Tag Archives: Musings

Where does the time go?

12 Tuesday Nov 2019

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Yesterday was our second wedding anniversary, but it didn’t go entirely to plan due to the fact Dawn’s gone down with the lurgi. Of course, this follows straight on from a fantastic weekend with friends where we (belatedly) celebrated my 60th birthday, which was last month. 15 of us congregated in London at Café Spice Namaste for what was a lovely evening.

On Sunday we made our way back from London to Yorkshire. Sadly, it was all a bit of a rush, but that’s because a few of us had a lie-in after staying up until 02.30. We were staying in a hotel in London’s Eastern Docklands and the weather was so good on the Sunday Morning we couldn’t resist taking a minor detour on the Emirates Airlines cable-car across the Thames to North Greenwich. This left us with little time to get the train our friends had booked from Kings Cross to Yorkshire, so I ended up doing my best London travel guide impression, using my knowledge as a former Londoner to navigate our way across the city’s public transport system. Here’s how things looked from the cable car.

The O2 arena in the foreground with Canary Wharf behind it. To the right in the background you can see the City of London and skyscrapers like the ‘Walkie-Talkie’ and the ‘Gherkin’.
The ever changing face of East London and the area around Bow Creek, with Stratford in the background.
Where Bow Creek joins the Thames is another hive of construction activity with the skyline dominated by tower cranes.

Our trip back home was made easy by a straight-through trip on Grand Central to Halifax, where we caught up with our friends for a last drink in the Big 6 before home. Yesterday was far more relaxed as, apart from slipping out to get some shopping, we stayed in all day. Dawn wasn’t feeling 100% and the weather was filthy, so there was no incentive to venture out apart from me having a dental appointment to pick up a shield. It seems I’ve started grinding my teeth in my sleep. After nearly four years of the shambles that is Brexit I can’t say that I’m entirely surprised. Biting my tongue during the day and grinding my teeth at night seems entirely normal behaviour under the circumstances! To prevent excessive wear and tear I’ve now got a shield for my lower teeth which is to be worn at night. If only a solution to the Brexitshambles was that simple…

So, instead of the pair of us venturing out we spent the evening cooking. Dawn prepared a Flemish beef stew with beer before retiring to her sick bed, leaving me to take over and prepare all the veg and finish the cooking. I have to say, the stew was delicious!

We fell in love with this rich dish when we were in Bruges last month. With the weather being so miserable it seemed like the ideal comforting food to prepare, although we eschewed the traditional chips for a mixture of roast potato’s and red cabbage as an accompaniment.

Today I’ve been on nursing and shopping duties as well as working from home. There’s been plenty of news to catch up on, hence this blog on HS2 I penned this morning. I even managed to venture out for an afternoon constitutional, although I’ve not been breaking any records today! Hopefully tomorrow the weather (and Dawn) will begin to pick up…

Rain, rain, go away…

07 Thursday Nov 2019

Posted by in Calder Valley, Musings, Sowerby Bridge, Weather, West Yorkshire

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It’s been a wet and miserable day here in the Calder Valley, the leaden skies have been unloading on us since early this morning. If I had plans for an Ark I’d be tempted to dust them off, but then we live high up on the valley side, so if the flood waters ever reached us an ark is exactly what we’d need!

Earlier, I donned my waterproofs and took a stroll down into Sowerby Bridge in order to pick up some shopping and also to get some exercise. I try and walk 5 miles most days in order to keep fit and get away from staring at a computer screen. Today it gave me the excuse to check on the River Calder which runs through the centre of the town. It’s not at Boxing Day 2015 flood levels but it’s way above normal. Here’s the view from the bridge across the river looking East.

This is a still from 2014 showing how this stretch of river normally looks like!

Here’s another view taken from the left hand side of the first video clip, looking towards the railway. The river that joins the Calder under the railway bridge is the Ryburn. It was just the other side of the railway that the 2015 floods happened due to the sheer volume of water being pushed back from the Ryburn by a flooded Calder – just where Sowerby Bridge is at its lowest level.

Apparently, the railway line is closed due to flooding at a familiar weakpoint today, Walsden, to the West of Todmorden, where a culvert passes under the line, so the pair of Pacers you see in the video were the last train to make it through. I also hear that the road between Sowerby Bridge and Todmorden is closed due to flooding!

I’m now back at home in the warm, hoping that the Amber flood warning the Met Office has issued won’t cause us any more problems, but more rain is something we certainly don’t need.

Misty Monday…

04 Monday Nov 2019

Posted by in Down memory lane, Musings, Photography, Railways

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

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

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

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

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

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

Easy Sunday…

03 Sunday Nov 2019

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– well, sort of! I was actually up early as our cat insists that on a weekend it has the right to sleep on the bed. How it knows it’s the weekend we’ve never been able to work out, but the moggy can. This meant I was given an early morning alarm call when Jet decided he needed to be fed. As I’d given in to him and Dawn was happily sleeping I sloped off into the office to scan some more old slides I’d prepped.

With such an early Sunday start we both decided to ‘carpe diem’ and make the most of the day by having an early breakfast and going for a long walk through along the canal into Sowerby Bridge, then up through our local woodland (Scarr woods) which is looking superb at this time of year. What was lovely to see was the way some people place Halloween pumpkins in the woods, which can either delight – or scare the shit out of you!

Back at home we continued our productive time as Dawn got into ‘domestic Goddess’ mode in the kitchen to produce a fiery Thai Green Curry from scratch (no pre-prepared pastes here) plus a gorgeous Lemon Drizzle Cake. I spent my time on household DIY (yes, I know – the bathroom) before ploughing on with the never ending job of mounting and scanning more old slides. I’m currently doing an album from 2003 which contains a lot of stuff from Virgin Trains days. I’m looking forward to having them done now that the franchise is about to come to an end as it will be an appropriate tribute to a company that really did a lot to improve the image of the railways in the publics perception.

In the meantime, here’s one of the other slides I’ve been scanning. This is a view across London Waterloo taken from the London Eye back in 2003. The city’s skyline has changed a bit since then, as have the rail services. In those days the old BR built slam door stock was still in use and Waterloo International would be in use by Eurostar for another 4 years.

The months (and seasons) roll on…

01 Tuesday Oct 2019

Posted by in ACoRP, Calder Valley, Musings, Railways, Weather

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Here in the Calder Valley October began exactly where September left off – in the rainclouds! The rain’s hardly stopped all day except for a few moments when you feel emboldened enough to set foot outside, then it creeps back laughing and soaks you! I went for a walk up through our local woods earlier, all the paths had been turned into rivulets as the ground’s so sodden the water’s nowhere else to go. Apart from me, a few soggy squirrels and a couple of determined dog-walkers the woods were deserted. For the past few days I’ve been lucky to see the other side of the valley, never mind further afield.

I’ve not minded too much as I’ve got plenty to do at home. In fact, this enforced sojourn has allowed me to catch up on a huge amount of paperwork and also led me to have a bit of a clear out of stuff I’ve been hoarding for years but never looked at for decades – and certainly not since I left London. You see, this month hold a rather significant birthday for me. It’s my 60th, and it’s make me somewhat introspective. When you’re younger you collect all sorts of ephemera and stuff you physically clutter your life up with. I’m now of an age where I’m thinking “do I really need this stuff anymore? What value is it going to add to my remaining years”? It’s not as if I haven’t got enough to keep me occupied with all the pictures that I still need to scan so that they see the light of day after decades of sitting in albums. Some of this decluttering is actually a catharsis, allowing me to focus on what’s really important.

Tomorrow all this changes as we escape the valley and me the office to head down to Telford for the ACoRP awards. The weather forecast promises something other than continual rain, so I’m hopeful I’ll be able to get a few library shots to add to the collection as well as everything else. No doubt there’ll be a rolling blog or two coming your way at the same time. In the meantime, here’s a couple of pictures from last years awards which was held in Glasgow.

Compare Richard Salkeld (left) of LNER with Scotrail MD and awards presenter Alex Hynes.

Enjoying the drinks reception before the serious business of the night starts – the awards themselves.

Another month whips by at lightning speed…

30 Monday Sep 2019

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Where the hell did September go? One minute we’re chugging slowly and sedately towards the end of summer with some cracking days full of sunshine, the next it’s full-blown autumn, with the leaves already beginning to fall in their droves, encouraged by the torrential rain and gales that have been an on and off feature of the month.

Mind you, it’s not just been the weather that’s stormy. The political scene’s been pretty tempestuous too as Boris Johnson continues to both wreck Britain’s political standing in the world and make the country ungovernable in his hell for leather pursuit of a no-deal Brexit. No lie is to large for the man to tell it and no scenario too preposterous. Parliament’s fought back and now we find ourselves at a political impasse and the party conference season. The bits that I’ve seen of the Tory conference make it look like a cross between the Benny Hill show and a zombie movie, as this little gem shows. Add some batshit crazy speeches from a few clueless Cabinet Ministers and you can’t help but wonder what our European neighbours make of this mess when they see the scandals around Johnson unfold and hear the bonkerssruff coming out of the mouths of his Cabinet. It’s no wonder so many delegates are choosing to take a nap…

Tomorrow October arrives, which is going to be a pretty full-on month. On Wednesday we head off to the Community Rail Awards in Telford for ACoRPs annual celebration of everything that’s best about the sector. It’ll be a busy time but also a great opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues from around the country. Hopefully the weather will be kind to us as there’s a couple of ‘jollies’ included in the programme.

So, bye-bye September…

Sunday blues…

29 Sunday Sep 2019

Posted by in Belgium, Hs2, Musings, Politics, Railways, Travel

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I’ve had little time for blogging today as (for once) we actually had a lie-in. After a week of getting up at 06:00-07:00 it was lovely not to have the alarm set. Mind you, we also had a fairly late night as a small group of us went to a friends for a meal last night. Forget the Tories Brugges group, this was a chance for a select six of us to get together and have a lovely meal at Tony Allan’s and chat about our own visit to that fair city.

We had a lovely evening and didn’t miss much by getting up late as the morning was (literally) a washout due to the weather. It’s yet another day where it’s chucked it down, so much so that I didn’t get out for my constitutional stroll until this evening when the wet weather abated. Instead, the pair of us have spent most of the day getting on with chores, not exactly the rock and roll lifestyle, but when needs must…

What I have had chance to do is catch up on the news and seen that the much hyped anti HS2 demonstration led by Chris Packham at Euston yesterday failed to set the world on fire. Sure, it got media attention because of Packham but only a few dozen people turned up. Most of the media photos are tightly cropped to show Packham and a couple of demonstrators with him. The ones that zoom out show just how few folk actually bothered coming along. Of course, all this is a sideshow, the main event is up the West Coast Main Line in Manchester where the Tory party conference is happening. What’s not happening is any StopHs2 presence. Several years ago they would have had a stall inside all the party conferences. Now their campaign’s on its uppers they can’t even be bothered to turn up and leaflet outside.

This evening, whilst Dawn’s been cooking some fabulous Indian curry I’ve been busy delving through the picture archives thanks to a friend who jogged my memory . Earlier today Anthony Roberts posted a picture from Belgium showing one of their Cass 62 diesel locos. This set me thinking, and searching my Zenfoilio site. I realised that I’d never added old pictures from some Belgian tours I did back in 2006. I used to have them on my old Fotopic website, but when that went tits-up I lost a lot of caption details as I’d never added it to the original files (which I still have). So this evening has been spent hunting down info to try and rebuld the collection on my Zenfolio site. You can find the resurrected gallery here. Thank God for websites like six bells junction, which has allowed me to check the details of the tour. I’ve more pictures to add but that’s going to have to wait until later in the week. It’s taken me 8 years, another few days won’t make any difference! Here’s a couple of samples. I must admit these pictures have triggered a real bout of nostalgia for what were some wonderful times with a great bunch of people. I used to go over on these tours with a group of friends from the Gloucester area under the banner of Pathfinder railtours. You’ll see some of them in the pictures.

The view from the cab of Class 62 no 6250 as we travel across Holland
A line-up of Railion Class 204 locos at Terneuzen. Holland. 4.11.06.

Bojo the clown? There’s nothing remotely funny about Johnson.

26 Thursday Sep 2019

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As I predicted, there were angry and heated scenes in Parliament yesterday. MPs from all sides expressed their disgust at the behaviour of Johnson and his Cabinet coterie. Some, like Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman (a man I normally have little time for) didn’t mince their words.

The whole proceedings were a deeply unedifying spectacle, more so because of the complete contempt Johnson and his clique showed for both Parliament, the Judiciary and democracy itself. The final straw for many was Johnson’s clear disdain for female MP’s worries about him stoking up tensions and his attempt to co-opt the spirit of the murdered MP for Batley and Spen, Jo Cox, by claiming enabling Brexit would honour her memory.

I met Jo Cox once. At a station adoption event in Batley. Jo was very kind and helpful to my wife Dawn as it was Dawn’s first public speaking event representing her company, ACoRP. After that meeting I was convinced Jo would have gone far, maybe even all the way to the top. She was clever, witty and engaging. She also knew how to make things happen. What I do know is that Jo would have been horrified by Brexit and done everything she could to fight it. Johnson using her is typical of the man. Let’s face it, he has a long history of using and exploiting women. He has no moral compass whatsoever. The only thing that matters to him is his own ambition.

But don’t fall into the trap of thinking Johnson’s unapologetic performance and stoking of outrage yesterday was accidental. It was anything but. It was straight out of the Steve Bannon playbook, the one Trump keeps under his pillow.

Johnson’s trapped himself. His arrogance, willingness to lie fluently and lack of a moral compass have got him (and us) into this mess. Politically he’s a dead man walking, caught in a mire of his own making. He’s impotent as he has no majority so he’s at the mercy of others. He’s swinging in the wind like the famous picture on that zipwire. The only way out of it that he sees is to trigger an election – hence his behaviour. He wants a vote of no confidence – anything that will trigger an election that he thinks he still has a chance of winning. That’s why he’s trying to goad everyone, be they Labour, women MPs or even his own backbenches.

But remember the old Chinese saying. Revenge is a dish best eaten cold. Johnson’s problem is that others remember that saying too and are happy to give him enough rope…

Postscript.

Since I wrote this Parliament has voted to refuse to suspend itself during the Conservative party conference. It’s yet another humiliation for Johnson, who’s faced with being at the conference or in Parliament. Ten of the former Conservative MP’s Johnson withdrew the whip from voted against the motion. Remember what I said about revenge?

Tales of the unexpected.

23 Monday Sep 2019

Posted by in Musings, Railways, Travel, West Yorkshire

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S’cuse the absence from blogging yesterday. The mundane caught up with me and demanded my full attention!

On Friday, as I was ready to make my way back from the National Rail Awards one of our neighbours who was popping in to look after our cat reported that we had a leak from the bathroom into the kitchen. Her timely intervention with towels and basins meant that it did very little damage but it did mean I had to start pulling the bathroom to pieces when I got home. Sod’s law being what it is, the leak was on the most inaccessible tap! To get to it meant stripping out the wash-hand basin. as I had to do that it seemed like a good idea to tackle another job which needed doing and repair the bathroom floor.

With Saturday being such a wonderful day weather-wise I left the bathroom to dry out before tackling the floor. Now, two days later and after much cursing, head-scratching and skinned knuckles, the bathroom’s back together again just in time for Dawn to return from her trip to her brothers this evening.

Now I can get back to the job of editing all the pictures I took last week and on Saturday. The weather since then has been mixed to say the least! Sunday brought torrential rain in the morning, stayed warm and wet through much of the day but then produced to most glorious sunset that was made more special by the mist slowly building in the valley.

Today’s been very different. We had a misty morning, glorious afternoon but a damp and dismal evening. As I sit in my office typing this I can hear the rain dripping off shed roofs and drumming on the cobbles in the alley at the back of the house – as if I haven’t had my fill of dripping water! I suspect I’m going to be a captive of the weather again tomorrow. At least I have an excuse to catch up on paperwork!

To brighten the evening, here’s a small selection of pictures from the past week.

West Coast Railways 57601 leading and 57313 trailing work an excursion from Preston to Scarborough through Sowerby Bridge on Saturday.
Northern Rail’s 333014 passes Cononley en-route to Skipton.
With Skipton in the background and the bridge of the A629 bypass in the foreground, 331110 heads for Bradford Forster Square.

Tomorrow I’ve a presentation to prepare for Wednesday as I’m doing a picture show to Bradford Railway Circle. You can find details here.

Just another manic Monday…

16 Monday Sep 2019

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After a reflective weekend I’m back into the fray with a vengeance. I’ve been playing catch-up with editing last weeks rail and travel pictures to get them up on my Zenfolio website, which happened this morning. If you follow this link, you can see which galleries have been updated with new images. Here’s a couple of samples to whet your appetites. Anyone passing through the Calder Valley by train will probably have looked up at the hills above Todmorden and noticed Stoodley Pike plus the monument atop it. This was completed in 1856 and replaced an earlier one that was constructed to commemorate the end of the Napoleonic wars. 121 feet tall, it has an observation deck 41ft above ground that’s reached by internal stairs. It looks impressive from a distance, but it’s even more so close up. I can’t imagine what it must have been like as one of the people trying to build such a structure in such a windswept and desolate place with the tools available at the time.

Seen from the balcony of Stoodley Pike, a new Northern Class 195 makes its way across Lobb Mill viaduct outside Todmorden as it heads from Huddersfield to Blackpool North.

That done, I’ve been busy sorting out other pictures for a couple of clients as well as trying to prepare for the week ahead. It’s a busy week as I’ve got a lot of travelling to do, catching up with the ever-changing rail scene as the introduction of new fleets ramps up and the withdrawal of old trains escalates as a consequence. There’s some major changes happening out there at the moment and that’s going to continue for some time. I’ve also a blog on the Trans-Pennine route upgrade to update after attending a Network Rail consultation over the weekend as I’ve a lot of new information to add.

As if that wasn’t enough I’ve got to dust off my ‘penguin suit’ ready for Thursday’s National Rail Awards in London.

After working as the event photographer between 2003 and 2017 I’ve been honoured to be a VIP guest for the past few years along with my wife, Dawn. Now I can relax and spend time with friends and enjoy the awards rather than be on duty, wondering just how many people will turn up on stage to collect each trophy. Don’t get me wrong, I loved working there, but it wasn’t without it’s stresses when you knew you had to deliver great pictures of such a prestigious event. It’s good to see Huw Edwards returning as presenter this year, he’s been one of the best. That said, we’ve had some great ones over the years and it’s always been a challenge to get pictures of them as they pace the stage.

As you can see, there’s going to be plenty to blog about over the next few days – and that’s without the long-running farce that is British politics and the Brexitshambles. The latest tragi-comedy has taken place in Luxembourg where Johnson’s utterly stupid remarks comparing himself to the cartoon character the ‘hulk’ have backfired in spectacular fashion. Here’s a headline from Rupert Murdoch’s ‘Wapping Liar’ – sorry – the ‘Sun’

The reality? Johnson went from ‘Hulk’ to sulk and ran away from a joint press event with Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel! Christ on a bike, how stupid we look to the world right now, and it’s all our fault, despite the blame game the Brexiters are desperately playing. This is the political equivalent of “a big boy did it and ran away” – and the rest of the world knows it. In fact, everyone does but the Brexiters. Start stockpiling those foodstuffs folks. This has no happy ending – unless you’re a millionaire hedge fund manager…