DMU time again on the KWVR

I (Ben) have always had a soft spot for Class 101 DMU's, probably as a result of getting a Triang 00-gauge one which had been my dad's for my train set when I was young.  The Keighley and Worth Valley Railway have a class 101 which gets a great deal of use, and is probably in fact they're most consistently-rostered train.

With engineering work finished on the KWVR, the popular Railcar Wednesday timetable came back into use briefly for the Autumn, and I made the most of using the line as public transport to run errands on a couple of the Wednesdays, and got a few pics before the greenery fell off the trees and the weather turned.

Not a lot else to say really- sometimes it's nice to just keep my hand in, as it were, with railway photography, and it's certainly nicer to ride one of these units than use a bus for public transport locally (the buses are nice, and frequent, but as a rail enthusiast I'd prefer this anytime).

Managed to get a picture into the November Railways Illustrated too.  As I type this, I need to edit some more pics shot on the KWVR of their other diesel railbus, which has just returned to service... wish the weather had been this nice mindyou.

Anything Goes at the Middleton Railway...

Going back a bit to September, and yet another visit to the Middleton Railway, which fulfils my growing liking for photographing industrial locomotives.

For their September gala, they were operating pretty much anything that ran, and the main attraction (beyond a nice day out with The Childs in Middleton Park) was to photograph "Courage", above, probably the most unusual locomotive I've personally come across.   

The loco was mainly operating on the Balm Road branch, which itself is a location I love to take pictures on, just for its sheer eccentricity.

Me and Middle Child took a stroll down to the far end of the branch, a first for me, to stand beside the really dedicated photographers who didn't seem pleased to be joined by us, as we got the impression that we were very much on 'their' turf.  Having seen (later in the day) how most younger people act at this spot -we were on a train which was stopped by a hooded idiot standing on the tracks, so his mates could ready to pelt it with bricks- maybe I can understand why they'd be off about younger people rocking up out of the trees.

We rode up and down the line a bit, and had the traditional walk up through Middleton Park for an ice cream; the refurbished playground was FINALLY open (4th visit was the charm) which pleased The Childs.  I took a few snaps of another favourite loco, the very old LMS Hunslet "John Alcock".

Another enjoyable day at Middleton (well apart from the teenagers trying to stage a Wild West storming of the train), and proof once again that the Middleton Railway have a weather control machine; it doesn't seem to matter when we visit, we get sunburned.

Surprisingly given the number of other photographers knocking around, I managed to get several pictures in print; I was surprised that they were mainly of "John Alcock" which is a line regular, rather than one of the rarer locomotives, but pleased so many pics got selected by different mags.  Railways Illustrated for November above...

...Rail Express...

...and The Railway Magazine, also November.  Happily a shot of "Courage" got picked there, probably my favourite shot of the day too.

Oh and because it won't fit anywhere else, a shot on the miniature railway at Clayton West on the Kirklees Railway; as a family we spent a lot of the summer visiting miniature railways to get magazine pics whilst out and about...