tarboat's photos

The planning application for housing is already submitted.

Slag ladles moving out of the furnace line at the Baotou steelworks.

The Beichang washery on the Chengzihe system at Jixi is a place with one of the most intensive steam services anywhere. Trains of coal are bustling in from the collieries across the area whilst spoil is constantly being removed to the tips and washed coal to the exchange sidings. In the morning sunlight SY1344 eases a loaded train of clean coal from under the loading bunkers.

Hatfield Colliery is busy supplying coal to Drax power station with a contract for 45,000 tonnes per week. It is also planned to open a 900MW clean coal power plant adjacent to the pit. Information on new developments can be found here . When this photograph was taken, maintenance work was underway with one of the ropes slack on the nearer headgear.

In the last months of steam operation on the Jitong Railway a pair of QJ class locomotives hurry a long freight into the station loops at Gulumanhan between Daban and Lindong. I am sure that Renown will have a fine video of this train somewhere in his collection. Here is the view from the other end of the loop.

For walkers this is an important crossing of the Dane. The footbridge at Gig Hall gives access into Staffordshire and onto the banks of the canal feeder that leads to Rudyard Lake. A well known Flickrite provides scale. ;-)

Dated section of terracotta decoration on The Railway at Latchford.

Ratcliffe-on-Soar on a sunny day. It is actually quite difficult to find an angle where you can see all eight cooling towers.

For ste_peg, the black and white version of this image .

A fine example of terracotta and glazed tiles on this Warrington pub dating from 1904. Sadly it stands empty, another victim of poor trade and high rents.

Standing boarded up and abandoned is Christ Church at Weston Point which was built by the Trustees of the Weaver Navigation Company in 1841.

It is hard to imagine that this is early afternoon as the headlight of the JS class locomotive fights through the gloom as the afternoon coal empties depart Baofeng on the western arm of the Pingdingshan Coal Railway.

As I learn that steam on the Pingdingshan system has now been relegated almost entirely to a standby role I thought that I would dig out a shot from January 2008 which encapsulates the often dark and gloomy atmosphere there. Here JS 8030 lurks in the background at Tianzhuang whilst the track gang labour on the extensive track doubling that was being undertaken in this area. The weak and hazy sun is about as good as it gets for days on end. I made three visits to this busy railway operation and never managed to see all it had to offer but always enjoyed seeing the big trains operated here.

Brief sunshine illuminates an excavator waiting to load dump trucks at the Lafarge cement works at Hope in Derbyshire. I shall leave the technical details of the machine to others who are far better qualified than I to discuss such things.

Foden diesel lorry operated by Earle's Cement. Location probably somewhere in the Derbyshire Peak District. I would welcome any details about the lorry.

Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway 'A' class No.1300 on one of the crossings at the Lafarge Cement open days at Hope Works. The rain was (unusually for this year) just a shower on what was quite a nice day. The open day was a great success and enjoyed by a large number of visitors.

The Anderton Company warehouse at Middleport alongside the former slipway and repair shed is topped by the nice terracotta work dated 1890. The building has since been restored as offices.

A sign whose survival always pleases me when I visit Stockport. Just opposite was the Clog Shop from which I purchased a pair of boot clogs, and very comfortable they still are too. Sadly the clog shop is long gone.