Category: Railway Photography
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#280 – East Lancs Railway Photo Locations 5 – Summerseat
Summerseat has a small halt, and there are a couple of spots worth visiting. I must confess to never having spent much time here, mainly because the best spot is standing on the road on a bridge, normally with a line of other photographers, which isn’t my style, but that doesn’t mean it is without…
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#279 – East Lancs Railway Photo Locations 4 – Burrs
Burrs is a popular location and one that has changed over the past few years with the opening of a caravan park. It will be changing again in the next few years if the proposed halt is built, so it is worth visiting soon before some more unique photo locations are lost. There are numerous…
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#278 – East Lancs Railway Photo Locations 2 – Buckley Wells
The yard at Barron Street is one of my favourite spots on the line, but is not open to the public except on night shoots. The shed itself is the Victorian loco works of the original East Lancashire Railway Company, and is now the home of Ian Riley’s Engineering business as well as the East…
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#277 – East Lancs Railway Photo Locations 3 – Bury Bolton Street Station
Not being a station dweller, this is a place I tend to get on and off trains rather than take photos. The station itself is a pretty large affair, and has plenty of parking next door and across the road, even on busy events like Santa Specials. There’s also a buffet on the platform, and…
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#276 – East Lancs Railway Photo Locations 1 – Roch Viaduct
As I mentioned in the first installment, there are few decent photo opportunities on the Bury – Heywood line. Certainly, the ‘ski-jump’ over the Metrolink can give some spectacular exhausts, but the area in the immediate vicinity is uninspiring. This location is more pleasant. The line crosses a wide valley, going over a river and…
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#275 – East Lancashire Railway Photo Locations – Introduction
As a regular visitor to the East Lancashire Railway over the last ten years or so, I’ve got to know many of the best locations for lineside photography. Regular readers will be aware of my tendency to look for something beyond the standard ‘train in station’ photographs, and as quite a lot of the lineside…
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#266 – Farewell Hans Steeneken
A recent email brought the sad news of the passing of Dutch railway photographer Hans Steeneken. The email was from someone who has now got access to his emails, and he said that he died ‘last June 6th’, but I’ve just checked my emails and my last email from Hans was September 2011, so I presume…
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#255 – Great North Steam Fair 2 – Coffee Pots and a Colliery
I think this is a de Winton engine, similar to the ones photographed on the Geotopoi blog The colliery at Beamish is a real one, well sort of, it’s made up of bits of other collieries that have been rebuilt to form one new one. The steam engine works as well, and the entire setup makes a…
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#254 – Great North Steam Fair 1 – The Steam Elephant
Last year I went to the wonderful Beamish Open Air Museum, and loved it! Only thing was, we went a tad early in the season and not everything was open. Vowing to return, we opted to visit during the Great North Steam Fair, which pretty much opens the season. As we’d already seen a lot…
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#240 – Crane Tank at Foxfield Colliery – Part 4
Maybe the only one I took in my usual style. Couldn’t quite get the composition right as the engine was in the wrong place for a good silhouette, but I’m quite pleased with it though.
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#239 – Crane Tank at Foxfield Colliery – Part 3
Night photography tends to mean long exposures, but that presupposes everything is going to be static. Even in strong winds, buildings don’t tend to move a great deal, and neither do steam locomotives if they’ve got their brakes on. However, the crane tank was an exception as it had it’s jib extended and a coal…
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#238 – Crane Tank at Foxfield Colliery – Part 2
Much as I enjoy photo charters, they’re something of a double edged sword from a creative perspective – on the one hand you get multiple runpasts, in the best locations, in the best light if it’s available. On the other hand, you tend to move from location to location with the rest of the group,…
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#237 – Crane Tank at Foxfield Colliery – Part 1
Colliery headstocks were once a common site in the many mining areas of the country, but with the decline of the industry, these industrial landmarks are now virtually extinct. Colliery closures tend to result in a rapid demolition, witness to that is the speedy clearance of Welbeck colliery that I photographed in 2008. Even those…
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#236 – Best of 2011 Part 2
Misty paraboloids The further I drove into Yorkshire, the foggier it became. In fact, I couldn’t even see the cooling towers until I was right next to them, and this was the site I was met with when I entered the site. Eerie. Three Kings, Thorpe Marsh As the fog cleared, the sun made an…
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#235 – Best of 2011 Part 1
In an idea shamelessly ripped off from Martin Creese’s excellent blog, I’ve decided to post up some of my favourite photos from the past year. Regular readers will probably recognise these pictures, but I’m halfway through writing half a dozen posts currently, so this seemed like a quick and easy way to fill in the…
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#234 – Super D Part 3 – riding the line
A few more random shots from the day! Riding on the rear verandah of the guardsvan gave some different views than you’d get from sitting in a carriage. This is looking back down the line in Brooksbottom Tunnel. Not sure how to describe these lights, but they are hung on the back and front of…
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#233 – Super D Part 2 – on the footplate
I’ve written before about people in railway photography, and how you don’t see much of it. Well, the opportunity came up again to ride up front with the crew on the footplate (thanks to Nigel for organising this again!) which is always a privilege. It was also a bit of a squeeze, as the Super…
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#232 – Super D Part 1
All aboard for an early start! Well, maybe not, but driving from Chorley to Bury at rush hour always takes a little longer than I think it will, especially when going the scenic route to avoid the dick-dance that is the M61/M60 in the morning. The reason for my brisk cross-country drive was Richard Newtons latest charter…
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#226 – People In Railway Photography Revisited – Part 2
As I wasn’t using the optimal lens for the job, cropping played an important part of post processing., and this is where having a reasonably high megapixel count comes in handy. Now I’ve never subscribed to the theory that you should get it right in camera and never crop – it’s a laudable idea, but…
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#225 – People in Railway Photography Revisited – Part 1
Due to the usual late running on the Saturday of the East Lancs Steam Gala, the planned nightshoot was also running late, so by the time the assembled throng were let in, the engines were still being put down for the night. Never one to miss an opportunity to do something different, I hiked up the…
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#207 – Steam On The Isle Of Wight – Part 2
As I was on a holiday day trip, rather than a day out photographing trains, I didn’t have the opportunity to explore the line and look for some good vantage points. That said, railway photography in summer doesn’t always yield the best results as the warmth tends to result in a poor exhaust and…
Mechanical Landscapes 