Category: Railways

Single frame… All’s well that…

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All's well that…All’s well that…
Olympus OM-1N + F.Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 Auto-S – 1/250s, f8 – Kodak Portra 400 rated at ISO 200

‘Hudswell’ a cast builder’s plate adorning ‘Albert Fields’, a 260hp 0-6-0 diesel-mechanical locomotive built by Hudswell, Clarke & Co Ltd of Leeds in 1958 as works no.D1114.

The loco is now preserved at the Midland Railway-Butterley in Derbyshire having spent its working life at a number of local collieries, ending up at Butterley Engineering, a company famous for many engineering projects including the Barlow train shed at London St Pancras International railway station, the Falkirk Wheel and the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth.

Scan by Ag Photo Lab with minimal cropping and tweaking in Lightroom Classic CC.

Single frame… Grain hopper wagon

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20t Grain Hopper, October 201720t Grain Hopper, October 2017
Fujifilm X-T1, Fujinon XF 18-135mm f3.5~5.6 R LM OIS WR at 31mm – 1/125s, f8, ISO 500

Loved the textures on this railway wagon at the Fife Heritage Railway in Leven today.

No.48 was built by Hurst, Nelson and Company Ltd in Motherwell in 1937 to a London Midland & Scottish Railway design and is one of two ex. Scottish Grain Distillers hopper wagons preserved by the Kingdom of Fife Railway Preservation Society.

Monochrome Monday… Condemned Railway Wagons

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Condemned Coal Wagons, February 1998Condemned Railway Wagons, February 1998
Nikon F-801s, AF Nikkor 24-50mm f/3.3-4.5 – Kodak T-Max P3200

I have no idea what possessed me to shoot an ISO 3200 film in daylight (albeit rather dull February daylight…) but I shot a few rolls back in 1998, most of them on a Nikon F-801s that eventually got sold to a pal who continued to use it for ages.

A couple of years ago an identical camera cropped up (at a ridiculously low price) in the local branch of London Camera Exchange when I was Christmas shopping with a friend and I was thrilled to find it in a parcel with my name on under said friend’s tree on December 25th that year!

I still use it…

 

A few frames from… Locomotion – The National Railway Museum at Shildon

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On the Fujifilm X-T1…

Some more shots from our wedding anniversary trip to North Yorkshire and County Durham, this time from a couple of hours spent exploring Locomotion – The National Railway Museum at Shildon

I take a lot of images of railways, most are just straightforward record shots, nothing more, but a few little details caught my eye on this particular day…

N.E.R. Snow Plough No.12N.E.R. Snow Plough No.12
Fujifilm X-T1, Fujinon XF 18-135mm f3.5~5.6 R LM OIS WR at 21mm – 0.8s, f8, ISO 400

The lettering on this restored North Eastern Railway (NER) Snow Plough (built in 1891) is impressive, especially given that such vehicles were/are rarely in the public eye and mainly only seen by railwaymen clearing snow from the tracks. Percy Main is a small village (now part of North Shields, Tyne and Wear) that grew up around the Duke of Northumberland’s railway station on the Newcastle & North Shields Railway that opened in 1839.

L&NWR Precedent class 2-4-0 No.790 'HARDWICKE'L&NWR Improved Precedent class 2-4-0 No.790 ‘HARDWICKE’
Fujifilm X-T1, Fujinon XF 18-135mm f3.5~5.6 R LM OIS WR at 29mm – 1/13s, f8, ISO 400

This nameplate and fine crest adorn the London & North Western Railway (L&NWR) ‘Improved Precedent’ class 2-4-0 steam locomotive No.790 (built in 1892 at Crewe). Originally designed to haul express passenger services HARDWICKE took 2 hours and 6 minutes to cover the 141 miles between Crewe and Carlisle on 22 August 1895 setting a new speed record during the Race to the North. A close inspection of the nameplate reveals a build date of 1873, this is because No.790 was officially a ‘renewal’ (i.e. replacement of an earlier locomotive) that kept the name and number of its predecessor.

'DELTIC'‘DELTIC’
Fujifilm X-T1, Fujinon XF 18-135mm f3.5~5.6 R LM OIS WR at 27mm – 1/3s, f11, ISO 400

These painted aluminium beadings were designed to give an impression of speed (and visually break up the high bodysides) of the English Electric ‘Diesel Prototype 1’ (DP1) locomotive. A designation it never carried, the loco is commonly known as DELTIC as it employed two Napier Deltic engines giving a combined power output of 3,300hp. Following a serious engine failure DELTIC was withdrawn from service in 1961 and donated to the Science Museum in 1963, moving to the National Railway Museum in York in 1993.