Tag Archives: Musings

27th December picture of the day…

27 Sunday Dec 2020

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

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This year the interregnum between Xmas and the New year is certainly an odd one – not that Christmas was exactly normal itself! I’m sure I remember a certain Prime Minister claiming back in September that life would could be back to normal by now but then he wouldn’t be the first person to claim that “It’ll all be over by Christmas”. You’d have thought people would have learned by now. New Year won’t be normal either. Forget the festivities as most of us will be in one form of lockdown or another. Hogmanay? Humbug!

Even so, I’m determined to make the most of this time. I can’t go to the pub or see friends? Never mind. There’s plenty of other things to do that I’ve never found the time for, so I might as well make the most of it – and that’s my pragmatic attitude to the situation we find ourselves in.

Mind you, the weather here in the Pennines hasn’t been tempting me to venture far anyway. Storm Bella passed without any major impact but the area’s certainly damp – but without any flooding, which is a bonus. So I’ve been hunkered down in the office to continue the slide scanning marathon whilst trying to catch up on on few household chores. Oh, the humdrum lockdown life!

My intention with the new week and what remains of the year is to clear the decks ready for 2021 which is going to prove to be another ‘interesting’ year – although it’s one I’m remaining resolutely positive about. The Covid vaccines are going to be rolled out and the world will start to re-open – well, the bits we haven’t cut ourselves off from with Brexit, anyway! – so I’m really looking forward to making up for lost travel-time and getting out and about in next year. This has been one of the great frustrations of 2020. I’ve spent so much time scanning pictures of beautiful parts of the world I’ve visited in the past whilst knowing I can’t get anywhere near them right now! One of today’s old slide scans is the – picture of the day…

I took this shot in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia on the 12th January 1999. Ballarat was a town made rich from Gold mining and some of its civic buildings reflected that status, including this one, which is the railway station dating from 1862 – and yes – that clocktower is part of the station!

The old semaphore signals you see in the picture had just been taken out of commission, but the railway gates survive today, as does the signalbox – which has become a coffee shop!

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/

Thank you!

26th December picture of the day…

26 Saturday Dec 2020

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

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Well, here were are on Boxing Day of the strangest Christmas I’ve ever had – although it’s not been all bad by any means. As a Freelancer of 20 years standing I’ve got used to the fact that the office parties are shit! The compensation for that has been certain events with friends which are far more convivial and enjoyable as you’re actually spending time with people you want to. Only this year that’s not been possible so the festive season’s been anything but festive as even the bloody pubs are shut!

Despite all these travails we had a lovely Christmas Day with our ‘bubble’ – Dawn’s parents. We drove over to their home in Huddersfield where Dee and her mum prepared a fabulous Christmas meal. As there was only the four of us the day was really relaxed with the courses stretched over several hours – and it was delicious! We enjoyed a mixture of Duck and Turkey breast with all the trimmings plus a wonderful home-made dessert. Even the cat enjoyed himself. We didn’t want to leave the old boy at home alone so we took him with us. He sat on a cushion on my lap in the car on the way over and really seemed to enjoy the journey. He’s always been an inquisitive cat and loved gazing out of the window.

Today (Boxing Day) the pair of us have taken it easy at home. There’s been no pressure to go anywhere as there’s nowhere to go! Storm Bella has been fashionably late, which meant we managed to get out for a long walk through the local woods and along the canal before the rain and gales hit. I’m writing this just before midnight whilst listening to the wind and rain clobbering the bedroom window.

Which brings me on to the picture of the day. It may be Christmas, but I have managed to scan one or two old slides in the quieter moments. The batch I’m plowing my way through at the moment are from the very end of regular steam locomotive workings in India, way back in 2000. Sadly, I missed the final act by a couple of weeks. But I was in time to record the demise of the final main-line steam locomotive depot in India, which was at the wonderfully named Wankaner Junction, which is in the Gujarat, Western India. I’ll blog about this at length another time when I have all the pictures scanned. In the meantime, here’s the locomotive that hauled the last scheduled steam train in India.

Here’s YG Class 2-8-2 No 3360 (with headboard) dumped inside the shed at Wankaner Junction on the 12th February 2000 after having had its fire dropped for the very last time just a couple of weeks before. The depot still contained 17 steam locos of classes YG and YP – although some were merely shells that hadn’t run for several years.

If you want to see other pictures from this Indian trip, follow this link. I’ve still a few more to add which I hope to do over the next couple of days.

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/

Thank you!

24th December picture of the day…

24 Thursday Dec 2020

Posted by in Musings, Picture of the day, Railways

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Well, more of a Christmas card really! Today’s been spent prepping for the big day tomorrow which means Dawn and I have been busy with different chores and cooking. In the spirit of the festive season we even had a (very) brief flurry of snow here earlier, which lasted about as long as one of Boris Johnson’s promises!

Anyway, enough of politics, Covid or anything else.

What I would like to do is wish all my readers a very Merry Christmas, wherever you are – and the statistics I see from WordPress show me that you’re all around the world! I’m both grateful and humbled that so many of you either follow my (almost) daily rambles and ventures into a range of subjects. It’s been a funny old world this year to say the least and I suspect many of us are having the sort of Christmas we never expected, but I just want to wish each and every one of you the best festive season possible. So here’s the picture of the day, which I took on a rather magical little railway in Germany back in 2007…

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?

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/

Thank you!

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.

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/

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!

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/

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.

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/

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.

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/

Thank you!

7th December picture of the day…

07 Monday Dec 2020

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

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Another week and yet another day in ‘splendid’ isolation – working from home, staying out of the cold! The weather’s changed here in the Calder Valley. We’ve had clear skies and a sunny day but the temperature has plummeted. There’s no doubt that winter’s just around the corner. Even so, I’ve been making a concerted effort to up the ante on the exercise front so I’ve braved the cold and clocked up 5 miles – even if it was by ping-ponging up and down our road! Well, it passes through some lovely woodland and there’s great views across the valley so it’s not like walking round the block in a city. You never know what critters you might bump into, especially in the evening. I often encounter foxes and deer aren’t unknown, although I’ve never encountered any of the local badger population. Owls regularly make their presence known through their hooting, but they’re so silent when they fly you’d be lucky to see one. I’m toying with the idea of getting an infrared wildlife camera just to see what I might find exploring our back terraces at night.

The rest of the day’s been spent catching up on paperwork, filing and admin jobs plus a small amount of picture editing, just to keep the ball rolling – and dispatching a few eBay orders, although that’s taken more of a back seat this month as I’ve not had time to upload many new pictures or other railwayana. Hopefully next week once other jobs are cleared away as I’ve still got a lot of stuff to dispose of. Part of the next tranche features as the picture of the day. at the weekend I picked up several new slide albums to join the queue for scanning over the winter. One of those albums is full of foreign railway slides like this. I took this picture on the 17th October 1991 in Delhi, India. Steam locomotives were dying out but hundreds still plied their trade on Broad Gauge network – although not for much longer. By 1996 they’d all gone, so on my 12 month trip away in 1991-92 I was determined to get pictures and had arranged a photographic permit that allowed me access to several locomotive depots, including the one adjacent to old Delhi railway station, where I found this WG Class 2-8-2 No 8009 being moved on the depot turntable. The WGs (W indicated it was Broad gauge and G a goods engine) arrived in India in 1950. The first 100 were built in England by the North British Engine Co, whilst hundreds of others were produced by American, German and Japanese firms before Chittaranjan Locomotive Works in West Bengal took over construction. the last were produced in 1970 after 2450 had been built. Sadly, only a handful have been preserved with most of them being static exhibits.

If you’re interested in looking through more rail photos from this trip or of, Indian railways in general you can find them in this gallery on my Zenfolio picture website.

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/

6th December picture of the day…

06 Sunday Dec 2020

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

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This blog’s going to be short and sweet as I’m writing it late in the day. Not that it’s been a bad Sunday – far from it. The pair of us have had a relaxing start to the day but still managed to get out for an extended walk around the local woodlands and along the canal. It was lovely to get out but also see the rare sight of a Kingfisher catching its dinner on the cut. Other folk had spotted the bird stock-still on the other side of the canal and were gracious enough to point it out. Just as they did the animal dived into the canal to successfully grab its prey before flying off. A chap who saw the sight admitted it was the first time in his 50 years of walking the cut he’d actually seen a Kingfisher, so we felt rather privileged!

The walk was lovely but arriving in Sowerby Bridge was rather odd as the place was so deserted because nothing was open. There’s little chance of us coming out of Tier 3 in our bit of West Yorkshire so I think most businesses have given up until 2021 – which must be awful for them as they’re missing the most profitable part of the year. The secret pessimist in me wonders how much better things will be next year when the true costs of Brexit spread throughout the supply chain, but I’m saving my spleen on that shambles for now.

Back at home we’ve had a relaxed night as Dawn’s cooked one of our favorite dishes (spicy prawns) which has allowed me to spend time sorting out the picture of the day which is from my latest batch of travel slides. I took this on the 7th January 1999 on the Great Ocean Rd in Australia. This is ‘London Bridge’ – although – like the old nursery rhyme, it had fallen down! Back in 1990 the arch linking it to the mainland collapsed. Even so, it was still a fascinating natural structure.

If you’re interested in looking through more photos from Australia (or the rest of our epic trip), you can find them in this gallery on my Zenfolio picture website. I’ll be adding many more shots of other exotic locations (including New Zealand, Fiji and the Cook 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/