tarboat's photos

A walk on a fine frosty day took me to the top of Lathkill Dale in Derbyshire. No river flows this high up the dale and the River Lathkill emerges from a cave around the corner.

I was suprised to find this limekiln in the midst of the wastelands outside the locomotive depot in Pingdingshan, Henan, China. Although at first glance it looks long disused it was actually only recently out of use. The wire disappearing into the draw tunnel was for the light bulb to illuminate the draw hole. When I next visited the area it was gone and the site levelled.

SY 1344 in the yard at Dongchang Colliery preparing to take the loaded coal wagons to the interchange with China Rail.

Gohteik viaduct is in Nawnghkio, western Shan State, Myanmar. The bridge was constructed in 1899 by the Pennsylvania and Maryland Bridge Construction Company, and opened in 1900. The components were made by the Pennsylvania Steel Company and were shipped from the United States. It is the highest bridge in Myanmar and when it was completed, the largest railway trestle in the world. The viaduct measures 689 metres (2,260 ft) from end to end. Height from the rail deck to the ground on the downstream side of the tallest tower, is 102 metres (335 ft). Because the line from Mandalay to Lashio is considered to be of strategic value, a diversionary route to the valley floor, featuring spectacular horseshoe curves, was built in 1976-1978, to keep trains running even if the Gohteik viaduct was sabotaged. Those tracks were still visible from the viaduct in 2013, but the diversionary line has been left to the tropical vegetation since 2002.

Limekiln in use at Liaosichang west of Baofeng near Pingdingshan, Henan Province, China. The sacks in the shed on the left contain crushed, burned lime.

Drumhouse for Incline 54 at Penmaenmawr West Quarry. It is 1,050 feet down to the sea from this point.

Joseph Adamson and Co at Hyde were boilermakers. The company started in partnership by Joseph Adamson and Henry Booth in 1874. The works which continued making boilers to the 1960s and beyond are now a small industrial estate.

JS 5644 drifts down from Tianzhuang yard on the Pingdingshan Coal Railway. The weather is about as bright as it gets here in winter.

Mam Tor is a 517 m (1,696 ft) hill near Castleton in the High Peak of Derbyshire, England. Its name means "mother hill", so called because frequent landslips on its eastern face have resulted in a multitude of "mini-hills" beneath it. These landslips, which are caused by unstable lower layers of shale, also give the hill its alternative name of Shivering Mountain. In 1979, the continual battle to maintain the A625 road (Sheffield to Chapel en le Frith, seen running across this view) on the crumbling eastern side of the hill was lost when the road officially closed as a through-route. A stitch of three images in Photoshop.

Seen at the Street Crane open day. These are examples of ESAB's unique octagonal cardboard bulk drum system for MIG/MAG welding wires. This allows continuous machine welding and the drum changeover allows continuous working as the wire ends can be butt welded.

A little early morning glint from the cylinder of the lead QJ as it heads a train uphill past Bilgou on the Jinpeng section of the Jitong Railway. As usual they sounded great!

LCM 160G outside Berresfords garage at Cheddleton late on a spring afternoon. Taken by my good friend John Ryan on one of our outings around Staffordshire in the early 1980s.

Baldwin WD 778 simmers whilst the crew take a well earned break during the first Tracks to the Trenches event at Apedale.

London Road Fire Station in Manchester is a building that has been seeking a use for many years. Whilst neglected and derelict it still proudly announces its former role as headquarters of the Manchester fire brigade. The terracotta is by Burmantofts of Leeds. The Grade II* building was completed in 1906 and closed in 1986. Finally redevelopment is taking place with the building to be redeveloped with both leisure and hotel facilities.

The Huanan Coal Railway is now just a memory but back at the end of November 2006 it was still busy bringing coal over the hills to Huanan. The climb from Lixin required banking using the locomotive from the train that was loading at the mine. This train was on the last big curve before the final slog to the summit where the banker would drop off and run back.

The night safe was once ubiquitous on bank premises but is now much less used and available due to changes in the use of cash and electronic transactions. Most surviving examples are now out of use and will soon disappear as banks drastically reduce the number of branches they operate. This example is on the now-closed and derelict Lloyds Bank premises at St Ives in Cornwall.

This water tower in Xian was once one of the tallest buildings in the city. It now stands in the shadow of the massed apartment blocks. Seen from the city walls.

This unusual concrete house is on the hillside above Bradwell in Derbyshire. The layout of doors and windows at the lower level suggests that this may once have been three small houses but it is certainly only one today.