2015

Created by the Government of Wales Act of 1998, the Welsh Assembly is another example of devolution to the constituent countries of the United Kingdom, in line with the Scottish Parliament (also created in 1998), and "Home Rule" in Northern Ireland, initiated in 2007. Perhaps surprisingly, this Assembly Senedd (Senate) building was constructed at Cardiff Bay, rather than in the city centre, in 2006. The old Pierhead building is also controlled by the Assembly, but is used as a museum to educate citizens and visitors about the Welsh government.

Originally constructed in 1897 for the Bute Dock Company, which almost immediately became the Cardiff Railway Company. It was transferred to the Port of Cardiff in 1947, as part of the Nationalisation of the railways to form British Rail. Following privatisation, it eventually was acquired by the City of Cardiff, and then by the Welsh Assembly. Today, it is used as a museum to educate citizens and visitors about the Welsh government. The clock tower, often called "Little Big Ben," had its mechanism replaced in 1973, with the original mechanism eventually being displayed in Cardiff's city centre in 2011, at the corner of Wood Street and St. Mary's Street.

The Norwegian Church, now used as a community centre with dance lessons and other services, was originally constructed in 1868 to serve Norwegian sailors. In contrast to most British churches, which were Anglican (Church of England), the Norwegian Church was originally Lutheran, which may explain why it was built. Roald Dahl was baptized in the church (probably) in 1916. In 1974, following a drastic decline in the size of the congregation, the church was deconsecrated, and in 1987 it was dismantled with an eye towards preservation and eventual reconstruction. Roald Dahl actually chaired the society responsible for the effort. It had actually been located on the site of what is now the Millenium Centre, so the present location was chosen in 1992, when the church was reconstructed as seen here.

The most notable ship preserved in Cardiff Bay, or at least the easiest to access until 2015, was this light ship, called variously Lightship 2000, Lightship 14, Goleulong 2000, and Helwig. Built in 1953, it was literally a "light ship," which served as a floating lighthouse to prevent other ships running aground. In spite of the development of radar before its construction, it remained in service until 1991, before being bought by an entity connected to the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation (I haven't been able to find a source specifically naming the buyer). For a time, it served as a chapel upon preservation in 1993, until it was closed to the public in 2013 and moved to Gloucester in 2015, with an eye to opening it as a museum following another restoration (which it has also served as over the years), but in Newnham-on-Severn, rather than Gloucester or Cardiff. At the moment, it is supposedly is being restored by Fred Larkham, although I have been unable to verify the owner. Their is an official website for the ship at: www.lightship2000.co.uk ...but the site appears to be down at the moment (June 12th, 2016).

This is a lock gate (chaisson?) to one of the dry docks(?) in Cardiff Bay. I took this as one of a series of shots I took of the Bay, mostly without any background research. Obviously, further information would be appreciated.

Letenske Sady, also sometimes generally referred to as "Letna," which is only part true, spans a 1.5 kilometre stretch of parkland between the corner of Skalecka and Frantizka Krizka streets roughly seen here facing the other direction (west), and Chokovy Sady, another portion of parkland to the west. It is thus a constituent part of a larger stretch of parkland that reaches as far west as Kajetanka, 4.3 kilometres away.

I took this photo from the east bank of the River Vltava, at Manesuv Most. Here you can see St. Vitus Cathedral at the top of the castle mound of Prazky Hrad, with the Mala Strana below.

Although the foundations date to 1305, the present Zamek Decin dates to 1788. It overlooks the city of Decin, and is easily visible from the mainline into Germany, where I shot this from. Decin in the last stop before entering Germany, although before the Schengen agreement both Decin and Bad Schandau had border controls, although there were stations closer to the border on either side.

I don't remember how many times I've shot cameraphone, or other, photos of Aachen station, but I have also been through the station more times than I can count. In addition to hosting DB Intercity services, seen in the background, the station also hosts Eurocity trains like the one I was on, and Thalys high-speed trains like the one in the foreground. The Thalys looks a lot like a third-generation French TGV, and in fact it is, with the caveat that it is a multi-voltage variant that was never used by regular SNCF services. The Thalys service is actually shared between SNCF (in France), SNCB (in Belgium), NS (in the Netherlands), and DB (in Germany, as seen here). The maximum service speed for the Thalys trains is 300Km/h, or 186 m.p.h., but the trains operate on both high-speed lines and conventional mainlines.

This is the roof of the new Liege-Guillemins station, which was opened as recently as 2009. Designed by Santiago Calatravat, it replaced an earlier station dating to 1958, that in turn had replaced the original station from 1842. This station is served by all classes of trains, including Thalys and ICE services.

Whenever I visit Wales, the final leg is on the old Great Western Mainline from London Paddington. This was my train, and I noted the number of one of the power units, 43134, something I hadn't done in a number of years (I'm usually too exhausted for railfanning by the time I get to London). #43134 is actually unnamed, although presently and historically, many Class 43 (formerly Class 253) power units have been, both recently and historically.

This was after our arrival at Cardiff, a few minutes early if memory serves. I didn't actually time the train this time.

St. Fagans was originally a castle, with the gardens seen here, but today it is the national museum of Wales. It isn't particularly photogenic unless you're talking about the gardens, but they do try to give you a good presentation of Welsh rural life over the past 175 years or so, with the predicable farming equipment, buildings, and so on. However, the National Museum in Cardiff has better mining displays.

This was one of those lucky shots, like most rainbow photographs. I was particularly lucky that my cameraphone could expose properly in this situation. It has almost no ability, for example, to capture sunsets. That big truss(?) in the background on the left is part of the Millennium Stadium.

This is the old Cardiff bus station, in front of the Cardiff Central train station. The location was ideal, so naturally the auto lobby had to pressure the city to move it far out in the suburbs, where no one could access it. However, this turns out to have not happened, and may have been an urban legend (although usually such things are not) as the new station will be on the same location as the old one. I took this photo from a building that used to be a terminal building of sorts, although at the time it was serving as a temporary location for the city library, which was also under reconstruction. The (real) new bus terminal will be located on the same block, but to my left in this picture, on the corner where Burger King is now. www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/first-images-cardiffs-new-bus-9532831

I saw these containers a number of places in Britain, and they struck me as an often unexplored area of rail marketing, namely the lower CO2 emissions possible with rail transport. This has always been the main marketing point of rail transport, at least as a government policy, in the modern era, although obviously to work, such a policy has to be implemented reasonably efficiently. For example, a one-car freight train will not have the advantage of a 100-car freight train. Britain generally is somewhere in the middle, running 20 to 40 cars typically, as in the rest of Europe.

Most cathedrals in Europe, to the best of my knowledge (I'm not an expert on architecture) date to the middle ages, and as such most are gothic, and perpetually under reconstruction. This is in line with their situation historically, as many took hundreds of years to build. In the case of Koln Cathedral, original construction lasted from 1248 to 1880, although construction was halted between 1473 and the 19th Century (I haven't been able to find an exact date). I don't know much about this restoration, but as I said, it is rare to find a European cathedral without any scaffolding on it.

I was in Koln to catch the CityNightLine train 457 for Prague. However, this was my first ever rail trip across Europe when there was ever a problem. My trip back coincided with a national rail strike in Germany, which meant that they had to put us up in hotels after CNL457 was cancelled without warning late at night, as seen by the departure time on this platform board, but not by any notice of cancellation, as there was none.