#141 – East Lancashire Tornado Part 3 of 3

Another set up shot, but I’d faffed around with various compositions and shutter speeds without getting something that I was really happy with. So I left the rest of the gathered throng and went to look at the other locos, before coming back and trying again. By then everyone else was looking at Leander and the Black 5’s,…

#140 – East Lancashire Tornado Part 2 of 3

  Tornado must be one of the most written about steam locomotives in the country, and one of the best known. With it’s appearance on Top Gear and massive media coverage, it has single handedly brought steam railways into the public conscious. I was intrigued to hear a comment on the platform at Rawtenstall station from a lady,…

#139 – East Lancashire Tornado Part 1 of 3

  Last train of the day at Rawtenstall. I must have misread the timetable as I didn’t think Tornado was timetabled for this train, but I nipped over anyway to experiment with some low light shots, and was pleasantly surprised to see Tornado hauling the train in. It wasn’t as dark as I’d expected or…

#133 – Narrow Gauge in North Lancashire

Unlike my post a few weeks back on the West Lancashire Narrow Gauge, this railway no longer exists. It was only in existence for about ten years during the 1920’s – 1930’s, to assist in the construction of the Stocks Reservoir, deep in the Trough Of Bowland. It linked the Jumbles Quarry with the main construction…

#123 – Loch Of Tranquility?

A group of us had gone to Scotland for a very pleasant week at a ‘castle’ on the bank of Loch Long, and I’d done a bit of research to see if there was anything in the vicinity worth exploring. The only thing easily accessible was the abandoned Admiralty Torpedo Testing Station at the other…

#122 – A Windmill? In Wigan?

Standing alone in the middle of a field on the outskirts of Wigan is this rather forlorn looking windmill. It was originally built half a mile away to serve the Haigh Brewery, but was at some point moved and rebuilt in its current location. Sadly it’s fallen into disrepair no doubt due to it’s slightly exposed position…

#121 – Hot Work

It’s easy to see industrial sites through rose tinted glasses when walking round old, derelict sites or museums, but I’ve spent my career in factories and I know that even today, industry can be hot, hard, sometimes dangerous work. This old foundry is a great example of that – podging rods such as this were used to tap the hot…

#117 – Lethal Processes

I don’t know what this building used to do at Royal Ordnance Factory (ROF) Wrexham, but I suspect it was something dangerous that involved making or processing something lethal. Either way, it’s remained unused for over 60 years, the only evidence left being the foundations for something, and a large sunken pool of water at one end…

#116 – Grown Up Scalextric – Chassis

One I missed from the series of images that I posted from the Leyland Test Track. I’ve since been told that this is probably a wrecked computer monitor, but I saw it and noticed the word ‘chassis’ on it’s base and thought it appropriate. It’s perhaps not as prominent in the composition as I’d have…