The Staycation Express during 2021

I (Ben) made a few visits to the Settle-Carlisle line last year to photograph the "staycation express" services last year, where LSL were running heritage stock on a regular excursion train.  After months of lockdown it was nice to have something special to photograph, and I was looking forward to the services this year for much the same reason.  Rather than use heritage stock this time they've got a specially rebuilt and re-liveried High Speed Train; I was less excited about this, but thought it still worth popping out to see being as it was technically on my patch, and it would be just before things got manic with the summer holidays.

Luckily Middle Child had returned to school that morning, her bubble having been isolating, and both the other Childs managed to avoid being sent home too, so I headed to Skipton.  Due to the incompetence with which Northern have set up their timetables, it's pretty much impossible to get up the S&C and back within school hours.  Skipton, at the end of the electrified commuter route, was as far as I could easily get by public transport, followed by a walk along the canal out of town.

I thought the first run, particularly in sunny weather, might attract the enthusiasts so took a chance on it being quiet around the farm crossing just outside of Skipton.  I didn't want to be jostling for space with a load of other snappers.

Always a reassuring sight, charging towards you.  I did wonder at this point how robust the five-bar gate between me and the field was, and if I could outrun the mobile oxo-cube here...

Luckily I avoided getting squashed by beef, and the train rolled up on time.

I had thought about going a bit closer to the gates, but it would have looked too much like a trespass shot, and in any case since the last time I visited a lot of new signs, equipment cabinets and the like had appeared, making a clean shot rather tricky.

I walked back down the canal, with a bit of time to kill before the return train headed out from Skipton, got a space on the overbridge, and spent a pleasant ten minutes chatting with a chap who'd come up to see the train here on his tea break.

The train rolled past, on time.

I went back up onto the canal, as I now had nothing else train-wise to photograph, and some three hours in which to get back home.

Nice to see the preponderance of wild flowers; good for the insects and birds, but not great for allowing cyclists to pass safely by, or socially-distance with other walkers.

So yeah, I was actually happier with the flower shots than the train shots, just because I didn't find the re-liveried HST that exciting a target to photograph in the end.  Maybe if it was in a heritage livery it would have stood out more, but if anything it blends in too well with the landscapes.  To my slight surprise, posting this right at the end of the summer holidays just as The Childs return to school, I realise I haven't actually bothered going back to re-photograph it, or make any special trips up the S&C to photograph it up there either.  This is in a marked contrast to last year where I made several special journeys, though perhaps the lack of anything else to photograph during the pandemic conditions last year just spurred me on instead.