Last Day of the Staycation Express

Going back to the tail end of summer/early September, and some railway photography, for the blog tonight.  I (Ben) have mentioned about the trials and tribulations encountered photographing the Staycation Express (the special trains 3x daily from Skipton to Appleby) this summer; with time running out before it stopped running, I was anxious to try and get some shots at Ribblehead (having failed earlier in the summer).

I haven't managed much in the way of mainline photographs this year what with Lockdown, Home-schooling, and what-have-you.  Indeed most of the local excursions these days are only run with steam locomotives between Hellifield and Carlisle, but getting up to Settle has been tricky.  The above one of the last of the 'regular' runs, seen near Stainforth.  Not a great angle in the sunlight, but at least there's a carpark nearby, and it avoids joining the non-Socially-Distancing scrums at the more 'classic' locations.

As a treat to enthusiasts (and the railway photographers were certainly out in force), LSL had provided a class 40 for the final day of services, excuse enough for us to head out to get some piccies.  We headed out en-masse to Ribblehead, planning to get a bit of walking in too.

This is the northbound run (first of the day).  Shame about the weather.

We had intended to do the walk up to the waterfall again, or at least go as far as Blea Moor Signalbox, but it was cold and windy and coming on to rain, so we bailed.  I'd got a few shots on the viaduct, so I was a happy bunny.  Only took four attempts over the summer...

We decided to head into Settle to eat the picnic (at least there were some facilities open there, and it was sheltered from the worst of the weather).  We saw the return train coming through Settle Station- managed a few shots, but there were a lot of other photographers we were trying not to get in the way of.

Stupid lens-flare.

A postscript to the shoot, on the following Monday I was able to get a snap of one of the regular locomotives from the Staycation Express as it headed through Utley for its next job.