Well, the new week certainly dawned – and it wasn’t a bad one too! In fact the weather here in the Calder valley’s been far sunnier than expected, although someone seems to have forgotten it’s still August and dialed-down the temperature to an October setting! I can’t really complain as most of my day’s been spent staring at a computer screen in order to finish editing all last weeks pictures from my Cumbrian trip and get them on my Zenfolio website. You can find the full selection and which galleries they’ve been added to by clicking on the ‘recent’ button, here’s a shortcut that will take you straight to it!
I’ve another day planned where I’ll be chained to my desk again tomorrow, but as the weather’s meant to be wet I’m hardly going to complain. There’s no shortage of pictures to scan, paperwork to shuffle, blogs to write or trips to plan. Hopefully I’ll be out and about again by Thursday.
In the meantime, here’s the picture of the day, which I took last week. It’s of an unassuming house on the outskirts of Wylam on the Tyne valley. The Wylam waggonway (an early railway) ran past the front of the house, right where I was standing to take the picture.
What’s special is not the house but the person who was born there. On the 9th June 1781 a boy was born to Robert and Mabel Stephenson, they christened him George. George Stephenson became famous as the ‘father of the railways’ – not bad for a child born to illiterate parents who was unable to read and write himself until he was 18! Yet he became world famous as a civil and mechanical engineer. His son Robert (born on the 16th October 1803) followed in his footsteps and the father and son team helped railways conquer the world and the industrial revolution to change the face of Britain.
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A very short blog from me tonight. Life has a habit of getting in the way sometimes and all the things I had planned never happened. It’s the start of a new week tomorrow, so hopefully things will improve. I’ve certainly got enough things on the go to keep me occupied! One of the little projects I’m trying to get finished is editing all of last weeks pictures and uploading them to my Zenfolio website. The picture of the day is one in the queue.
When Hassard and I were in Cumbria earlier in the week the weather was hardly vintage photographic conditions. However, the weather has a remarkable knack of changing! Here’s the view from Parton when it did exactly that. We went from visibility of just a few hundred meters to this in an hour. Here’s the coast of Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland which magically appeared out of the gloom as we were stood on the station waiting for our train back to Carlisle.
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After two days on the road I’ve hardly moved more than a quarter of a mile today as I’ve been busy trying to edit the pictures from my travels as well as sort out all the mundane stuff life throws at you. Despite that, the day’s flown. One thing I have enjoyed has been spending some time in the kitchen, cooking up a Thai Green curry. Admittedly, I ate Asian food in Carlisle but it’s a cuisine I never tire of so the chance to cook my own is never missed.
I’ve another day at home tomorrow before heading back to my old home town (Southport) for a sad event. I blogged about the death of an old friend (Mike Smith) back this time last year. On Sunday, a few of us are going to get together to scatter his ashes in a local park. He was always a short, skinny bugger so I can’t imagine there’s going to be much to scatter, but there you go. No doubt I’ll do a rolling blog of the day and my thoughts. What will be strange for me is that one of the people who’ll be there is an old school friend whom I’ve not seen since the late 1980s after he and I had a ‘parting of the ways’ in India back in 1986. Another long story….
Still, funny old world isn’t eh?
Today’s picture of the day has nothing to do with any of this, it’s from my trip to the Cumbrian coast with another old friend from a slightly different vintage. I mentioned Parton on the Cumbrian coast. Here’s on of the pictures I was after, even if the light wasn’t as good as I’d liked. The railway hugs the coast here. So much so it’s in constant danger of slipping into the sea and has done so on several occasions. It’s the classic conundrum that faces the railways in the age of global warming. The Victorian engineers though this was a good (cheap) way of driving a railway though this part of the world. Those decisions are coming back to haunt us now…
Still, spot the train in this image of the beach at Parton.
Hopefully I’ll have the rest of the several hundred pictures I took added to my Zenfolio website in the next few days. If not – I’m sure there’s other stuff I’ll be able to find to bore you with!
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My day’s travels are having a later start than normal as I’m currently waiting for a check-up at the Royal Calderdale hospital’s Dematology department. After forty-odd years of backpacking and beach-bumming around the world in exotic, sunny places you’ll find more moles on me than on the average golf course! So far, all have proved to be benign but recently a new one’s appeared on my cheek below my left eye. My GP reckons is OK but has sent me to get it checked out by experts – just in case. Once this is done I’ll be on my way, heading North. Of course, the problem with hospitals (especially ‘cos of Covid) is that you’ve no idea how long things will take. I’m not a great fan of hanging around hospitals (after all, they’re full of sick people!) but I really can’t complain about the Royal Calderdale. Whenever I’ve been here in the past the staff have been excellent.
It’s my first visit since the pandemic broke and it’s odd to see the place quieter than usual and waiting areas stripped to the bare minimum to enable social distancing. This is a big hospital with a large catchment area so it’s normally buzzing.
11:40.
Everything’s A-OK. The Dermatology nurse who examined me was a chippy and cheerful Yorkshire lass. After quizzing whsre I was going with such a large bag she waxed lyrical about a trip she’d taken along the Settle-Carlisle railway with her husband! In examining me she told me what I had under my eye was a seborrhoeic keratoses (a name that doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue!) and the good news? They’re harmless!
As my visit was mercifully short I managed to catch an earlier train. I’m now on a busy 3-car Class 195 working the 11:32 Halifax – Blackpool North. Leisure travel’s returned with a vengance. I was nearly mown down by a fleet of women with prams who were leaving the train to head the ths towns ‘Eureka’ childrens museum. Even with them disembarking the train remains busy.
12:30.
We’ve just left Blackburn and the train’s packed. We’ve lots of families aboard who’re on their way to Blackpool for a holiday. I feel rather sorry for them as the weather’s not looking very promising over the next few days, but then that’s why budget holidays to Spain became so popular!
14:30.
I’m now on the final leg to Carlisle after changing trains at Preston and Lancaster. All the services I’ve used today have been busy. It’s true that Preston station was quieter than I’d usually expect this time of year, but then there’s rather a dearth of foreign tourists – for obvious reasons! From Preston I caught a TPE Class 397 working a Manchester Airport – Edinburgh service, which was well loaded. If it had been on one of the old 3-car Class 185s used on the route it would have been rammed. I’ve not travelled on a 397 on the WCML before so I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the ride at linespeed – especially as I was stood over a bogie on the trailing vehicle!
I had half an hour at Lancaster, long enough to grab a couple of pictures, notice that all the station’s catering outlets had reopened (bar the WH Smiths by the ticket office) and have a quick word with an old friend who was on dispatch duty before catching Avanti West Coast’s 13:55 Northwards. Station announcements warned that it would be busy and advised those on flexible tickets to get a later train. 390104 rolled in to do the honours and it was indeed busy. I was lucky, a family of four were detraining so I managed to blag their table which is where I’m sat typing this. Having flown through a gloomy Lune Gorge we’ve hit mist and rain at Shap summit, so I’ve no idea what to expect in Carlisle…
15:15.
In fact, the weather in Carlisle is changeable, but OK. The sun put in an appearence for this beastie anyway. Rail Charter Services green HST working the 15:09 to Skipton via the Settle and Carlise line.
Epilogue!
After meeting up with Hassard at Carlisle the lair of us headed off to territory he’s never explored before – the Cumbrian Coast line as far as Whitehaven. We’d planned to walk along an old tramway from there to Parton but the rain lashed our train as it made its way to the coast, so we dicided to be flexible. The 2-car 156 we were on was really busy with a mix of locals on their way home from work and tourists. Two young couples opposite were heading to Whitehaven with their bikes to begin the popular coast to coast cycle route.
Fortunately for us (and the cyclists) the weather broke en-route. As we headed South the rain headed North so our plan came together after all. The old tramway runs parallel to and above the railway, giving excellent views of line, rocky beaches and out to sea. The route’s tarmac’d as it’s part of the national cycle network, so it’s an easy walk.
Not a bad day here in Bigland Towers even if I didn’t get through 3/4 of the things I’d hoped to – as is often the case as life just seems to keep getting in the way! At least the weather’s improved, which lifts the mood. I managed to tear Dawn away from her computer at lunchtime and the two of us had an amble through the local woods which was lovely. The recent rains have encouraged a real growth spurt in some plants so it looks like we’ll be having a bumper crop of Blackberries this year. The only downside is the brambles are throwing out so many tendrils they’re making some of the woodland walks awkward to navigate – especially if you’re wearing shorts! If the brambles don’t get you, the Nettles will!
Back at home I’ve been ploughing through various work projects and organising the diary which (thankfully) is looking a lot fuller than this time last year. Admittedly, there’s no plans for getting abroad right now, but I’ll be ‘on tour’ in the UK again for the next couple of days, so expect a rolling blog or two. Tomorrow I make my way to Carlisle to meet up with an old friend from London who’s on a business trip to the area. Having company on one of these jaunts will be fun as Covid’s meant I’ve normally been flying solo. We’ll be taking a photographic trip down the Cumbrian coast. I’m I’m hoping the weather Gods will smile upon us. I’ve not had the opportunity to visit the area for a couple of years so I’m looking forward to it. I’ll be making my way back to Yorkshire on Thursday and I’ve a couple of places I could do to visit to get shots for a client so I’ll be watching the weather forecast and hoping it performs to expectations. But hey, this is Britain after all, I could end up with floods or blizzards!
Whilst I’ve been slaving away back in the office I discovered a stash of old slides from my 1991-92 world trip that I’d never got around to cataloguing as the emulsion on some of them had been attacked by fungus before I could post them back to the UK. Now, with the wonders of modern technology – and a lot of patience in Photoshop, most of them can be restored, so here’s the picture of the day…
I took this shot in the old loco shed at the Amberawa Railway museum in Java, Indonesia on the 11th July 1992.
I was staying in nearby Yogyakarta in Central Java and was determined to fit in a visit, even though it meant catching a packed local bus to get there as the operational railway between the two towns had closed back in the 1970s. It was well worth the trip as the museum houses a fascinating collection of old Indonesian steam locomotives of all shapes and sizes, including a few British built examples. This one was (and is) still operational. B2503 was built by Esslingen of Germany (Works number 3244 of 1902). It’s a rack and adhesion type of engine, which means that on the steep gradients around Amberawa the locomotive gripped a rack rail between the two conventional rails, pulling itself and its train along on the rack via a powered cog-wheel rather than relying on simple adhesion. This 0-4-2 wheel arrangement tank locomotive looks small, but it weighs in at 31 tons! Sadly, on the day I visited, none of the engines were in steam. Nowadays the museum’s and its locomotives are a lot better kept so I’m determined to get back there again once the present pandemic has subsided. I really enjoyed travelling in Java, both then and during my last visit in 2017. It’s a beautiful island rich in history and with some great food too. Oh, and the odd railway gem like this!
I’ll eventually get around to restoring all these old pictures when time permits. Maybe that’s a job for those long dark winter nights. Right now there’s too many contemporary shots on my list to keep me occupied.
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There’s not much of a blog from me today, mainly because of the fact there’s been little of note happening today, just much of a muchness. I’ve plenty of things I could write about but there’s no time left in the day to do it! It’s time to switch off for the evening after a long day working on pictures, paperwork and plans…
Today’s picture is from the latest batch of old slide scans from the USA. I took this shot in Yosemite National Park in Northern California on the 29th October 1990. Our little band had booked a cabin for a couple of nights so that we could go walking in the park. On the first morning I spotted this shot as the rising sun was filtered by the pine trees around the camp and the wood-smoke from camp fires added an extra filtering effect. Magic!
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Boy, did it rain last night! The noise of it hitting the roof woke me up in the early hours of this morning. Thankfully, with it being Sunday neither of us had anywhere we needed to be so having a lie-in seemed like the best idea. Eventually I rose but had no intention of venturing out at first. Coffee and picture editing felt like the best option, but eventually the wind and rain subsided enough that I thought ‘sod it’. Besides, I’ve a full set of waterproofs and actually I rather like these wild conditions. Besides, I wasn’t going to venture out with the full camera kit, so what the hell…
I ended up getting in a really good walk that took in the the heights above and then the valley floor below. Here’s a small selection of pictures to illustrate my perambulations…
Once the rain had cleared we had these rare patches of perfect weather. Here’s the Rochdale canal in central Sowerby Bridge, just before the wharf which is out of sight behind the trees to the left. A Squadron of the local peripatetic Geese are enjoying themselves here, in between a constant stream of narrowboats returning at the end of their hire period. Some have been gone for a fortnight, one group I talked to had hired a boat for the first time – just for the weekend and only gone as far as Hebden Bridge, but thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Here’s the river Calder about half a mile East from the last picture. The river’s high because of the torrential rain, but nothing like flood levels. I’ve added an arrow to the left to show you how high it got a couple of years ago. That was scary! The road behind the building was completely flooded and you worried about the strength of the bridge I’m stood on to take this picture. Continuing my walk along the Calder and Hebble Navigation (as the canal East of Sowerby Bridge is called). I passed this lovely little canalside garden and motorboat. I always chuckle when I pass here as the boat takes me back to my childhood and a kids programme called ‘Tales of the Riverbank’. It used models but real animals. The ‘star’ was ‘Hammy the Hamster’ who’d often go sailing off on a similar boat, or have ‘adventures’ in all sorts of strange things like Jeeps or hot air balloons. You’d never be allowed to make a programme like that nowadays because of the stress the poor animals must have been put through! God knows how many ‘Hammy’s’ they went through making it! Even so, I can still hear the theme tune and the dulcet tones of Johnny Morris in my head every time I walk past. After my stroll along the canal I headed back uphill and towards home. You know the tower you saw on the horizon in the first picture? That’s just to the right of me in this shot and almost on the same level. The arrow shows you where I’d walked from in the previous pictures of the valley floor. At this point the sun’s buggered-off again and the next set of rain’s rolling in over Sowerby Bridge. Still, it was a good day…
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I’ve had a rather unplanned break from the office today and taken the camera exploring instead. Dawn had to pop into the Community Rail Network offices in Huddersfield so suggested that I tag along so that I could help carry some boxes, meet her new Boss, then get out for a while whilst she worked. It seemed like too good an opportunity to miss for several reasons. One being that due to the major engineering blockade on the railway into Manchester Victoria at Miles Platting several freight services are being diverted from the Calder to the Colne valley. Due to capacity constraints and the intensive passenger services along the Colne valley freight is normally rare, so it was a good chance to capture something unusual before the day comes when the overhead wires that will inevitably arrive change the route completely.
My donkey work done I caught a train West along the valley to Marsden. The 3-car local stopping was busier than I’ve seen it for ages as folk return to the railways
13:45.
I’m now playing cat and mouse with the sun, clouds and odd freight train, leavened with a selection of Trans-Pennine and Northern services, including some unusual empty stock moves. I’ll add a selection of camera shots later, right now you’ll have to settle for some phone pix…
For those of you who don’t know Marsden it’s a lovely little village surrounded by high Pennine hills. The last railway village in West Yorkshire and location of the famous Standedge tunnels (two rail, one canal). Here’s a flavour..
15:00.
As well as the railway Marsden hosts the Huddersfield narrow canal a popular inland waterway that’s busy with boats in the summer. The village was also a popular (perhaps too popular) stop for people on the trans-Pennine ‘Rail Ale Trail’ although Covid has killed much of that and the popular Riverhead pub in Marsden remains closed. Despite that, there’s still plenty of pubs, cafes and resturants to tempt visitors.
21:30.
That was a busy day! I stayed in Marsden for several hours until the skies began to close in and I had many of the pictures that I wanted. Despite me visiting some new locations there’s only so many shots that you can take before they become repetitive. Heading back to Huddersfield I spent an hour wandering around the town centre trying to get a feel for the place as it comes out of lockdown. I have to day, it feels sad. There’s clearly a lot of shops that are never going to open and the claims of Brexiters that being in the EU was what was holding us back have foundered on the rocks of reality – as you notice when you visit the supermarkets and gaze upon the empty shelves. Brexit hasn’t swept the streets of rogues and vagabonds (as promised) either as the vast majority of them are (of course) indigenous.
Once Dawn finished work we headed home to enjoy a quick drink in the garden watching the sun set on a glorious evening as the clouds had melted away here in the Calder Valley, leaving us with a perfect sky. We couldn’t linger long as we both had food duties to perform. Dee wanted to have another practice run with wedding cakes so whilst she did that I prepared a massive chick pea, tuna and veggie cheese salad with lots of trimmings that’ll keep us going for the next couple of days. Now, whilst Dee’s perfecting her baking I’m editing pictures.
First up is a shot from Marsden featuring an empty stock move from Newcastle’s Heaton depot to Manchester’s Newton Heath shed. Renumbered 150003 this is Northern’s newly converted 2-car Class 150116 which has been modified to run as a 3-car by the insertion of a 150/2 vehicle (57209). Three more of these units are to be converted, bringing the total to 6. This isn’t a new idea. Several trains ran in this formation when they worked for Central trains in the Birmingham area back in the 2000s.
Trans-Pennine Express unit 802202 speeds past Marsden whilst working 9M26, the 12:43 Newcastle to Manchester Piccadilly.802210 rounds the long curve from Marsden station (which is just out of shot around the corner) whilst working 1P29, the 1438 Manchester Piccadilly to Newcastle. The loop here is seldom used now that the former Northern stopping service from Huddersfield to Manchester is worked by TPE Class 185s. The fact this was once a four-track main line is evident from the width of the formation.
DB Cargo’s 66152 heads West with 6M16, the Monday’s only Tees Yard to Knowsley (Liverpool ) empty ‘binliner’. These waste trains were once a regular sight in the Colne Valley but changes in the locations served and the fact this trans-Pennine route no longer has the capacity to cope means the trains now normally run via the Calder Valley.
I’ll be adding these shots and many more to my Zenfolio website later in the week. But for now, it’s goodnight!
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It’s been a lazy Sunday here at Bigland Towers. The pair of us (well, the three of us really, as Jet our cat was in no rush to do anything either) had a slow morning drinking coffee, catching up on the news and watching the world go by. The only thing missing was having a Sunday newspaper spread out on the bed, but those days are long gone. I can’t think of the last time I bought one. Partly because there’s no local newsagent for miles, but also because the world’s moved online and I can pick and choose from loads of different news sources now. The difficulty is finding a reliable one! Talking of which, I was planning to dissect Simon Jenkin’s latest fact-free rant about HS2 in Saturday’s Guardian, but that can wait until another day. It’ll have exactly the same effect as all his other rants going back a decade. In other words, Zilch. Instead, I spent a couple of hours researching, reading through the minutes of last months Transport Select Committee meeting which heard from Birmingham’s Mayor, Andy Street and also HS2’s CEO, Mark Thurston. When you read their words verbatim it becomes obvious just how lazy the media reporting of their words was. I’ll be including excerpts when I fillet Jenkins rant.
The afternoon was far less lazy. Dawn went into ‘Domestic Goddess mode and spent several hours in the kitchen, experimenting with cake-baking recipes in order to perfect a cake for a friend’s wedding whilst I retreated to the office to sort out more old pictures. I have to admit the smells coming from the kitchen were divine. Dee’s a brilliant cook and really enjoys baking. It’s not something I’ve ever got into personally, my forte is more Asian and starters and main course dishes rather than sweets and desserts.
The day wasn’t all about food, we did both manage to get out for a stroll, even if it wasn’t far, just through our local woods along the promenade overlooking the Calder valley and thence around Savile Park, but it was good to be able to feel virtuous by hitting our daily exercise marks.
Now we’re home for another quiet evening, but as it’s going to be a busy week that’s hardly a problem. So, I’m going to leave you with today’s picture which is taken from another of the batch of old slides taken in the USA back in 1990. No animals today, this is very much a man-made structure. I took this shot of Big Creek bridge on State Highway 1 on the California coast on the 25th October 1990.
Opened in 1938, this graceful bridge is a 589 feet long, 24 feet wide open spandrel, concrete deck arch structure designed by Christian Theophil Gutleben. Each span is 178 feet wide and 65 feet above ground level. It’s quite an impressive sight when you first glimpse it as you approach along the coast from the South, but then the California coast road is a lovely route with several similar structures. There parking places at either end so that you can stop, admire the bridge, sea or cliffs and take photographs.
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Gordon Bennett – it’s almost August! I’m struggling to understand how the year’s managed to fly by so quickly. It is said by some that as you get older time does seem to do that. I’m now finding myself in agreement with that view. Today’s not been the most exciting one at Bigland Towers, unless you count the cat losing one of his last two teeth! The old boy was going to the vets today for a check-up and have his bloods done. Just as we were about to load him into his basket Dawn discovered one of his two front bottom fangs (all he’s got left) had dropped out and was stuck to his fur! It caused us a few palpitations en-route to the vets as we had visions of another large dental bill. The vet was less worried than us and explained that this was normal in old cats. Their bodies reject their teeth, dissolving them until they fall out. Jet was actually fine and there was no need for any dental work, which was a huge relief. Mind you, the bill for the blood tests and treatments still came to £180!
Having dropped the moggie back at home we decided to get out for a bit and go for a drive, visiting local places we’ve not seen for ages due to Covid. It turned into a bit of a random trip as we kept getting detoured through dodging tractors on the narrow country roads. In the end we decided to ‘go with the flow’ and see where we ended up – which was high above Mytholmroyd where we stopped to admire the view from the one bit of road where it was safe to stop without worrying about getting mown down by farm machinery! The road led us to Hebden Bridge but we didn’t stop as the place was packed. Instead we doubled back along the valley bottom and called in at one of our locals, the Moorcock Inn for a quick drink before food shopping and home. It may be Saturday night, but we’re happy to have a quiet one at home with good food, a drink and a film on TV. Not exactly the ‘rock and roll’ but far more relaxing!
So, what’s the picture of the day? I’d been wondering that myself but I’ve plumped for one of the latest batch of slides in the queue for scanning. I took this shot on the 25th October 1990. Four of us had pitched up on the West Coast of the USA for a touring holiday. Having hired a car in LA we drove up the coast to San Francisco. It was a brilliant trip and on the way we stopped at the wharf in Monterey, California which was teeming with pelicans, either roosting on roofs, or perched on poles like this one. It beat seagulls, that’s for sure…
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/
Paul Bigland 