Relatively recently, THE FUTURE! arrived on the mainline up the Aire Valley. Seen above, THE FUTURE! as represented by the Hitachi Class 800, which will theoretically be running on the East Coast Mainline and thus providing Skipton and the Aire Valley with a tenuous link to the modern world twice a day. Given their revenue-earning services will be at stupid-o-clock in the morning and late at night, I took the opportunity to get some pics of the daytime test runs.
Actually the first crack was photographing the train on the Monday of it's daytime test runs, when I had a couple of hours to kill before an appointment at the Doctors. Keighley Station was covered by the Revenue Men, so I figured if I had to buy a ticket anyway, I'd go down the line two stops to Bingley where the Midland Railway architecture would provide a nice background on a dull and manky day. Not entirely successfully though; courtesy and protocol is to let station staff know if you're going to be taking pictures with SLR's on manned stations, but the queue at the ticket window was very long, so I ended up only having time for a blurry phone snap. I was a bit disappointed, until I was told it would be making another run the next day...
The next day dawned grim, dull, and manky, so I went to my usual spot at Utley where the backdrop of the greenery would enliven proceedings. A practise shot of the morning Freightliner convoy move allowed me to test the lighting, and I realised it was a bit flat.
Still, eyecatching broadside shot...
...though it showed this angle, from which the train would be approaching, was out. Another couple of months, when the greenery has died down, would be no problem, but a south-facing direction would not allow me to get a decent photo of THE FUTURE! (alright I'll stop doing that now).
With a morning to kill I took the impetuous decision to head up to another of my favourite lineside spots, at Cononley, where a handy public footpath to a level crossing allows some nice (and legal) angles, and as a bonus the sky was blue at this end of the valley. OK so it's a village where everybody knows everybody, and people regard me and my camera with suspicious politeness, but if you can ignore the slight Royston Vasey atmosphere it's a nice place for photos.
Chasing the train up to Skipton, it was getting a lot of attention, not least because it was possibly the most excitingly modern thing to happen to Skipton Station since... since... well...
It was also bloody difficult to get a nice angle for a pic as the train was longer than the station, with one end hard against the signals, the other reaching back towards civilisation off the end of the platform, and I was shooting into the sunlight.
The lighting was better, but the angle just as bad, from the other platform.
After nipping into town for a bite to eat, I was surprised to find the Class 800 gone -surprising as it was massive, glossy, and white and not the sort of thing that could easily disappear- unless part of the fantastic cost of the thing was to pay for a cloaking device. Being stuck on the phone, I almost missed this interesting consist coming through, a tour from Radlett to Carlisle.
With the phone going again (and being the sort of person who gets embarrassed talking on the phone on the train; I blame Trigger Happy TV) I hopped off again at Cononley to finish my conversation, and was intrigued to spot a photographer lurking. I thus just managed to get the camera out as the mystery missing Class 800 came batting through again; best guess, it had nipped back to Leeds over lunchtime, though that wasn't showing in Real Time Trains, the invaluable aid to the modern trainspotter.
Travelling fast enough to make the camera struggle, it did show that actually photographing these modern THE FUTURE! (sorry) trains is going to be tricky.
Depressingly, the class DB class 66 which passed straight after on the midday gypsum threw into somewhat stark relief the state of local transport; this design of loco is about the next-most-modern thing regularly running up here (a 20+year old design of a corrugated metal garden shed on wheels), and most of the passenger trains are now 15-30 years old...
Heading back to Keighley with about half an hour to kill before a meeting, I was pleased to spot one of said knackered old passenger trains running late (the southbound Settle-Carlisle class 158), and which didn't seem in a hurry to leave Keighley. It did make me wonder if the S&C driver perhaps knew the shiny THE FUTURE! train was right behind, it's driver chewing the dashboard in frustration that his modern plastic Tomy toy was being forced to crawl along at about 4mph, and wanted to make a point. Anyway, the upside for me was that for the first time that day the lighting was in the right place, and THE FUTURE! was moving slow enough for the camera to actually cope with it.
Having seen it, my reaction is largely 'meh' It's not a bad design I suppose, but it doesn't exactly inspire or excite, or look that iconic. Plus, I'm informed by people who've ridden these Down South, the seats bear all the comfort and ergonomic qualities associated with the phrase "From The Department For Transport Design Committee" and that it is roughly akin to sitting on a shuddering ironing board for three hours. Probably for the best I won't be needing to travel to That London at 6 in the morning then...
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