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...

Exhibitions and Publications, Autumn 2019

A little round-up tonight of some of our recent exhibition entries and similar, starting with one for Amy above;  Falling Walls.  Themed around the anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down, Amy submitted a close-up shot of the above bits of smashed concrete, genuine bits of The Wall gathered when she was out there camping as a child.  This is a group show of postcard-sized images, amongst other work on the theme.

The exhibition breaks new ground for us, starting as it does Down South, in the John Street Gallery, Stroud Valley Artspace, Stroud, Glos. (moving on to the Nau Gallery in Cheltenham later).

Moving on to another Amy piece, a shot of a butterfly taken in Poppleton, York, during the summer becomes...

...a practise bit of experimentation with photoshop techniques, something she might spin-out for a future project.

Another project by Amy, for another open call; an older project from last year using the same techniques once used to make technical blueprints.  More details in a future post, if she gets selected.

Finally, one for me (Ben); one of my Inflate-Deflate (underwater) series pics, published in the Liverpool-based 'zine "Wotisart".  

There's some other stuff in the pipeline too, a couple of miniatures projects, and some railway pictures due to be published as well.

End of Season on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway 2019

It's time for the traditional end-of-summer session on the Worth Valley Railway, where the last week of daily running in September produced some nice weather, and I (Ben) took the opportunity to nip out between other jobs and get some shots, as well as a day or two actually riding on the trains whilst The Childs were on inset days.

The equally traditional river shot, a bit tricky as I write this, as the recent rain means the river is up a good few feet...

Another shot I've been trying for a while; still need to sort exposure times to get this one right.

'House red' 41241 was doing the honours; probably one of my favourite locomotives in preservation, and a nice flagship for the line.

This week is also about the only chance to catch the greenery and flowers looking nice in reasonable weather, before everything gets grim and dies back...

Not strictly part of the last week services, but with imminent engineering work about to split the line, a lot of shuffling back and forth by engineering stock took place over the week.  "Vulcan" and the ex-Tay Bridge maintenance wagon are seen up near Damems...

Passing nice and slowly.

"Railways Illustrated" picked up the shot for the November issue.

Not strictly linked to the Worth Valley shots in the rest of this post, beyond geographical proximity, but I also got a surprising image in print this month, a shot from much earlier in the year; my first 'mainline' class 50 shot, out at Utley, in the Modern Traction Review for 2019-2020.  Had no idea this had been picked up for print, I just sent if off speculatively at the time.

A Visit To... the Bekonscot Model Village

Seemed like an apt image to open the blog with; a bit behind with posting, as I (Ben) have had a couple of medical issues, the main one being abdominal pains which are hovering annoyingly on the edge of not-quite-being-Appendicitis.  All the inconvenience of said illness without the exploding internal organ, which is both good and bad I suppose, it just means pain and paranoia but nothing to chop out of me.  But I digress.

Back in the summer we finally ticked-off something from the bucket list, and a trip to the Bekonscot Model Village.

I have a slight obsession with model villages anyway, and spent a lot of time researching Bekonscot (widely regarded as the first Model Village in the country), and talked to them as research for a project I did.  I simply took the chocolate-box, rose-tinted, village green and flowerbeds tradition of the model village and created the Britannia Model Village, which appears elsewhere on the blog.

Britannia was a miniature police state, a kind of Orwellian Model Village which I went slightly mad and obsessive over making for a year.  But with Bekonscot as the forefather of them all, I'd always wanted a research visit but could never justify the long-distance run to see it in person at the time.  But by happy chance some close friends of ours moved Dahn Sahth from Yorkshire and live a couple of stops down the railway from Beaconsfield, where the model village is, so summer saw us finally paying a visit.

For starters, a direct link to my project; this is actually a building rescued from the Himley Model Village which was about 2 miles from where I grew up, and is a model of a local landmark.  My original plan for my own project back in 2006 was to photograph the derelict and long-abandoned Himley Model Village, to document a kind of post-apocalyptic village.  Having stood abandoned to the elements for about fifteen years it was typically cleared and bulldozed about a week after I came up with my idea.  Luckily the chaps at Bekonscot went in and saved a few things first.

First impressions?  The place fully lived up to my expectations.  There's an amazing amount crammed into a small site; not just the village, but play areas, café, the obligatory Gift Shop, even a miniature railway which I managed to get some shots of for a railway mag.

I was impressed by the consistency of the model making, given the varying ages of the buildings and figures.

The Childs were in their element, spotting figures and details.

Not long before we went, there was a big feature in Garden Rail Magazine, so it was nice to see some of the bits they'd mentioned.  The funicular railway is a new addition, making use of modern technology which wasn't even dreamt of when Roland Callingham started this enterprise.  The carriage bodies are apparently 3D prints, but impressive was the fact this was a genuine funicular with working water tanks.

And the model railway... oh, the model railway.  For starters, I want one of these signal boxes just for the house, with the levers to work the lights, telly and so on.

Then there's the railway itself.  Right now I'm limited to making models to garden scales with no railway to run them on, as our garden is something you can walk across in about ten steps, so seeing a massive, sweeping operation with multiple trains whizzing around was quite the eye opener, and inspired a bit of jealousy...

The flagship of the miniature locomotive fleet was even carrying a special headboard to celebrate the anniversary of the village.

So all in all, we were very much impressed with the place, and came home entertained.  Amy did have to point out I shouldn't get any ideas for our own garden...

Having got my engine shed pictures into Model Rail, I mentioned to them I'd popped by for a visit, knowing they'd featured the model railway there before, and they were kind enough to feature some of my pics in an article on Bekonscot in the October issue, which was very nice.

Another pleasant surprise in the same mag, another of my Engine Shed pics...