Loose_Grip/Pete's photos with the keyword: ClassicBlack&White

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.

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.

An all apple green locomotive combination on Kirkby curve as LNER A3 4-6-2 4472 Flying Scotsman & B1 4-6-0 1306 double-head a Steam Special train from Carnforth to Ravenglass and Sellafield. I had journeyed up to Carnforth on the special train on the West Coast Main Line from London Euston that morning. The train was taken over by LNWR Hardwicke & Flying Scotsman and Hardwicke stayed on until Ulverston where 1306 took over.

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.

Ivatt 4MT 2-6-0 43106 darkens the skies over Lancashire while filling its tender from the archaic looking water column. Her blower is hard on to lift the smoke & get up steam ready to depart the shed for the Severn Valley Railway at Bridgenorth and a new life in preservation. The only life Stanier 8F 48476 can look forward to is a short one before withdrawal in 3 days time & scrapping in December 1968. Although on this day there were two other Ivatt 4s on Lostock Hall shed this is the only one to survive & in fact now is the only one of its class in existence.