The tail end of 2020, and the start of 2021 saw some snow falling, and at least a bit of it came whilst the KWVR was still operating. There's something nice about steam trains in the snow, and I (Ben) tried to squeeze in as much photography as possible, knowing it was likely to be the last railway photography I could do for a while...
41241 at Damems during the no-mans-land between Christmas and New Years...
...and running-round at Keighley, captured during a particularly well-timed journey by myself and Elder Child to the shops to stock-up the food cupboards.
Knowing another damned lockdown was on the cards, and it having been an odd sort of Christmas, we decided to treat ourselves and The Childs to a trip on the train for New Years Eve.
We made sure we booked a vintage compartment carriage, because it adds something to a journey, feeling like you're in an old episode of Sherlock Holmes or Poirot.
The last weekend of services on the Worth Valley saw some proper snowfall, a sudden blizzard in fact that walloped the area. The KWVR was, I gather, the only railway running anywhere in England, so I wanted to make the most of the last trains operating in the snow. 78022 is in there somewhere!
Heading away up the valley.
So then lockdown happened. Again. No trains to photograph, but some related work cropping up;
A couple of years ago I had some pictures published in a book by Platform 5, a guide to heritage railways. As a contributor to the last one (and the mag they're tied to) I was asked to contribute some shots of the UK heritage railway scene, which meant a nice couple of nights wading back through the archives. As an example of the sort of thing I've sent off, the above was taken almost exactly a year ago, in the snow at the East Lancs Railway.
A big project of late has been finishing off a model railway based on the Ivor the Engine books; I did most of it in the first lockdown, and ended up recently spending the time I was self-isolating for (and recovering from) a hospital procedure to finish it off. It's for a model railway mag so I can't really put any of the pics up yet, but here's me playing around with Ivor and a length of track (on the roof of the car!) in the snow the other morning.
I fished another Lockdown project out of storage, a large-scale model of "Welsh Pony", to get some shots in the snow as well. An article on the building of this model will be appearing shortly in "Garden Rail".
Couldn't resist getting the custom-modified R/C Dalek (from the shoot done just before Christmas) out for some pics in the snow either... next years Christmas cards maybe.
Speaking of which- that recent Dalek shoot got a mini appearance in "Dr.Who Magazine".
"Push and Pull", the Worth Valley Mag, has happily returned to publication having been put on hold during the early days of the Covid crisis. Several of my shots ended up in the most recent mag...
...including these two of Centenarian 43924, back from when we rode the trains in October.
I also got a couple of diesel shots in. The Pacer one makes me nostalgic for going out to photograph trains on the mainline, something I can't really justify during a lockdown.
To my surprise one of my shots of 45212 ended up in "Heritage Railways" mag, one I don't often get pics in with.
I was expecting to get a couple of shots in with "Railways Illustrated" but was delighted to get my 'stick the camera out of the window pic' on a double page spread...
...as well as the above shot. Nice for so many publications to arrive in a week with my pics in, and a nice last hurrah as it were, given it's likely to be the last railway photography for the foreseeable. Best get back to doing stuff with miniatures for the rest of Lockdown.
Might be some stuff with the laser cutter in the next post, or some of Amy's ceramics work. In the meantime, stay safe and as well as possible in the current circumstances...
