Loose_Grip/Pete's photos with the keyword: Blanc i Negre

With a feather of steam at the safety valve, Graz-Köflacher Bahn Kriegslok 2-10-0 152- 3110 on a freight train departs Graz during ALP fieldwork. The driver is keeping a sharp eye open as the train passes over the level crossing.

Aberdeen Station Class 47 diesel 47251 departs past the fabulous signal gantries that used to grace this line. I was returning from supervising a VSP velocity survey on Mobil's Beryl oil production platform & an exploration well in the same block in April 1977. After a helicopter ride from the offshore rig to Sulom Voe in the Shetlands the onward flight to Aberdeen was by DC3 Dakota - brilliant. I then took the train from Aberdeen to Kings Cross changing at Waverley but because I hadn't slept for 48 hours I missed most of the journey south of Edinburgh being slumped in my seat asleep.

I spent a day in Chicago after an overnight trip on Amtrak's "The Panama Limited" from New Orleans memorable not least by the cockroach that walked into my open mouth during the night as I lay slumped in my seat. I think I woke the whole coach! The elevated railway was most impressive particularly this flat crossing.

Chinese steam working hard. 2-10-2 QJ 440 &QJ at Honggong. A double-headed freight train heading south on the railway out of Harbin powers up the Wanggang bank. Back in 1983 independent visitors were not allowed. I spent 3 weeks with a group of enthusiasts on an organised tour visiting railway, and cultural, sites across China where steam still reigned on the main line. Investment in new lines was high even then and it's interesting to realise that the lines in western China where the last steam strongholds were recently dieselised were not even built at the time of my visit.

View north from Leicester station. Peak class diesels 45159 & 45114 slowly draw a train towards the station although the signals seem to be against them. In fact that's the signalman hurrying back to his box to clear the Inner Home. Meanwhile a dmu is heading northwards under clear signals on the Down Main. 45159 had failed within sight of the station & fortunately 45114 was on hand in the station & was dispatched to retrieve it. The whole episode only took half an hour or so. I wonder how long it would take today if a Midland Mainline train failed here? There are only very few locomotives around, if any, & those would be EWS or Freightliner owned so difficulties with insurance, liabilities, etc would make it a long drawn out procedure I'm sure. Until the 1980s Leicester Midland before modernisation was an interesting place with a definite steam-age atmosphere. Leicester North's Midland Railway signal box, a forest of semaphore signals, the loco stabling point behind the box and, off shot to the left, the LNWR & MR Goods yards all added their bit. Interestingly, the loading gauge post on the extreme left has lost its hanging gauge hoop which could still be seen on a 1975 photo I posted elsewhere. A clear indication of the further loss of freight business in the intervening two years.