tarboat's photos

The morning loaded coal wagons are hauled away from the yard at Dongchang Colliery en route to the China Rail interchange several kilometres away. It was always a big effort for a single SY class locomotive to get this heavy train moving and sometimes it had to be double-headed.

Cottam power station on load on a cold January day.

A continuous block of brick material is extruded at the Claughton brickworks. It will next be wire cut into individual green bricks.

Signage at Cottam power station. I couldn't resist. Security watching in the background.

The colliery lines at Beipiao were rarely visited by enthusiasts due to the lack of action at any times. On my one visit it was hard work to find trains but we did manage to find SY 1550 on wagons of pit waste at the Yijing mine.

Carr's Flour Mill, Maldon. The Carr business was founded by Jonathan Dodgson Carr in the 1830s and has two other mills at Silloth and Kirkcaldy. Since 2016 it has been owned by Whitworth Holdings. This mill was built in 1896 as a roller mill for Samuel Garrett. It later belonged to William Green and Sons, then Green Bros, and subsequently Carr's.

SY 0477 drifts its train downhill from Pinggang Colliery on the Lishu section of the Jixi Coal Railway.

Frosty steam action at Breza Colliery.

The highlight of a trip in search of old limekilns was the Hawks Wood quarry adjacent to the Chesterfield Canal at Thorpe Salvin. Four eighteenth century flare kilns have survived on the site which are excellent examples of the type of intermittent kiln technology used in parts of South Yorkshire until at least the 1930s.

Storage bunkers at Thrislington Quarry. Tarmac operates the Quarry which opened in 1954. It extracts and processes around one million tonnes of limestone and sand aggregate each year.

The surviving gasholder at Carrickfergus gasworks was erected in 1949 and is the sole survivor of the three that were once on the site. In front is the base of one of the two earlier gasholders at The brick lined tank only needs water around the sides of the metal holder and therefore some of the space inside is filled with a brick cone often referred to as a "dumpling". All is now preserved as part of the gasworks museum.

Detail from the iron bridge at Henbury Hall, Macclesfield, Cheshire.

Black 5 at Bury at the end of services on New Year's Day.

Small private coal mine under development in central China. This pit was well on the way to opening out for drawing coal. I saw dozens of similar workings on a short trip into this area.

The harbour at Dunbar is in two parts divided by this double bascule bridge

Memories of former shop use on this building in Truro. With the cream brick and red terracotta it was certainly eyecatching.

Winter sunset behind the cranes of London.

Shunting the washery at Breza Colliery on a dull and frosty morning.