Severn Valley Railway

A recent trip ‘up north’ gave me a chance to again practice my night photography skills. In the end the pictures I took after dark were better than the daylight ones, probably because I was concentrating more. I am having problems with my RAW files loosing quality when switching to jpg so that the pictures end up coming out darker and with odd colour casts in places. Not so bad for the black and white pictures but for the colour ones it is a bit disappointing. If I figure it out I might re-do this post.

This was taken as the evening diner train stopped to pick up a token.

The Driver looks for the right away before they depart Bewdley on the next leg of the 2hr round trip along the river Severn.

Earlier in the day the last service train awaits departure from Bridgenorth as the dusk falls.

This is one that has suffered in the transition to JPEG from ARW, which is a shame because it is a far clearer and nicer shot in ARW.

Earlier in the day a service train pulls into a small station with the river Severn down and away to the left. After it leaves again the sound of it working hard can be clearly heard echoing along the valley for 5 to 10 mins.

A down train drifts along with the gradient of the line being emphasised by the shortening effect of the longer lens.

Finally a train departs with steam roaring up into the cold night air illuminated by the platform lamps.

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Goodwood 2014 – Shelby Cup

The second update of photos from Goodwood. These are taken from Friday practice for the Shelby Cup. This race was for the Ford Falcon and derivatives to celebrate it’s win on the Monte Carlo Rally.

Above is the regular (only at Goodwood could you use regular in this context) Falcon. This example is owned by Rowan Atkinson of Black Adder fame. He unfortunately connected with a stationary car during his race later in the weekend. It had spun in front of him and he had nowhere to go. The damage was not too heavy and I should imagine it will have been fixed by now.

Also involved was this, a Mercury Cyclone… and they wrote it down the side so I didn’t have to look up the number! It ultimately looks to be basically the same but with 4 eyes.

Now this I did have to look up – the Dodge Dart of Grahame Bryant who shared the drive with Anthony Reid. Anthony seemingly had a drive in every race, very much in the spirit of the era. It is a shame that we don’t get the likes of Hamilton entering Tin Top races and the F1 calender usually clashes with events like Le Mans.

This is a car I had never heard of, a Studebaker Lark Daytona 500. It appears that later models used the Ford V8, not sure why this was out there for this race though.

Finally of the variants is the Mustang, which is just a Falcon floor pan in fancy dress.

Some other pictures from the Qualifying session. While some seemed to be concentrating just on getting around others were hard on it right away.

And at the end of the session Neil Twyman brings Julian Balme’s car in.

Bluebell

In mid October I visited the Bluebell Railway in Sussex. After problems with engine availability it is good to see they seem to be finding their feet again. With the extension open efforts are being focused on re-grouping.

With the sun quite wintry and seemingly in the wrong place all weekend it lead to some interesting effects.

It did give a very washed out effect to the sky however, I managed to get this as the fireman looked for the right away.

The first time I used a prime lens here means I finally had the shutter speed to capture atmosphere of the shed. I hope to try this out some more. Captain Baxter awaiting it’s next turn of duty.

Training the next generation.

Shoreham Airshow 2014

Bit late but finally I have uploaded pictures from the air show. I have erred in leaving it so long… I can’t remember what the pictures depict. Bruce Dickinson is in there somewhere as are lots WW2 veterans.

PR Spitfire. Fastest and the best, in my opinion, of the breed. No guns just a camera to save on wieght.

Collection of Tiger Moths flying in pleasingly symmetrical formation.

Breitling wing walkers put on a great display as always. The only issue for the photographer being the smoke hanging in the air giving them a hazy look.

Douglas Skytrain takes off near the end of the show as part of the D-Day display. The invasion stripes contrast nicely with the dark green of the fuselage

Spitfire Pilot focusing hard.

Ever present but always pleasing war birds. Great machines but sobering to think their original purpose was not for display.