On a frosty morning in Utley...

Apologies for the lack of updates of late- some fairly serious health problems (two nocturnal trips for me, Ben, to Casualty, one of which in the big yellow van with the flashing lights on the roof, woohoo) have meant not much photography has been done since Christmas.  But we've managed to get a few bits shot and edited, so we're playing catchup at the mo.

First up, some pre-Christmas shots, taken on a walk to Utley, near Keighley, bright and early on a very chilly morning.  Time for a mix of transport and landscape shots.  The above angle looked promising...

...though typically the shot didn't come out too well.  The train was travelling rather fast, and the very nice sunrise was disappearing by the time the (delayed) Settle-Carlisle train on its way to Leeds put in an appearance.

A little more luck nearby with the sun glinting down the side of a train, a class 333 on its way to Bradford.

Shooting the other way from a bridge further down.  Skipton-bound train.

I started playing with some shots on some of the many bridges on the walk, thinking of a mini-series, but this was the only one which came out in the odd lighting of the early morning.

One with no trains, but my favourite of the morning.

All in all not too bad a walk, the landscape shots certainly turned out better than the transport ones, not least because the trains are absolutely batting along at this point, and the odd light on the morning was making non-blurred shots very tricky.

OK these next two are not strictly related except by subject matter, but I couldn't find anywhere else to group the pics.  Class 333 on its way into Bingley from late-November (still some greenery on the trees at this point).  A location I might return to for more transport shots...

...and the same location as the transport shots in the main body of the blog post.  At this point an old level crossing projects out into the trackbed, giving a brilliant rail-level shot from a position of safety, but which looks so much like a trespass-shot that I'm having trouble getting anything published from this spot.  Shame about the weather, but A4 Pacific "Union of South Africa", heading back to the sheds just before Christmas, was utterly amazing tanking along at full speed.