More published Worth Valley Pics

Just a short post tonight, with some more published railway pics, this time in the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway members' mag.

The visiting Black 5, 45212, was unusually running smokebox-first to Keighley, opening up some of my photography locations which only really work for diesels (every steam loco is tender/bunker first at this spot).  Shame the sun wasn't in the right place, but given this first weekend (of the 4/5 it was running the weekend trains) was about the only time it wasn't raining, I'm relatively happy with it.

Going back a bit, we'd paid a visit to the line whilst they were running their Santa Specials (we travelled on the public DMU service), and got caught out on a very cold day when the rain hit and created lethal black ice everywhere; great fun when you come out of a pub half-way up a steep hill and have to slide down to the station...

I've managed to get shots in the last few issues of Push and Pull, and there's a possibility I'll be getting an actual article or two in issues later this year... more on that when or if it happens, fingers crossed...

Chasing Industrials... Ruston in Pensnett.

As part of my (Ben's) photography project to track down some of the lesser-known preserved railway subjects for photographs in the railway press, in the Christmas-New Years period whilst visiting the family down in Dudley we went down the road to the Pensnett Trading Estate to get some shots of the preserved Ruston and Hornsby 88DS on the site.

It's been there for as long as I can remember, but actually getting to photograph it was a bit tricky.  Whilst it is accessible from a public road, the trading estate has gates securing it, which were all-but-one closed for the Christmas period.  One attempt to visit was stalled by the massive queue for security inspections, but a return visit saw it quieter.  After being scanned by the security camera, we were in.

Shame about the tuppaware-lid sky, but there wasn't time to wait for better lighting before we headed back to Yorkshire the next day.

All in all a successful visit, and nice to see one of these plinthed locomotives in such excellent condition...

...and it got into the March 2019 Railways Illustrated...

...and even to accompany a short article I wrote for the March 2019 Model Rail (the higher shot is another one of mine, from the Derwent Valley in York).

East Lancashire in the Snow

We haven't had much snow so far this year, especially compared to 2018, and consequently my (Ben's) 'take pictures of trains in the snow to get some pics published' plans have fallen apart a bit.  That said, a trip over to the East Lancs railway with our fam, to meet up with an old mate from Uni and his son, gave a bit of an opportunity.

Oddly enough, considering we're only about an hour from the line, it's one we've only ever done once (and then just to photograph in bad weather from the lineside).  This would be our first time actually riding the trains.  We arrived just as the steam service was departing, so caught the following DMU at Rawtenstall.  Class 104/122 combination, and nice and toasty warm inside.

We arrived at Bury and changed onto the steam service, going back up to Rawtenstall (where the Black 5 is pictured above).

After lunch on the train, it was off again at Bury for a hot drink.

With a bit of time to kill, and nice lighting, I decided to take some slightly arty pics around the station.

Out on test, a 'fake' vintage loco (actually a conversion of a relatively modern MoD/Industrial Austerity tank loco).

Back on the DMU, for a trip down to Heywood then back to Rawtenstall.

At this point the battery in the SLR went, so we had to resort to the phone cameras.  still, opportunity for some arty shots through the windscreens of the DMU.

Arrival back in Rawtenstall in frankly lovely sunset lighting.

All in all, a nice day- and the better weather meant the line certainly made a nicer impression than it had on our last visit in the mud and sleet a few years ago.

Happily, the days efforts resulted in publications in March issues of Railways Illustrated...

...and The Railway Magazine.

Busy times in Feb...

The start of the year proved to be rather busy, so there hasn't been much in the way of updates lately.  So where to begin?

Back before Christmas saw the start of a project for Ben to track down and photograph some of the more obscure preserved industrial locomotives, to try and get some pics to be published.  First stop was this preserved Ruston 48ds in Liverpool not long before Christmas.  The lighting conditions earlier in the day were a bit flat, but later in the night on the way home the conditions were a tad more dramatic.

First bite, Rail Express Magazine for March- just a little picture, and the only taker for the night shoot, but a second shoot of a similar loco should be seeing one, possibly two publications in different magazines in the near future.

We had an early anniversary present with a trip to Carlisle and back by steam-hauled excursion, again more on that in a future post as it has also led to some published work.

The "Observe to Preserve" project has finished shooting, certainly for the time being, and hasn't been shown anywhere yet as an exhibited project, however...

...an article on the background fluff and the making of the railcar model has appeared in Garden Rail magazine for March, Ben's first published full-article.

Exhibition-wise, Ben's show is still at the Bowery, and Amy got a ceramic piece into the Bradford Open 2019 show at Cartwright Hall.

It's a rather smaller show than in some previous years, and frankly a bit heavy on the fine-art/painting side of things for our usual work, but this marks the fourth in a row of these two-yearly shows that we've got something in between us.

As regards other exhibitions, we've got entries pending for another open call, and two more we're each entering work for in the next month so plenty happening on that front.

Finally for now, the Jabberwock project has reared it's mechanical head again; the decent weather (the dying spasms of the climate-change-addled planet had at least one handy benefit) meant a proper outdoor shoot could be done with the new model Ben has been working on.  This is part of a wider Steampunk "Alice in Wonderland" body of work Ben is doing, sparked by that sculpture he did for the show at Rydal Hall a couple of years ago.

So that's it for the time being; more will follow on some of our ongoing projects, some Fine Art work from Amy, some more sculpture and published railway photography from Ben, and some more exhibitions on the way with a bit of luck...