Loose_Grip/Pete's photos

Bulleid Pacific West Country 34027 Taw Valley crosses over from shed road 2 to road 1 prior to backing down to take water. Its stock waits in Platform 1 behind in Loughborough Central station. The cold morning air is filled with the engine's exhaust giving the scene a steamy atmosphere.

Carnforth station & Stanier 8F 2-8-0 48151 prepares to depart with a steam special for the Cumbrian Coast on 21st April 2001, The classic b/w 1940s film Brief Encounter was based on a chance meeting in the refreshment room on Carnforth station & filming took place there. After many years of neglect this has reopened as a tea room not surprisingly called Brief Encounter.

GCR Bowstring railway bridge Leicester 2001. It's not seen a train since 1969 & may be demolished in 2007 - WAS demolished in 2009. It strides confidently across the canalised River Soar and the road but the blue-brick viaduct that carried it into Leicester Central station has been truncated just past the tree growing from its foundations. The Pecks building is on the skyline far right.

GCR Loughborough USATC 2-8-0 S160 5197 in steam on shed. It was on loan from the Churnet Valley Railway for the summer. From early 1943 up until D-Day in 1944 many S160s, although not 5197, worked on the LNER and some were shedded at Woodford Halse so would have hauled freight trains through Loughborough. No. 5197 was built in 1945 by Lima & was originally shipped from the US to China in 1945. It was purchased from the Chinese coal industry and imported into the UK in November 1995. I was still a cleaner when I fired this beast in 2003 but it was an interesting experience. It has excellent injectors & the mechanism is very easy. First a slight pull to get the water flowing and then a longer pull for the steam. Picked up first time everytime - none of the messing about with the water valve you tend to get with most of the UK locos. The firebox is pretty wide & needs a good back but the butterfly firehole doors give you plenty of space to swing - essential for a novice fireman! I never got a chance to prepare/dispose of it but that smokebox door looks very fiddly although I expect the firebox will have a rocking grate.

My 1978 Triumph Spitfire 1500 AWK334T sports car

Dinting Railway Centre. LMS Jubilee 4-6-0 5596 Bahamas gives steam footplate rides in the shed yard, Autumn 1969. Dinting station can be seen in the background & the Great Central Railway Woodhead route to Sheffield Victoria runs left to right behind the embankment. The centre closed some years ago and most of the preserved engines & artifacts moved to Ingrow on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway.

Dinting Station British Railways. LNER EM2 electric E26055, Prometheus, on a Sheffield to Manchester passenger train on the Woodhead route waits at the west end of the platform, Autumn 1969. The crew wait for the "rightaway" to Manchester Piccadilly in the weak sunshine. Despite being a modern electrified railway the Woodhead closed completely in 1981. One nameplate from this engine was sold in December 2002 for £10200. The nameplate is not obvious in this view but the small oval 1953 Gorton Works, Manchester, maker's plate can be seen on the cabside. The rail glimpsed in the bottom left is the line to Glossop. The current limit of the truncated Great Central/LNER Woodhead route is to the east of Dinting.

Bolton steam shed, Stanier 8F 48652, 8th June 1968. The engine is fitted with a small buffer beam snow plough. Two Drewry diesel shunters including D2234 alongside. The signals on the far left are on the Manchester to Bolton line.

British Railways Standard 2MT 78019 in Woodhams Barry scrap yard in July 1970. Now to be found restored and in steam pulling trains on the Great Central Railway Loughborough