Tag Archives: Photography

Sunday’s mishmash of thoughts…

26 Sunday Jan 2020

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Considering that January is the month I’m normally trotting the globe I seem to have spent an awful lot of this year’s opening month sat at home staring at computer screens. I shouldn’t complain. The British weather has been pretty typical. It’s reminded me why I normally flee the UK now. It’s been predictably dull, but it has allowed me to make big inroads into scanning my old rail and travel pictures as I’ve scanned over 600 so for this month, which has freed up a not inconsiderable amount of space in my office! I’ll add a few samples later In this blog.

Whilst the weekend’s seen me busy at home I have been keeping an eye on the media and the continuing saga of HS2 as it’s played out in the press. The Fourth Estate have done themselves no favours in the way they’ve reported events. What’s sad (but predictable nowadays) is the way most of them (print or TV) can’t be arsed to do the slightest bit of independent research, so we’re into “send three and fourpence” territory (aka ‘Chinese whispers’) where the message gets distorted down the line. The FT originally reported an anonymous Government briefer who claimed the cost of HS2 was now £106bn. This was picked up and amplified by a cohort of lazy journalists who turned it into an official figure in a ‘secret’ report, when in fact it was total bollocks. The fact the National Audit Office then published an official report into HS2 and £106bn was never even mentioned (as it’s bollocks) matters not. Joe Public’s seen the figure mentioned and swallowed it, hook, line and sinker. Are these journalists apologetic? Are they hell as like. This is the ‘post truth’ world after all.

On the bright side, this whole furore does seem to have registered in Downing St where some people do seem to have realised they just might need to do something about this rubbish as it looks bad on them. The logical thing to do would be to release the Oakervee review which would show up that fact £106bn is bollocks, we’ll have to wait and see it that’s not just to sensible. In the meantime, it’s looking increasingly likely that the Government will be announcing HS2 will go ahead within the next couple of weeks – hence a lot of the froth we’re seeing in the general and social media as this really is the last chance saloon for the stophs2 campaign. Once phase 1 is given the go-ahead, they’re toast.

OK, enough of this. This theatre will play out over the next few weeks until the fat lady sings.

In the meantime, next week will be interesting for other reasons. I’ll be out and about at a couple of events next week – including volunteering for the Railway Children charity at this event, their sleepout on the 30th. Whilst this will be a fully supported fundraiser and I’m volunteering to help out, it’s a cause close to my heart. Plus, when I was a lot younger back in the 1970s-80s I’ve known just what it’s like to sleep rough on railway stations when you’ve nowhere else to go.

Now, it’s time for a change of tempo. I mentioned earlier about the pictures I’ve been scanning. I’ve been swapping between two albums. One’s old railway pictures from the 1980s whilst the other is travel shots from Brazil back in 2002. Here’s a couple of examples.

It’s a long time since Manchester Victoria looked like this! This particular picture was taken in May 1990. The area you’re seeing now has all disappeared under the arena. The platform I was stood on to take the picture still exists (it’s now platform 3) but everything else is long gone. The two locomotives were stabled in the roads that were used by engines that would push heavy freight trains up Miles Platting bank.

Now for a travel shot. Here’s the stunning island of Fernando de Noronha and the ‘Bay of Pigs’.

Monday miscellany…

20 Monday Jan 2020

Posted by in Hs2, Journalism, Musings, Photography, Politics, Travel

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Today’s been yet another mixed bag where I’ve been keeping a wary eye on the world whilst keeping occupied scanning a selection of old slides – both rail and travel. I was up early in order to get another selection of travel shots from Brazil under my belt. That particular album’s coming along quite nicely now as I’m 2/3 of the way through the first folio and I’ll soon be starting on the selection from the island of Fernando do Noronha. Meanwhile, here’s a sample of one of today’s images from Olinda in Pernambuco state. It’s an incredibly colourful old town with some fine old buildings. You can find the rest of the Brazilian pictures here.

In order to add variety I’m simultaneously scanning some old rail shots from 1990. The idea will be to swap between rail and travel so there’s always something of interest to someone. of course, the railways looked very different in 1990 as privatisation wasn’t even on the agenda at that time.

In those days Euston was still dominated by electric locomotives – as this picture shows.

From front to back are 86205, 86406, 86414, 86228 and 87014. 6th May 1990.

I was passing through Euston to head on up to an open day at Bescot locomotive depot just outside Birmingham. The depot put on a good show with a large variety of locomotives on display, including some withdrawn examples like 47901 here in the foreground. The weather was ideal for such an event and I certainly chewed through some film that day!

I’m still scanning the Bescot shots which you’ll be able to find in this gallery when they’re all done.

Whilst I was busy scanning the media was full of the latest leak about HS2 and a supposed ‘draft’ of the Oakervee report. Initially reported in the Financial Times the story was soon picked up by other outlets including the BBC. The leak was an odd one as it seems to have come from within government. It was soon clear that it was more spin than fact, as Andrew Sentance (one of the Oakervee Committee members made clear to the BBC. here’s how it was covered on Twitter by the BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones..

Sentence also had this to say (via the BBC).

Yet again HS2 gets caught up in political games in Downing St. Mind you, HS2 isn’t the only mixed message coming out of No 10. There’s also the whole farce around Brexit the economy and promises made by Johnson to car makers before the election that have already fallen by the wayside. Let’s face it, when you have a Prime Minister who’s been sacked twice for lying you can hardly trust them, can you? Johnson may have an 80 seat majority but it’s becoming clear that his government isn’t coherent or clear in purpose. Improving the UKs infrastructure post Brexit is meant to be one of their big ideas, but the message is already riven by briefings and counter briefings, such as on HS2, which suggests a Government that’s less than united. It would be very interesting to know who in Government is briefing against HS2. Cummings?

Northern and Midlands leaders and several MPs have reacted with fury to these games by Downing St, demanding the the Oakervee review’s published so that there can’t be any more spin about its contents. We will have to see if they get their wish anytime soon…

Away from the shenanigans in Downing St it’s clear that the Harvil Rd protest has fizzled out again. Despite a few dozen Extinction Rebellion supporters and StopHs2’s Joe Rukin pitching up to make a few self-congratulatory videos claiming they’d ‘retaken’ Harvil Rd (they hadn’t) most of them had already drifted off by Sunday. It’s now business as usual as a visit to the ‘Protect the Colne Valley’ Facebook page will show. The flow of Facebook videos has dried up and work to clear the site continues pretty much unhindered.

Sunday service…

19 Sunday Jan 2020

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The traditional day of rest has been anything but for me as I was up at 07:30 this morning in order to scan yet another batch of old travel slides which I’d set up in readiness the night before. This selection were from a trip to Brazil and I’m making good progress getting through the two albums which have been sitting in the archives since 2002. Many of them have never seen the light of day since but now they’re appearing on my Zenfolio website in this gallery. So far I’ve managed to scan all the pictures from Rio de Janeiro. Now I’ve moved on to the historical town of Olinda in Pernambuco state before the next batch which will be of the fantastic island nature park of Fernando de Noronha. Here’s a couple of samples from today’s batch.

The quiet streets of the old town which has a rich history and some fascinating old buildings.
Looking at the style of the building there’s several countries in the world that you could be in, this just happens to be Brazil. .

Hopefully I’ll have this albums fully scanned in a couple of weeks, then it’s time to move on to another set of old railway slides. On Saturday we visited Dawn’s parents who’ve been keeping many of the albums in safe storage for me. I’ve now dug out four albums of rail images from 1990 to 1992 so this next batch really are stepping back in time, nearly 30 years in fact!

Besides rooting through the archives we’ve both been busy with more mundane chores around the house which was rather frustrating as the day had started as one of those perfect frosty winter mornings with wall to wall sunshine, but there was no time to drop everything and head out for a ramble as we’ve both got too many things to do. The law of Sod often guarantees that there’ll be perfect walking weather on the weekends you’re busy, then it’ll be raining cats and dogs when you’re at a loose end…

Never mind, I’m hoping to get out a couple of times this next week although the weather looks like a mixed bag.

Talking of the weather I noticed that it put a bit of a damper on the latest instalment of the saga that’s the StopHs2 protest at Harvil Rd. There was meant to be three days of protests at the site starting last Friday, but it’s not exactly caught the media’s eye. That’s because only a few dozen people turned up on Saturday and many of them were day-trippers. Quite how these weekend warriors are meant to stop Hs2 is a mystery as the vast majority of them will have faded away by Monday after making their video’s and pretending they’ve actually achieved something. Then it’s back to business as usual with contractors continuing work on the site. It’s all pretty pointless, all the protesters are doing is wasting time and money, but that’s life.

Apoarently, despite the fact the tiny area still available to the protesters resembled the Somme, the group that dress up in red to pose in order to attract media attention were there. Quite what the point is has always been unclear.

“I say Prime Minister, I’ve just seen a tiny group of protesters dressed in red sheets pretending to be Marcel Marceau whilst stood in a muddy wood. It’s made me realise we don’t need HS2 after all and we should scrap it” – said no MP, ever…

Meanwhile, the clock keeps ticking towards an announcement from Government about Hs2 getting the final go-ahead. Expect that next month.

Apparently, there’s meant to be a StopHs2 rally at Parliament on Wednesday, but it doesn’t seem to be gaining much interest. Somehow I can’t see the Metropolitan Police cancelling any leave over it, or coach firms suddenly being inundated with bookings to ferry the demonstrators to London. We shall see…

Stormy weather…

14 Tuesday Jan 2020

Posted by in I love my job, Musings, Photography, Photojournalism, Railways

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We’ve had a fun 24 hours here in the Calder Valley due to storm Brendan which has brought with it lashes of rain and high winds as well as dismal skies that have reduced us to half-light. The camera has stayed firmly in its bag and apart from forays on foot to go shopping and get some exercise I’ve been pretty much glued to the office.

This morning I was up at 6am as Dawn had an early start. This gave me the opportunity to try and integrate back into the library some of the old slides I had back from picture agencies a couple of years back. They’ve gone back into the albums they were taken from in an effort to give me some continuity. In order to save space (and time) I’m weeding out duplicate images. The problem with slides was that I used to back up pictures by taking 2-3 shots that were exactly the same. This served a dual purpose. If the original got damaged or lost I had a back-up. I could also send one to a picture library whilst keeping another version for myself. Of course, in the digital age such redundancy is, well, redundant! Now I can duplicate an image with a click of a mouse!

The stuff I’ve had returned covers many different subjects. Apart from all the travel shots and rail images one of the libraries I contributed to was a social issues picture agency based in Brixton called Photofusion. The stuff I placed with them covered a rainbow of subjects, from Housing (which I still worked in at the time) to UK travel, politics, demonstrations like the miners strikes or Iraq War and festivals like Gay Pride. Looking back at the pictures makes me realise that – if nothing else – I’ve certainly had an interesting life and covered an awful lot of things in my time! I’m looking forward to getting most of them scanned, although a few are destined for the bin as the things they covered have little relevance today. It’s a sad waste and another advantage of digital. When I consider how much each of those mounted slides cost me to take and the mountain of plastic waste they’re reduced to I wish I’d switched to digital long before I did.

Here’s a few of today’s scans spanning the years from the early 1990s to the 2000s, just to give you an idea of what I have in the archive. First up is a May day protest in central London back in 2001. These events could get out of control quite quickly so the police always turned up dressed up in full riot gear to make a point. As a photographer it could get quite hairy as you were in the thick of it, with police on one side and demonstrators on the other. This photo shows a stand-off between protestors and riot police outside the John Lewis store in Oxford St. As you can see, the copper to the left wasn’t too pleased to see me!

Here’s an earlier shot taken in 1992 – although it looks like it could have been the early 1980s. This is a miners demonstration in London, protesting about the mass closure of some of the remaining UK pits – strange as that might seem now when climate-change is the most important issue that faces us and the days of ‘King Coal’ are long gone. In the photo is Tony Benn MP, NUM President Arthur Scargill and Dennis Skinner MP. Like the May day demonstration I’ve a large archive of pictures of this event to scan (one day). The miners were very well organised and also media savvy. A group of them worked with photographers to ensure you got the shots you both needed. They’d escort you out in front of the procession leaders and guide you so that you could face backwards getting the shots you wanted before moving you on so the next photographer could get their shots.

Of course I should mention that in the days when these photographs were taken I’d no idea that I was eventually going to change career and become a professional photographer. Then I was a rep for my trade union (NALGO, the local Government Officers Union, or ‘Not A Lot Going On’ as it was sometimes referred to!) and involved in producing the newsletter. I took these pictures because I was interested in photography and social issues, not for a moment thinking that one day this would become my career.

– and now for something completely different, and a lot more camp! Lynn and I would often attend the annual Gay Pride parade in London with friends. When I first met Lynn she worked for the AIDs charity the Terrence Higgins Trust. Needless to say, we made a lot of friends through her work and ‘Pride’ was always a good day out and chance to catch up with people. In 1995 the parade used Victoria Park in East London not far from where we were living, so naturally, we dropped in! This particular couple were spectacular, and this was before Elton John got married in similar style 9 years later…

Time to go back to trains for my final picture which shows how much the railways have changed. Here’s an old Class 508 electric train used by Connex arriving at Maidstone West on the 7th March 2002. Built by British Railways for suburban services out of Waterloo they were transferred to Merseyside. Some surplus units made the trek South once more and ended up working South-Eastern services, first for Connex and later South-Eastern Trains. The SET units remained in service until 2008.

I hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane and through elements of social history. If you want to see the full selection of pictures you can find them on my Zenfolio website. Hopefully it won’t be too long before I get around to scanning the rest but as I’ve 1000s to get through we may all need to be patient. I’ve spent a few hours tonight weeding out duplicates from another travel album which includes shots from New Zealand, the UK, India and Denmark. They might not get scanned for a while, but at least they’re taking up a lot less room…

Another trip down (travel) memory lane…

12 Sunday Jan 2020

Posted by in Down memory lane, Indonesia, Musings, Photography, Travel

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Despite it being a Sunday I’ve had a busy time in the office scanning old slides as I continue my efforts to wade through the archive and get everything on to my Zenfolio picture website.

Eschewing the recent series of rail pictures I picked out some old travel slides that I’d placed with the old ‘Lonely Planet’ picture library back in the 2000s before they were sold to the BBC and then on to Getty. The world of travel pictures was very different then and it was rather a nice income stream. Those days are long gone. I had the original images returned by Getty a few years ago when they joined the rest of the archive awaiting scanning. This morning I scanned a selection from Indonesia taken on my travels in 1992 and 1998. Here’s a look at a few of them.

This is an image taken at Lake Maninjau in West Sumatra back in June 1992. I spent several weeks on the island which was a fantastic place to travel. In those days you could enter the island by ferry from Georgetown on Penang Island Malaysia. A hydrofoil would carry you across the Straits of Malacca to Belawan in Northern Sumatra which was the port for the main city of Medan. In those days backpackers like myself would travel overland and the next stop for most (including me) was the volcanic Lake Toba. But, I’d been tipped off by other travellers I’d met heading in the opposite direction to me that there was an even more amazing and magnificent volcanic lake – Maninjau – in West Sumatra. They were right. As much as I enjoyed Toba and the Batak culture, Maninjau and the local Minangkabau people were even more interesting. Ever visited a matrilineal Muslim community before? No, neither had I! The lake itself is 16 km long, 7km wide and averages a depth of 105m. It sits at the bottom of a volcanic caldera and it’s an amazing place to arrive at when you reach the lip of the crater then drop down a road with 44 hairpin bends before you reach the main village on the edge of the lake. The picture as taken from the back deck of the little homestay I was residing in. You could bask in the sun, have a swim and then watch the weather change like this, as a rainstorm crept in from the West and boiled in over the crater edge. You knew you still had 20-30 minutes before it reached you. It was a beautiful place to stay, kick back and relax and enjoy activities like walking or cycling around the lake – or just sit and read a book before heading out for some delicious Padang food. I’d love to go back as I was last there in 1998.

This picture was taken on the same trip. I left West Sumatra by ferry from Padang and headed to Java, making my way slowly Eastwards across the island by rail and bus until I arrived here at Mt Bromo.

It’s the most incredible landscape as it really doesn’t look like it belongs on this planet. This is the view from the edge of the original volcanic crater which was taken one sunrise in June 1992. Three smaller volcanos sit in the ‘sea of sands’ inside the original crater. It’ll take you 45 minutes to walk across to them. The volcanoes are still active and have erupted several time in the past 20 years the last time being 2015. Indonesia is famous for its volcanoes, many of which remain active. I visited several but Mt Bromo has to be the most spectacular.

Here’s something a bit different from another trip Lynn and I did across Indonesia back in 1998. This shot was taken at a big cremation ceremony in Ubud, Bali back in October 1998. I’ve long admired the way the Balinese have managed to hang on to their distinctive culture despite mass tourism and being part of an overwhelmingly Muslim country. You might not see much of it if you stay in the tourist traps of Kuta and Sanur on the islands most Southern tip, but get into the hills and it’s very different. The reason I took this shot is because of the juxtaposition of the traditional and modern. Here’s an important and wealthy man in traditional Balinese dress who’s helping run the whole ceremony and he’s on his mobile phone. This is 1998 remember. In those days only 1 in 5 people in the UK had one. Lynn and I were still communicating with most people via ‘snail mail’ and poste restante letter drops as the few places you could find internet access in Indonesia were Post Offices where you used slow, expensive and unreliable dial-up internet. How things have changed in 20 odd years!

If you want to view the rest of the pictures from Indonesia, click on this link.

– here for one day only…

11 Saturday Jan 2020

Posted by in Calder Valley, Musings, Photography, Railways, West Yorkshire

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The sunshine, that is. Yesterday’s glorious weather appears to have been a flash in the pan. Today dawned in the traditional pattern with low cloud and haze obscuring the view of the valley. Remarkably, considering the thunderous grey clouds that clung to the horizon like an invading army, we didn’t get any rain until just before dusk. Then, the heavens opened! I wouldn’t have minded so much if we hadn’t been out food shopping, so we got caught in the downpour. It’s remarkable just how wet you can get when you’re making a 100 metre dash with shopping bags!

Having got home neither of us have any intention of venturing out again. Instead, I’m happy in the kitchen, trying out a new curry recipe from Rick Stein’s Indian book. Right now the chicken’s cooking slowly and there’s a wonderful smell of cinnamon, star anise fenugreek and garlic permeating to house – with just that tang of chilli catching your nose and throat when I open the kitchen door.

Whilst Dawn was visiting friends this morning I’ve not been idle. I managed to get through editing all yesterdays pictures, so here’s a couple more samples. You can find the full collection on my Zenfolio website if you follow this link.

Here’s the changing face of the railways in the North. One of Trans-Pennine Express new ‘Nova’ 2 5-car bi-mode trains leaves Leeds bound for Liverpool Lime St. It’s passing one of the new CAF built 3-car diesel trains built for Northern. Despite what you hear about a lack of investment in trains in the North these two train orders come to over a billion pounds. Both reflect an increase in train lengths and the number of seats on offer, as well as free wifi, plug sockets and more.

The rebuilt main entrance to Leeds station. The concourse has been ‘de-cluttered’ and the roof rebuilt to allow in far more natural light, whilst the gate-line beyond has been widened and moved forward to allow more circulating space for the millions who use the station each year.
A Trans-Pennine Class 185 sits under the magnificent roof at York near sundown.

Of course it’s not just TPE and Northern that have brought new trains to Yorkshire, so has LNER. their new ‘Azuma’ fleet has already taken over the majority of services From Leeds Harrogate, Skipton and Wakefield to London.

5-car ‘Azuma’ 800207 accelerates out of Leeds station on its way to London.

Sadly, looking at the weather forecast for the week I’m going to be lucky to find such good weather anywhere near to home. Even further afield is looking iffy, so I you may be treated to more old slide scans until the weather picks up.

Right, it’s time to eat. Whilst I’ve been scribbling this the chicken curry has cooked – and it’s looking good…

Friday memories…

06 Friday Dec 2019

Posted by in Down memory lane, India, Indonesia, Photography, Travel

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Today’s been yet another wet and windy day in the Calder valley and one I’ve been glad that I’ve not had to venture afar in. Most of it has been spent working at home, apart from an afternoon ‘constitutional’ stroll along the canal and a trip up to my local pub, the ‘Big 6’ to meet up with friends and take part in the Friday quiz which is read out my Mel, in her broad Lancashire accent. Guessing what she’s saying is almost as challenging as getting the answers right (sorry Mel!). To give you an idea, heard of the film Ben Hur? In a Lancashire accent Hur is ‘hair’!

It was a pleasant interlude and nice to spend time having a laugh with friends as my other half is down in London this weekend with the ‘girls’. Right now I’m having a quiet night in and trying to sort through more old pictures. Looking through them makes me very conscious of how time’s flying by. Recently I’ve been adding hundreds of old rail pictures to my Zenfolio website. What I’ve neglected is the 1000s of travel pictures in my collection. Tonight I came across one of my old portfolios which I used to tout around the national newspapers and travel magazines when I first turned professional and lived in London. The internet was in its infancy then so you used to ring up newspapers and magazines to try and get appointments with their picture editors to show off your pictures. Sometimes it would go well, other times not. The worst were some of the travel magazines where Mummy or Daddy had got someone a job through their connections. I’m naming no names, but I remember turning up at one (well known brand) where the bright young thing didn’t even have access to a loupe or a lightbox, so held up a sheet of slides to one of the overhead fluorescent tubes and said “oh, these are pretty colours”…

Here’s a couple of the pictures from those old portfolios and the story behind them. This is a mother Orangutan and her baby trying to pinch some of the bunch of bananas from her mouth which was taken in the Bukit Lawang sanctuary in Sumatra, Indonesia back in July 1998. We were very privileged to see such amazing creatures in the wild.

Lynn (my ex-wife) and I were travelling around the world for 18 months at the time and spent several months in Sumatra. Then, SE Asia was in the doldrums of their ‘Economic Crisis’ which was terrible for them, but good for us as the value of the pound was amazing. I’d been there a few years before when £1 would get you 3,500 Rupiah. When we were there it would buy you 22,000 Rupiah! I look back on those times and realise just how lucky we were to be travelling then, because so much has changed since. Here’s the next picture, which has a very different tale to tell.

This picture was taken as a wedding in Bhavnagar, which is in the Gujarat state in Western India. It was taken on the 19th February 2000. One of the reasons I like it is the way one young girl was distracted and looked away, but that’s not the full story. Bhavnager isn’t on the tourist trail (far from it).

Lynn and I had been out on holiday in South India but I stayed on to explore the railways as the Gujarat was the last place steam locomotives operated. Sadly, I missed them by a couple of weeks, but that’s another story. Bhavnagar is also where Gandhi went to college, so I was interested in it to get travel pictures too.

Whilst I was there I was invited by this family to attend a wedding. It’s not an uncommon experience and Indian weddings are a delight for photographers like me and also a great way to get to meet local people. But there’s yet another layer to this tale…

On my way home I lost some of my notes, including the family’s address, so I was never able to send them the pictures, or keep in contact. Almost a year later, on the 26th January 2001 an earthquake struck the Gujarat. Measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale and lasting about 110 seconds, it was the most powerful earthquake to strike India in half a century. 20,000 people died and when I see this picture I often wonder what the fate of these young girls was.

I wish I had more time to scan these old slides. There’s so many stories they can tell, and so many memories…

A good day to stay at home with the cat!

25 Monday Nov 2019

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

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The weather here in West Yorkshire has continued the miserable run that we’ve had for several days now. Most of the day the other side of the Calder valley’s been half-hidden in the murk or had the valley tops disappear completely in low cloud. This gloomy weather does nothing to lift the spirits, nor does the persistent rain encourage one to venture out. Luckily, I’ve not had to. Jet (our cat) and I have stayed warm and dry at home, him in his basket and I in the office from 06:30 this morning, clearing up paperwork and scanning dozens of old rail slides from 2002. If there’s one silver lining about the weather, this is it – I’m making steady progress getting the old pictures (many of which have never been seen by anyone but me) onto my Zenfolio website after 17 years sitting around in albums. Here’s a small selection of the ones that have been added in the past 24 hours.

On the 16th July 2002 Hull trains 16.30 service from Kings Cross to Hull waits to leave the capital. These Class 170s were hired in from Anglia trains for several years before Hull acquired their own. Later this year Hull Trains will be introducing their 4th train fleet in less than 20 years when the Hitachi built ‘Paragon’ trainsets enter service to replace the Class 180s which will be cascaded to East Midlands Railway.
A day later, here’s a signal gantry on the Chiltern line at Sudbury and Harrow which is being held up with cables and straps! Railtrack, who were still in charge (just) at the time were often criticised for the state of their assets. This is a good example. Railtrack were finally wound up in October 2002 when Network Rail were formed to take over management of rail infrastructure.
However, the picture wasn’t all doom and gloom. Here’s a view of the old Kings Cross Goods yard taken on the 1st September 2002. In the background are newly laid sidings which would allow spoil from boring the new High Speed 1 tunnels under London to be moved by rail to Calvert in Buckinghamshire. In the foreground is the trench which would eventually allow Thameslink services to run from the East Coast Main line into St Pancras Thameslink.
Here’s another view taken the same day. This shows the old Midland Railway bridges which carried the line into St Pancras station which is just out of shot to the right. All these have disappeared as the area is now occupied by the East Midlands Railway platforms, whilst the area beyond the bridges is the Eastern side of the new station which is used by South-Eastern Trains Javelin services to Kent.

The weather forecast for tomorrow’s looking even worse than today, although I’m not sure If I’ll have time to scan anymore old slides as I’ve other things that need my attention. That said, you never know. I’ve just 50 left to scan from the present album, so maybe by tomorrow night…

In the meantime, if you want to have look at the full selection that I’ve added to my Zenfolio website, follow this link, which will take you to the ‘recent’ section and show you which galleries they’ve been added to as there’s quite a mixture.

Expect some modern pictures as I get out and about on my travels later in the week.

Clearing the decks for another week…

18 Monday Nov 2019

Posted by in Calder Valley, History, Photography, Railways

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Monday started at 6am as Dawn was up to get into work because Network Rail have taken over the area outside the ACoRP office as a secure compound. They’re using it as a base for kit they need for the rebuilding and refurbishment of Huddersfield station, which was unfortunate timing as ACoRP are having their own contractors carrying out work to the water tower!

Once the alarm clock went off I made coffee then sought refuge in the office to finish of scanning a load of old slides and gave Dawn free rein on the bathroom. There are advantages to working from home. It means one of us gets priority over the ablutions!

The early start allowed me to clear yet another old slide album and prepare the next for scanning by weeding out all the duplicates. By lunchtime I’d added another 40 plus images to my Zenfolio website which you can find by following this link. There’s a real mixture of rail stuff from 2003 but the next album steps back in time to 2002. Here’s a sample of the 2003 slide images. It was this job that persuaded me to bite the bullet and go digital. I was on the train with a freelance photographer who was working for the Telegraph newspaper. Whilst I had a Nikon F5 and F801s loaded with colour slide and high ISO black and white, he had a digital Nikon D1 and it was obvious to me he could get shots it was impossible for me to take. That’s when I realised that it was a case of ‘adapt or die’, so I started saving for the camera kit to allow me to make the transition, which I did a few months later in March 2004.

Remember the old Travelling Post Office trains? Here’s a shot I took on board 1C00, the 23.18 London – Carlisle, the famous ‘Night Mail’ which was immortalised in the poem by WH Auden.

I’m not sure I’ll have time to scan any more slides this week, but there’s lots of pictures in the queue – from the launch of Virgin Trains Pendolino services to the building of High Speed 1 into St Pancras.

Having cleared my desk of lightboxes and slide gubbins I nipped out for a couple of hours to make the most of the gorgeous winter sunshine we were blessed with today. The hills are too high and the shadows too long around Sowerby Bridge so I nipped over to Todmorden to get a few pictures like this to add to the library.

CAF built 195119 working a late running Manchester Victoria – Leeds service.

The pair of us have another early start in the morning so I’m going to call it a day. Sadly the weather’s not predicted to be as good, so I’ll have to play things by ear as I’ve a queue of subjects and locations to photograph as well as all the mundane stuff like paperwork. Whatever happens, expect more pictures – old and new soon!.

Not the day I expected…

17 Sunday Nov 2019

Posted by in Down memory lane, I love my job, Musings, Photography, Railways

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The pair of us have had a quiet weekend at home for a change, mainly because Dawn’s been recovering from a bout of the lurgi and migraines, another two of which struck last night leaving her feeling drained today. Even so, we’ve managed to get some things done – if not everything we intended.

I’ve found myself concentrating on scanning old slides which is good in one way as I’m finally getting the pictures onto my website. I’ve almost finished an album of images from 2003 and it’s been a nostalgic experience as I was a rookie pro photographer who’d suddenly found themselves doing all sorts of unusual stuff with famous people like Richard Branson, Stirling Moss and Prime Minister Tony Blair to name but a few. It was the year before I made the leap from film to digital and looking back, I wish I’d done it sooner, but isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing? 2003 was packed full of really interesting events. Here’s just a small selection from the ones I’ve been scanning over the past few days

On the 27th September 2003 the first section of High Speed 1 from Fawkham Junction to the channel tunnel was officially opened by a press trip from London to Paris on a Eurostar. When passengers arrived we were greeted at Waterloo International by acrobats performing on the concourse.

We were then whisked across to Paris on a Eurostar set specially branded the ‘press express’ and fitted with TV screens which relayed the view from a camera placed in the cab. Here we are passing through Kent on HS1.

Then, in October…

Virgin Trains were maximising the publicity they could get from rolling out their new Pendolino train fleet. On the 20th October their PR people commissioned me to accompany Richard Branson and the Virgin team up to Liverpool where 390031 was to be named “City of Liverpool”. Amongst the VIPs joining in on the event at Liverpool Lime St station was the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, Louise Ellman MP (2nd left) and Miss Merseyside (right).

It’s funny looking back at these pictures now and seeing just how the railways companies starting to regain their confidence after the turbulent Railtrack days and the spate of fatal accidents that helped see the organisations demise. It was still a rocky road as tragedies were still to happen but it was clear that things were improving. How different things look now, when the main problem the railway face is the lack of capacity!

I’ve added over 60 slides to my Zenfolio website this weekend. You can find out which galleries the rest of them are in by following this link. There’s still another 40 slides from this album to add which should be done this next week. After that, it’s time to delve into the storage box and see what comes to hand next…