British Railway Photos

I had caught up to the then-newly-restored LMS Jubilee Class "Leander" at the Return of the Legends train show at Crewe works earlier in 2003, but I only shot Kodachromes then. These shots, while quite brillant in color quality, were actually shot with Jessops Diamond 200, if I'm not mistaken. I got the film for free whenever I developed film with Jessops, so by late 2003 I was shooting quite a bit of it. All of these shots were on the East Lancashire Railway, where Leander eventually ended up in excursion service.

I took this shot on a slightly snowy day in 2001 during my second to last full day living in Norwich, England. I figured I wouldn't get back anytime soon, so I shot a bunch of photos so that I would have them. In reality, I returned many times to visit friends, but I didn't know I would do so at the time. This is one of my best shots that day, a pan of one of Anglia's Intercities departing Thorpe Street for London Liverpool Street. These Class 86 electrics were originally designed in the mid-1960s for use on the newly-electrified West Coast Mainline, but when the Great Eastern Mainline was electrified in the 1980s they were mostly cascaded to the Great Eastern. When I first went to school in Norwich in 1998, nearly all had been transferred to this service, with few left on the West Coast, and now all are on the Great Eastern, if I'm not mistaken. I rode these trains many times, of course, and I would ride one out of Norwich two days later. As a point of side interest, the blurred locomotive in the upper right is a English, Welsh, & Scottish Class 67 diesel, a 125 m.p.h. locomotive used mainly on mail trains. It turns out that I was wise to catch this, as I don't think I got another shot of it before it was scrapped at Cardiff in October of 2004.

I took this on one of my many trips to London, and until I found it in my collection a few weeks ago I had forgotten completely that I had it. I figure it should fit nicely into the various rail-oriented groups on Flickr, and interest a number of people, so why not post it? :-)

I took this the very first time I watched trains (trainspotted??) in Britain!! It was a very exciting day, as I had never seen so many trains running at once, and doing it so well!! :-) This was during the first year of privatisation, but you couldn't see the negative effects of it at all yet. Most of it was still public-sector, and very clean and well-maintaintained. Waterloo was so spotless that day that it was a little bit hard to believe, and this mind you was without the dreadful experience of privatisation to compare it to. Instead, I was comparing it to Amtrak, which is a way is an even starker contrast when you think about it. These trains are EMUs, although I don't have my books handy to found out exactly which classes. Most of the BR Southern Region EMUs were, of course, a bit hard to tell from one another. If someone with books handy could fill me in I would be very grateful. :-)

Here's the fatter of St. Pancras's two towers. I love the arches on it!! :-)

I took this on the same day as the other York Intercity 125 picture, but this one was in a completely modern GNER livery, and had been for some time, as you can see the rust already soaking through. Remember that these modernistic-looking trains are already, in some cases, 30 years old!!

St. Pancras station, and the Midland Hotel which is incorporated into the front of the building, was arguably the most beautiful, spectacular commercial failure in the history of London when it was constructed in 1867. Overwhelmingly the most grandiose and beautiful of London's stations, it was redundant when (over)built, and a product of the rivalry between the various private companies vying for the London market during the mid-19th Century. The Midland Railway, the original owners, spent 2,000,000 pounds on its construction, enough so that the company never recoupped the loss, especially since someone made the blunder of building the hotel without modern plumbing!!! Although the station was built as a combination passenger and freight station, with the underground freight handling facilities specialising in overnight beer shipments, little of the station has ever been put into full use. This may have a happy ending, though, as since I took these photos the building has been undergoing a massive renovation to serve as a successor to Waterloo International once the Channel Tunnel Rail Link is built, with the old beer cellars being reused for dedicated international platforms and a car park.

I used to help maintain "Green Arrow" at the (British) National Railway Museum in York, and this was the first run when I was one of the people who helped prepare it, so it was a moment of pride. It was preparing for a run to Scarborough, so I rode the train out and back and took a lot of photos, including this one. I wasn't qualified to actually work the run, as the regulations in Britain are pretty strict on that. Note that it's painted in BR Brunswick Green, and carrying its BR number, 60800. It has since, from what I've heard, been repainted back to its proper LNER colours (please somebody correct me if I'm wrong on this!).

I know that many, many people already have HST/IC125 pictures on Flickr. I'm sorry. :-) This is mine. Actually, I have a few, due to be uploaded soon. I took this when I was stranded in York on my way back to Norwich from the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, having missed both of my trains. Obviously, this was the next morning, when I decided to give the National Railway Museum a second visit, and photograph some of the traffic through York Central. This service, while still lettered for BR Intercity on the lead locomotive, was a Virgin Cross Country service. GNER had repainted all their IC125s by then, and notice the Virgin livery on the Mk.III coach the Class 43 diesel is pulling.

This is one of my favorite rail photographs of all time. I love the way the light outlines the boiler, as well as the crisp detail of the illuminated areas, and the contrast is also near-perfect, even if the ground detail is somewhat limited. On many of my prints of this shot, I've burned the ground in, of course, and it looks like I did the same with this one.

I wasn't expecting to take this. I was walking in a field on my first visit to England in 1993, being fully aware that I was next to a mainline (in this case the Great Eastern, if I'm not mistaken), and more worried about being electrocuted, as the trees hadn't been cut back very well. Nevertheless, I had my Kodak Star 735 in my hands, and then I heard an indescribable roar doppling towards me. The trees were blocking my view, but I raised the camera, caught this BR freight coming down the line at what must have been at least 80 m.p.h., and possibly faster, and swung around as it came by, getting this pan shot. It was all over in about 2 seconds, and I got the shot more or less by pure luck combined with reaction time, but I still think that it's one of my best train shots of all time. The blur of extreme speed (at least to my American mind of the time), combined with the memory of the noise, keep this shot in my head today whenever I'm attempting another one like it, which I should note I've never again succeeded in taking, even with a good SLR.

I took this on my first visit to Edinburgh in 1998, and initially it didn't make the cut for Flickr, but I now realise that it closely resembles many other peoples' work, including that which is well-regarded, so now I've finally included it.

Although it's just a railway viaduct, and not a particularly long or high one, I've always like how this one looks. This is in Cardiff, of course, and takes the former Great Western into Cardiff Central.

Next to the Cardiff railway viaduct is this water tower, which I'm assuming was originally for steam locomotives, and behind it in the distance is Brain's Brewery, with the slogan "It's Brains you want!"

I'm not sure if I took this on my way out of Cardiff, or on my way in, but I'm 90% certain it was on my way out or sometime soon before. Notice the original "Great Western Railway" lettering, which is still relevant as this station is still served by First Great Western.

This was the first of many trains I had to take to get home to Prague, this one being an Intercity 125 for London Paddington. I never got the number, but on magnifying the photo I'm fairly certain that this lead Class 43 power unit was #43192.

I took this as we were arriving into Paddington, and reflections off the safety glass or not, I still like it. I have no idea about the numbers of the trains this time, of course.

This is an Alstom (BR) Class 175 Coradia DMU. They were intended as a new generation of DMU that could operate at 125 m.p.h., although this was quickly downgraded to 110 and then to 100. 125 m.p.h. DMU's were eventually produced (in the form of the Virgin Voyager and BR Class 180), but the 175 Coradia never ended up filling such a role. Originally introduced in 2000 on First North Western, they have since been transferred to Arriva Trains Wales. Given the absurdity of the BR privatisation scheme, they have never been owned by a railway or Train Operating Company (TOC), but are instead owned by Angel Trains and leased to the TOC's, at much greater expense to the taxpayer. On this trip, I was on my way to Abergavenny for some hiking.