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...