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Tag Archives: Photography

Better late than never.

16 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by in Musings, Photography, Railways

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Today’s not been a vintage one – unless you count scanning lots of old pictures from the 1990s..

This morning Dawn and I attended the funeral of a lovely chap we knew both as a neighbour and as a regular in our local pub. Sadly, a few weeks ago, he suffered a massive heart attack whilst playing tennis and passed away at the age of 66. To say that Gary was popular and respected was evidenced by the number of folk who turned out to his cremation which was standing room only. I’ve no doubt that his family will be comforted by the send-off he received and the magnitude of people from all walks of life who turned up to pay their last respects.

These events are often unsettling for a number of reasons, not least because those attending are forced to face their own mortality and remember past times. Here’s some of my past in the form of photos I took long ago in 1995. I was never one for organised rail tours, but back in the mid 1990s, as the railways were changing due to privatisation, I did a few. Here’s a couple of shots of Hertfordshire Rail tours ‘Honey Monster’ which ran from London Paddington to the MOD storage facility at Long Marston in Oxfordshire. The site was packed with stored rail vehicles of all sorts and ages.

5141. 33019. 33057. The 'Honey Monster' railtour. Paddington. 29.7.95crop

Class 33s no’s 33019 and 33057 prepare to head the ‘Honey Monster’ railtour out of Paddington on the 29th July 1995.

The weather at Long Marston was excellent. Here’s some of the stock that was stored, which included brand-new (well, a year old) Class 92 electric locos.

5160. 92003. 92007. MOD Kineton. 29.7.95crop

As Joni Mitchell sang in ‘Big Yellow Taxi’, “you don’t know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone”…

If you want to have a look at more of today’s scanned pictures, you can find which galleries they’ve been added to on my Zenfolio website by following this link.

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Rolling blog: making the most of the weather…

10 Wednesday Apr 2019

Posted by in Photography, Railways, Rolling blogs

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08:39.I was up at 06:00 this morning to make Dawn’s coffee as she’s on a course in Liverpool today. This gave me time to scan another batch of old slides from 1995 which I should have on my website tonight. Here’s a taster from Warrington Bank Quay.

5022. 56132. 56033. Warrington Bank Quay. 20.6.95crop

Class 56s no’s 56132 and 56033 side by side at the station on the 20th June 1995.

Right now I’m off out to make the most of the sunny weather and try and catch up with some pictures for clients that I got side-tracked from on Friday. More soon…09:39.Despite the sunny interludes it’s a bit of a nippy day so I was glad the walk down to Sowerby Bridge warmed me up a bit! I arrived a couple of minutes late to catch the train I was aiming for, so now I’m hopping to Hebden Bridge to pick up a Fast train to Manchester from there. My steed is 158845, one of Northern’s refurbished Class I58s that’s had the full make-over. It has new seats, tables and also USB power sockets as well as an improved Passenger Information System.

11:05.I’m back on track as I decided to stay on the Blackpool train and take a detour via Burnley. This was for several reasons including the fact I hadn’t got pictures of the new station building and that I’d always meant to see if I could get a shot across the town showing a train traversing the viaduct on the Colne branch. I managed to achieve both aims with the added bonus that my return trip was on a stretch of track I’d not previously travelled on: the Todmorden curve.Whilst I was at Burnley I spotted this unique planter on Manchester Rd station which celebrates the town’s links with an earlier form of transport, the canals.

17:10.Ok, it’s a long story what I’ve been up to since I crossed Manchester. I visited a location I’ve wanted to check-out for years – and I wasn’t disappointed. After getting the train to Goostrey station on the line from Manchester to Crewe I walked to the Twemlow viaduct. I’ve passed over it hundreds of times, but you only appreciate its magnificence when you see it from the ground

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22:15

I’m happy with the pictures I managed to get today. Hopefully, the client will be too! So much has happened between now and then to blog about at length as I’m now taking it easy at home. Well, when I say “easy”, I’m actually on tenterhooks, trying to follow what’s happening at the EU summit in Brussels. Will the unanimity of the EU 27 finally break? The UK’s pushed its luck and it wouldn’t be any surprise if one or two countries finally ran out of patience with us. Brexit is an utter shambles, even some of it’s cheerleaders are admitting that now as they don’t want to be left carrying the can when the inevitable happens. God, what a mess this country’s got itself in…

Juggling…

09 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by in Brexit, Musings, Photography, Politics, Railways

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After yesterday’s travels today’s been spent at home to catch up on the huge volume of pictures that I’ve taken or scanned over the past week. That’s the only downside to pictures – they have to be edited and labelled and grouped before being transferred to my website. It’s a surprisingly time-consuming process that’s not helped by me trying to be more active this week as scanning all these old slides means I’m sitting around on my backside for much of the day, developing corns on my bum rather then getting some exercise.

There’s also the temptation to pay too much attention to social media and the latest news of the country completely losing the plot over Brexit. OK, I take that back. The country lost the plot ages ago. Now we’re completely through the looking glass! Having jst about exhausted their list of people to blame for the failure of Brexit (other than themselves), Brexiters have come up with an absolute stunner. The Queen’s to blame! No, that wasn’t a typo – They. Are. Calling. The. Queen. A. Traitor! Why? Because yesterday she signed the bill delaying Brexit beyond April 11th that was passed by err, Parliament…

Now remember, these are the people who’re always bleating about ‘democracy’ and ‘Sovereignty’, two concepts that most of them clearly know zip about! If it wasn’t so tragic (and dangerous) it would be a superb comic moment. As it is, the satirical website ‘The Poke’ has poked fun at them – and very effectively too (link) – aided and abetted by furious readers of the Daily Mail! Some of the comments on the Mail’s website make me seriously question the sanity of their readers, never mind their intelligence…

So, another month and another date we should have left the EU passes. Anyone with half a brain can see what an utter shambles this is. The UK’s a laughing stock around the world. Now the EU’s having to save us from ourselves and (hopefully) set a much extended date for article 50 whilst we try and sort ourselves out – which is going to be no easy task because the lunatics (of all political shades) are still in charge of the asylum and haven’t got a clue what to do. Even some of the hardline Brexit supporters (well, those one’s who haven’t been lobotomised) are starting to think – hence Peter Oborne’s volte face here.

The wrangling and the humiliation continues in Brussels, where Teresa May is, yet again, making a fool of herself and the country with EU leaders. Luckily for us, they seem to care more about the UK than she does, and seem poised to insist on a year long extension of article 50 in the hope it’ll give us chance to sort out our own mess. We shall see…

Right, it’s time for me to return to scanning a few more old slides. Here’s one from the latest batch, taken at Warrington Bank Quay station on the 20th June 1995.

04994. 87017. Working to Preston. Warrington Bank Quay. 20.6.95crop

Class 87 No 87017 ‘Iron Duke’ calls at Warrington Bank Quay whilst working a Euston to Preston service in BR days – long before Pendolino’s were even though about.

You can find the rest of the old slide scans as well as all the new pictures by following this link to my Zenfolio website. It’ll take you to the ‘recents’ section and show you which galleries have been updated.

Tuesday tribulations

02 Tuesday Apr 2019

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

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After working until late last night scanning slides I’ve restricted myself to working from home. Mind you, the weather’s not exactly been conducive to wandering the country. It’s been cold despite the sun and with moody skies that have threatened rain, sleet or even snow.

I’m now on the final few slides of the latest album to be disposed of, and it’s only taken 20 years to get them all done! In the past I’d only scanned a selection of images from each album. Now I’m scanning the whole of the album that I’ve decided to keep (some no longer make the grade) and I’m freeing up a lot of space in the process.

Here’s a couple of samples from the latest batch which show just how much has changed in the past 20 years.

06893. L702 51356. 51398. 15.38 Barking to Gospel Oak. Harringay Park Junction. 1.6.99crop

On the 8th June 1999, unit L702, made up of Class 1777 DMU cars 51356. 51398 work the 15.38 Barking to Gospel Oak past Harringay Park Junction on the ‘Goblin’, as the Gospel Oak – Barking line is known. At the time this was one of my local railways as I only lived a quarter of a mile away. It was one of London’s ‘cinderella’ railways, and a real backwater. A pocket of diesel operation that was surrounded by electrified lines that was still controlled in places by semaphore signals. The Class 117s themselves were old and unreliable and the service was often appalling. If you visit this same location today you wouldn’t recognise it. Everything has changed. The DMUs are gone, as is the signalbox and semaphore signals. The junction has all been relaid and even the roadbridge beyond has been rebuilt. The line’s also been electrified and this view has disappeared behind overhead wires. 

06936. 150130. 16.08. Barking - Gospel Oak. South Tottenham. 18.6.99crop

Here’s South Tottenham station just 17 days after the last picture was taken. The first Class 150s have been cascaded to the ‘Goblin’ to take over from the elderly Class 117s. A slightly care-worn 150130, still bearing Central Trains livery, calls at the station whilst working the 16.08 Barking to Gospel Oak service. In 2010 the 150s were displaced by the Class 172s which have lasted until now due to delays in electrifying the route and the new Class 710 trains being over a year late into service. Ironically, 150130 has followed me North. After being transferred to First Great Western after it left North London it’s now part of the Northern Rail fleet! 

Another 70 plus old slides have been added to my Zenfolio website. If you follow this link, you can find which galleries they’ve been added to. There’s everything from trains to stations.

 

Another day in Brexit Britain…

26 Tuesday Mar 2019

Posted by in Brexit, Food, Musings, Photography, Politics, West Yorkshire

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The farce that is British politics shows no sign of allowing reality to intrude at the moment, despite it knocking at the door – and shouting through the letterbox. The band of Brexiters are tying themselves in knots to justify both Brexit, and themselves. One of the maddest statements came from a supposed Labour MP, Kate Hoey, who said in a Parliamentary debate that “I don’t call it a no deal, it’s not a no deal, It’s a different type of deal”. Presumably in the same way that being dead is a different type of living…

This is the level of batshit crazy we’ve come to expect from the rabid Brexiters, for whom no mental gymnastics are out of bounds in their efforts excuse the complete and utter shambles they’ve helped visit upon us.

Away from the craziness, I’ve been busy editing pictures at home. First up were some more old slides, such as this, taken at Clapham Junction in June 1997. Nothing in the picture remains today. The old Kensington sidings that 33026 is using to run round an engineers train have vanished under a new platform for London Overground services. 33026 survived until 2003 when it was cut up at Eastleigh, having been withdrawn in August 1998, just over a year after this picture was taken.

06707. 33026. Clapham Junction.15.6.97crop

As well as scanning more old rail slides I’ve started on pictures from the anti Brexit rally in London on Saturday. You can find those pictures in this gallery.

This evening has had more of a domestic focus. Dawn’s accelerating her training for the Huddersfield half-marathon, so I’ve been stepping up to the plate on the cooking front and trying some different recipes from a new ‘Hairy Bikers’ cook book. The prawns I cooked tonight have seemed to go down well anyway. Here’s the basic ingredients all ready for cooking.

This is what the prawn curry looks like when it’s ready. No, those aren’t green chillies you see, they’re sugar snap peas, which give the curry a delightful crunchiness.

Back to the grindstone…

25 Monday Mar 2019

Posted by in Brexit, London, Photography, Politics

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After a fabulous weekend back in London I’m home and getting back into the routine (well, as routine as my life ever gets) of paperwork, picture editing, and preparing for the future.

I’m currently editing the hundreds of pictures that I took at the anti Brexit march on Saturday, followed by shots at a friends 50th birthday celebrations in Clapham later that evening. Here’s a couple of some of the brilliant banners and placards people carried on the day.

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Hopefully, by Wednesday I’ll have the full selection sorted. There’s also one or two new rail shots to add. Beyond all this work a chunk of the day was spent with a financial advisor to try and ensure my investments are as ‘Brexit proof’ as possible. I can’t believe we’re in this position, but there you go.

Whilst I’m doing what I can to protect dawn and I from the effects of the Brexitshambles, a lot of people are still signing the Revoke article 50 petition, which has almost reached 5.7 million this evening. Please, add your name by following this link.

petition

The petition’s already having an effect as some Leave supporting MPs with small majorities are looking at the number of their constituents who’ve signed it and started thinking ‘oh, shit’…

Whilst I’ve been busy typing Parliament’s been embroiled in more drama. MP’s have ignored the Government, voting to allow themselves more votes on a way forward – which May has said she’ll ignore as they’re only ‘indicative’. Three more of May’s Ministers have resigned too. Meanwhile, the Brexit clock’s still ticking and no-one has done anything to reset it. So, by simple operation of law, we crash out of the EU on the 29th of March, in 4 days time…

The madness continues whilst I try and work…

21 Thursday Mar 2019

Posted by in Brexit, Down memory lane, Food and drink, Politics, Railways

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It’s been another one of those days when trying to knuckle down to work has proved to be hard due to the constant distractions provided by the political la la land the UK’s inhabiting right now. I’m still trying to get my head around Teresa May’s ridiculous TV speech last night in which she absolved herself of all blame for this shit-shower (even though her idiotic red lines formed the base of it) and instead tried to set the public against Parliament and the MPs elected to it. To say her language was both reckless and inflammatory is an understatement. To say that many MPs of all parties are outraged would be an understatement.

Now she’s gone cap in hand to the EU, who must be sick of the sight of her. Predictably, they’ve now taken control and are currently deciding what terms they’ll offer on an extension to article 50. Take back control? Don’t make me laugh! A lot of my fellow Britons seem equally unimpressed. A petition calling for the revocation of article 50 has kept crashing the Govt’s website most of the day. Started only yesterday, it now stands at 1.5 million signatures and is rising by the hour.

petition

If you’d like to sign it, here’s the link.

Away from the madness I’ve been busy catching up on picture editing and paperwork, whilst also lining up some jobs. I’ve also been continuing to scan old slides in an effort to really start to make inroads to the collection and get unseen pictures online. Today’s small batch are from an open day at Crewe Electric depot back in May 1997. As it was an event I’ve created a new gallery for it on my website, which you can find here. These are a couple of sample pictures.

06653. 33108. 92031. Crewe Electric Depot Open Day. 3.5.97crop

A mixture of preserved and mainline locomotives were on display at Crewe. Here’s 33108, 92031 and 47375.

06651. E5001. Crewe Electric Depot Open Day. 3.5.97crop

The sole surviving Class 71, E5001 was also on display. 24 of these electric locomotives were build for the Southern region 3rd rail network at Doncaster in 1958. They were used on a variety of passenger and freight turns, including the famous ‘Golden Arrow’ and ‘Night Ferry’ boat-train services. As well as shoe-gear, they had a pantograph to 650 V DC which was used in some South London freight yards like Hither Green and at Snowdon colliery near Dover. The last 14 members of the class were withdrawn en-masse in 1977 but E5001 was saved for the national collection and preserved by the National Railway Museum.

This evening I’ve turned my hand to some kitchen therapy and cooked an old favourite – Lal Batata, which is new potatoes in a hot chilli and tamarind sauce.

I’ve even found a railway themed beer to go with it! This rather quaffable delight cam from somewhere I’d never expect to find it, B&M bargains, the cut-price chain!

The back of the bottle has an interesting label as it tells the story of a heroic railwayman of Victorian times.

Dawn’s been busy too and oven cooked some salmon to accompany the Lal Batata. Yum!

Simple Saturday and a trip down memory lane.

02 Saturday Mar 2019

Posted by in Nostalgia, Photography, Railways

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I’ve had an uncomplicated Saturday at home, far away from railways – unless you count scanning old slides. The fantastic sunshine we had earlier in the week seems like a memory as we’re back to the dull and wet weather that’s far more typical for this time of the year.

Dawn’s been out running as she’s training for the Huddersfield half-marathon which she agreed to do in a moment of madness via her work. I’ve been pottering around at home editing pictures and keeping a wary eye on the madness in the world through social media. We did take a break from all this by popping out to our local pub, the Big 6, earlier this evening for a chat and time with friends but this is very much a quiet Saturday night at home.

The old railway slides I’ve been scanning date from the summer of 1996 when the railways looked very different. Privatisation was very much a new thing. Many passenger sectors had yet to be privatised, but even those that had didn’t always show a great change, as this picture shows. This is London Kings Cross on the 17th September 1996.

06160. BRUTES on the platform. Kings Cross. 17.9. 1996crop

GNER had taken over operation of all the intercity services in April of that year. Not that you’d know as all the trains still carried their old BR liveries, whilst platform 1 to the right is still lined with the old BRUTE’s (British Railways Universal Trolley Equipment) used for carrying goods to/from postal and parcels trains.

Meanwhile, over on the West Coast Main Line Inter-city passenger services were still operated by BR (Virgin wouldn’t win the franchise until 1997). Here’s a shot taken at Warrington Bank Quay on the 18th August 1996. The 11:30 to Euston was a failure and had to be assisted by EW&S freight locomotive 56070.  Sadly, I’ve no record of how far the Class 56 worked the train, although I doubt it was any further than Crewe.

06141. 56070. Warrington Bank Quay. 18.8.96.crop

My New Zealand pictures on Zenfolio.

09 Wednesday Jan 2019

Posted by in New Zealand, Photography, Travel

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This is a quick blog to say that I’ve had time this morning to edit and upload a far bigger selection of pictures from our New Zealand trip onto my Zenfolio website. I only post a snapshot of what I’ve taken on the blog – for obvious reasons. If you want to have a look at the full selection, they’ll be uploaded to this gallery. Expect a lot more pictures to be added now that we’re on the incredibly scenic South Island and also because now we’re hiring cars to get around, so we can stop when and where we like. Enjoy the pictures!

I’ll be writing my usual daily rolling blog later.

Saturday selection

22 Saturday Dec 2018

Posted by in Musings, Photography, West Yorkshire

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It’s been one of those slow days where we’ve been pottering around but doing nothing special – partly due to the miserable weather but also due to recovering from yesterday’s entertainments! I shouldn’t really complain about the weather. Whilst grey skies and showers aren’t to everyone’s taste, drinking water is – and our reservoirs are perilously low this year after such a long, dry summer.

Most of our day’s been taken up with the mundane, the sort of everyday chores that fill up a lot of modern day life. Trips to the recycling centre and a local farm shop then braving packed supermarkets (honestly, you’d think people were preparing for the Zombie apocalypse or world war 3, not just Christmas) and finally, giving in and nipping up to one of our favourite local pubs (The Moorcock Inn) for a ‘swifty’ and a chat before a quiet night at home. Whilst Dawn’s busy cooking pan fried hake with sautéed potatoes and steamed broccoli I’ve retreated to the office to scan a few more old slides. Here’s a couple of samples.

05940. Signalbox. Canterbury East. 21.7. 1996.crop

Here’s Canterbury East signalbox on the 21st July 1996. Built in 1911 by the South Easter and Chatham Railway it’s now a grade 2 listed building. It’s elevated so that the signalman could see all the tracks beyond the station roof.

05950. 47725. Kings Cross. 2.8. 1996. crop

On the 2nd August 1996 Class 47 No 47725 sits in platform 1 of London Kings Cross with the stock of an afternoon mail train whilst an electric loco at the front prepares to take this service North to Newcastle at 16:30. Mail trains used to operate out of many of London’s termini until a new rail connected mail centre (the Princess Royal Distribution Centre, or PRDC) opened at Willesden in 2003. In those days these trains would block platforms for hours, nowadays you’d never get away with it as platform space is at a premium.

Right, I’ve been summoned as food’s ready. Now for a glass of wine and a film…