Denham Country Park!

08 Tuesday Dec 2020

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Politics, Railways

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Just when I’m thinking the remaining anti HS2 protesters can’t make themselves any more ridiculous with their outlandish claims and piss-poor performances, they say “hold my beer” (shouldn’t that be ‘cheap cider’? Ed)…

The latest, almost Pythonesque, farce at Denham Country Park started in the early hours of Monday morning when the protesters erected a bamboo and rope tower in the river in order to stop contractors working for National Grid from running out a temporary bridge across it. Thinking themselves terribly cunning, they arranged for an old 1990s roads protest ‘star’ – Daniel Hooper, (better known as ‘Swampy’) – to perch in the structure as a way of attracting the media attention they desperately crave. Sadly for the protesters their plan wasn’t that ‘cunning’ at all. What they seemed to have overlooked is that ‘Swampy’ is famous for failing to stop anything. He failed at Twyford Down in the 90s and more recently at Jones’ Hill wood earlier this year. He maintained that record today!

Despite the protesters claims that they’d built the ‘beacon’ (as they pompously called it) in secrecy, the contractors and security staff just ‘happened’ to have a long reach elevated work platform on-hire on the opposite bank of the river. This morning contractors, security and police swooped and ‘Swampy’ was taken down and arrested by lunchtime – much to the obvious chagrin of the protesters who’d been boasting this stunt was going to ‘stop’ HS2! As usual, the event played out on social media. The protesters had shaken every bush and tree for miles to get bodies there and still only managed to attract a handful who posed no threat to the large numbers of security and police who were in attendance. The mix of middle-class Nimbys, crusty ‘eco-warriors’ and waifs and strays more interested in getting pissed on cheap cider was a sight to behold! Here’s a few screen-grabs from Twitter and Facebook to give you a flavour.

Early on HS2Rebellion posted this preposterous hostage to fortune…

So ‘impossible’ that Swampy had been taken down and nicked by 13:00 today and the bridge push continued without interruption! As for ‘secret’, well, HS2Rebellion do have a reputation amongst some other protesters for allegedly colluding with the police. Still, I’m sure it was pure co-incidence that the contractors had hired in a long-reach elevated platform and had it ready on the other side of the river!

Here’s where the protesters plans all started to go a bit ‘Pete Tong’ as the handy elevated platform swung into action!

It wasn’t long before two Officers descended from the cradle on ropes and soon had Swampy ejected from the ‘beacon’ and brought down into the waiting arms of their colleagues below. A few minutes later after removing Hooper’s possessions the ‘beacon’ was unceremoniously tipped on its side and removed, allowing the bridge push to continue this afternoon.

This one is particularly hilarious! This is almost Trumpian in its pretense that black is white and that this shambolic effort was actually a ‘victory’, but then ole ‘Boots’ is from the USA…

Regular readers may remember William from some of his previous hilarious utterances which earned him a place in my ‘crazy campaigner of the week’ feature. Quite how ‘Swampy’ fits into the description of “normal UK people” is another mystery.

If you want to grab some popcorn and watch the farce play out you can find it on the Denham ‘protection’ camp Facebook Page. I’d recommend doing it with the sound turned off/down as the commentaries range from the profane to the inane – along with lashings of propaganda. My ‘Bullshit bingo’ card filled up in a few minutes as all the buzz words were wheeled out in quick succession. “Ecocide”? Tick, “Illegal”? Check. “Assaulted”? Got it! “Polluting Aquifers”, Yep!

Meanwhile, just a few miles down the road, the final fleet of the 300 lorries bringing the two tunnel boring machines (TBMs) from Germany that would be digging the Chiltern tunnels had already arrived unopposed!

Somehow, I don’t think there’s going to be much carousing around the campfires in the remaining ‘protection’ camps tonight – unlike the worksite canteens where the HS2 contractors will be having a warm and looking forward to the overtime payments appearing in their pay-packets!

As more and more protesters give up and head off home or other causes (knowing this one’s lost) I wonder how much longer this farce will drag out? After all, there’s only going to be one outcome – despite what certain deluded Americans try and claim!

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/