Welsh Highland Railway and Waterfalls

It wouldn’t be a Ribbon blog without some train photos, so I thought I’d post a few pics taken around the Welsh Highland Railway whilst out doing location recces for the “Home is…” shoot- we want a pic with some railway content in the landscape, but our attempts to find a suitable location keep getting thwarted by access issues.  Plus, being as the mainstream railway magazines don’t often publish images from these railways, I thought I might as well put the images I shot of the trains whilst out location scouting up on here on the blog.

The first couple of shots were taken whilst scouting around between Rhyd-ddu and Waunfawr in mid August, and at a location which is good for train pictures and vehicle access, but which turns out doesn’t have anywhere really suitable for the chair, there being not a lot of flat, level land around here.

One other problem is the nature of the trains themselves; at the risk of alienating the casual reader, the locomotives here are of the Garratt type, which are powerful engines built for service overseas (the ones on the Welsh Highland having been repatriated from Africa).  They’re basically two articulated power units at either end of a boiler, which means that whichever way the engine is pointing, you end up photographing a fairly featureless metal shoebox with a headlight stuck on it.   The only solution I’ve found is to shoot from high up so you can see all the detailed, interesting bits, from far away (for the arty ‘train in the landscape’ look), or very low angle to emphasise the power of the engine.  The first shoot was an attempt at the low angle, the second a high angle off a bridge which I was a bit happier with.

Incidentally, though the location is poor for the “Home is…” shoots, it turned out to be fantastic for getting some long-exposure pics of waterfalls and the river, which rather made up for things.

Below is a new location, found at the tail end of August whilst doing another recce for the “Home is…” project, and a level crossing right at the end of the summit of the line near Pitts Head.  The trains are working hard coming up the gradient which (whilst a little dull now in the warmer weather) which should make for a good shot in cold weather later in the year.  Love the casual pose of the driver…  Given our difficulty finding a railway-based location for “Home is…” this one may prove suitable, given its ease of access and relative isolation.

The high angle from near the same spot is not so bad, but involved getting very wet feet climbing up through what turned out to be a very well camouflaged stream…

Finally, a return to another old haunt, and the Glaslyn Pass, which is one of my favourite locations for photography in the whole of Wales (and has been since my first visit here when I was about 15).  A quick clamber up the rocks got me to the line side in time for a passing train weaving through the tunnels, and all I had to put up with was some random abuse shouted at me from a carriage window by a young idiot and his dad when the train passed.  Still, decent images resulted, even if the poor lighting hampered things a bit.

Not one to waste an opportunity, I thought I’d get in a few landscape shots too along the river.

  

Some interesting new locations then for transport pics resulted from all this anyway, and at least one which might prove to be suitable for the “Home is…” project, and the rest should come in handy for some future transport shots...