The Limbo Connection's photos with the keyword: station

End of the line - Mendip Vale. We get out and mill around a bit. There does not seem to be a waiting room or restaurant. No lavatories. No magazine stand. No announcements about when the next train is expected. The engine driver waits for the fireman to uncouple the locomotive and undertake switching the points, so that he can couple at the other end. Sometimes the footplate personnel includes ladies. That was hardly ever the case in the 1950s. Fujifilm FinePix S3 Pro with a Tokina 50-135mm f/2.8 lens.

158798 is GWR's only genuine three-car Class-158. The other three-car sets were originally two-car sets which subsequently had a driving coach from another unit of the same class coupled on to increase their capacity. British Rail Class 158 Sprinters were built between 1989 and 1992. A total of 182 Class 158 units were constructed. The majority were built as two-car sets, although some three-car sets were also produced. In the purpose-built three-car Class 158s, the centre car was not equipped with a driving motor. Over time, operators converted two-car sets into three cars and generally the newly created longer trains all had cars with engines underneath. Train enthusiasts sometimes refer to the new creations as ‘mongrel sets’ and make a point of highlighting a set that has remained unaltered such as the one pictured. By the 2020s, many Class 158 operators have either started to replace Class 158s or have completed the programme. I don’t know anything about trains but in posting this old picture, I thought it might be fun to research the current situation and add a bit of information.

Photographed with a Nikon D50 and an AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G lens - which on the D50 is comparable to the experience of using a standard 50mm lens on an old 35mm film camera. Never a great picture, but significantly improved by cropping out irrelevant activity to what I perceived to be the main show. Maybe a zoom lens would have afforded greater possibilities in the first place. Post processing saved the day on this one.

Nikon D700 with a Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 AF lens.

Canon EOS 40D + EF100-300mm f/4.5-5.6 USM lens at 130mm. I never felt this kit delivered as I expected. Yet with a bit of post-processing some sort of atmosphere has emerged.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor AF-S 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 VR lens. Shot through two windows - the windscreen of the DMU and the glass separating the driver from the passengers.

There is more on the left but I cropped it because of over-exposure. What remains was under-exposed; I lightened it. The colour and tone were askew too. I fiddled with them in post-production. I should have taken a reading to get accurate white balance. I should also have used a strong neutral density graduated filter over the bright area to the left. It's all elementary, so why do I keep failing?

Nikon D2Xs with a Nikkor 28mm f/3.5 AI lens.

Nikon D300s + Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens.

Canon EOS 40D and Canon EF 100-300mm f/4.5-5.6 USM lens.

'How much of human life is lost in waiting?' (Ralph Waldo Emerson). Nikon D90 and Sigma 15-30mm EX IF lens.

The preceding nine photographs in this series aren't all as horribly blurred as this one. In fact, one of them is quite sharp. This is the result of using too slow a shutter speed. It's not entirely motion blur because there wasn't an earth tremor at that moment. I ought to have used a camera capable of higher ISO, or a fast lens, or both. But I didn't have those options so I used a Nikon D50 with a Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6 AF G lens whilst waiting to meet the 16.23 at Westbury station. Claude Monet noticed that slow shutter speed blurred moving figures and was inspired deliberately to smudge his painting to achieve this blurry effect. Bravo M. Monet! And Bravo The Limbo Connection!

Fujifilm FinePix S3 Pro and Tokina SD 50-135mm f/2.8 DX AT-X Pro lens.

Nikon D2Xs + Tokina 50-135mm f/2.8 AT-X Pro lens.

Nikon D2Xs + Tokina 50-135mm f/2.8 AT-X Pro lens.

Passengers. Nikon D700 + Nikkor 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 D lens.

I visited the East Somerset Railway near Cranmore in Somerset on 1st July, a hot day such as Edward Thomas immortalised in 'Adlestrop'. I reflected on what enables preserved railways such as this to thrive. Enthusiasm, of course - of volunteers and visitors alike. And the availability of locomotives and rolling stock, thanks to Dai Woodham at Barry not being in a rush to break up the scrapped BR locomotives. But - paradoxically perhaps - it is the motor car which makes preserved steam possible, for it often operates in the back of beyond, and is accessible only by private transport for all practical purposes. Nikon D2Xs and Tamron Di II SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 XR LD Aspherical (IF) lens.