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lostwin - BR in the mid 80's

lostwin(m)

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Pedant mode - "ON"
Except there not coal empties.
They'll be the short lived ZHV wagons for ballast spoil, you can tell by the 2 cutouts in each wagon.
Pedant Mode - "Off"
:lol: Got me there! I’ll admit I took a guess based on the location , but thanks for the clarification.
 
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owidoe

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15/10/85, 20170. This one always seems to bring a smile, the guard has obviously got a brew on! This lone 20 takes the freight line past Leicester station heading for the shed.
View attachment 144317
Lovely photo. Very evocative of the last dying breaths of the era of trip freights and brake vans. That guard, if he'd joined at 18, may very well still be a railwayman!
 

lostwin(m)

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A personal top 10 of photos is always going to be something of a moving feast, but this one is never far away.

21/06/85. The driver and secondman of 81021 try to find out why their train is being held at a red signal at Coventry station.

254 shopped.jpg
 

Cowley

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A personal top 10 of photos is always going to be something of a moving feast, but this one is never far away.

21/06/85. The driver and secondman of 81021 try to find out why their train is being held at a red signal at Coventry station.

View attachment 144363

I love that you’ve included the people that make the railway work in a lot of your photos. It just brings the scene to life.
 

Sun Chariot

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Pedant mode - "ON"
Except there not coal empties.
They'll be the short lived ZHV wagons for ballast spoil, you can tell by the 2 cutouts in each wagon.
Pedant Mode - "Off"
Well spotted- the repurposed MCVs for pw use.
My print photos, in the loft, include a pair of 31/1s at Bedford Midland, hauling a rake of 52 loaded ZHVs. I still recall the wonderful clatter they made.
 

Sun Chariot

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A personal top 10 of photos is always going to be something of a moving feast, but this one is never far away.

21/06/85. The driver and secondman of 81021 try to find out why their train is being held at a red signal at Coventry station.

View attachment 144363
If L S Lowry painted 1980s railways, he would have painted that classic scene.
 

lostwin(m)

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29/07/85, Plymouth Station. With one power car down, it was fairly standard practice at the time to hook up some extra thrust to get over the Devon Banks. For what ever reason, the fitter was having no end of trouble over this one - not that he was short of 'helpful' advice!

Now what do you think they found to put on the front...
279.jpg
 

lostwin(m)

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29/07/85. Absolutely fresh out of Laira works and the paint barely dry, 50008 complete with the black roof works livery, hooks up to the 1346 Penzance - Paddington. Notice the crowd of onlookers has grown considerably!
The train departed - with me on board, obviously :) - over an hour late. Nearly 40 years later, perhaps is an appropriate time to apologise to those I 'bellowed' at along the sea wall!
280.jpg
 

Ash Bridge

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Pedant mode - "ON"
Except there not coal empties.
They'll be the short lived ZHV wagons for ballast spoil, you can tell by the 2 cutouts in each wagon.
Pedant Mode - "Off"
Thanks for providing the answer to the question I was about to ask :)
 

lostwin(m)

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I love that you’ve included the people that make the railway work in a lot of your photos. It just brings the scene to life.
Yes, nicely spotted. That has been the real surprise for me in going through my pictures again. I remember consciously experimenting with camera angles and framing, but I don’t remember my motivations for trying to include people. Nevertheless, it is a recurring feature in many of my selected negative scans. I really like that my younger self seemed to grasp what it added to a scene.
 
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lostwin(m)

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Finally for today, and on a more sombre note;

26/10/86. 45055 with its name 'Royal Corps of Transport' scrawled in chalk, faces its fate at Vic Berry's. Judging by the pile of 'heads', the guillotine seems to be the local method of choice....
1219.jpg
 

SteveM70

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These are wonderful. Thank you so much for posting them. Pretty much the next best thing to a time machine
 

lostwin(m)

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Thank you for all of the feedback and generous comments, i've enjoyed being able to share these images after all these years.

04/11/86. This one probably works due to the lack of people. A shy, unidentified 08 hides at the back of Southampton station. The graffiti is a reminder of the run down state of the BR infrastructure at this time.
1340.jpg
 

lostwin(m)

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29/07/85. 50040 backs on to the carriages forming the 1250 Paignton to Newton Abbot. The elaborate platform topiary - was this part of the GWR 150 celebrations that year? - creates an earlier version of GWR motive power. 'Castle' Class perhaps?
273.jpg
 

Sad Sprinter

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29/04/85. Power car 43082 heads the 2025 Derby - St P, at Leicester station.
I enjoyed trying night time photography, although results could be somewhat unpredictable. This one came out well though and a low shooting angle helps make the most of the reflections from a rain soaked platform. 15 second exposure at f5.6.
View attachment 144329

This is a wonderful picture. I think railway photographs look much better taken with a film rather than a digital camera. I've been meaning to try that out for myself for ages!
 

lostwin(m)

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21/04/85. Class 127 DMU's had been the mainstay of the St. Pancras - Bedford route, earning the nickname 'Bed-Pans'. They had finally been replaced in '83 and the process of their scrapping began. As they contained asbestos, only a few facilities were able to remove this - Vic Berry's in Leicester being one. Having been through the process, DMBS number 51644 is stored temporarily at Hunberstone Road sidings, north of Leicester.
142.jpg

The paint damage revealed the legacy of an earlier era.
190.jpg
 

eastwestdivide

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Like the black and white at the end of the “everything dull blue/grey” era* - did you move to colour when different liveries started to proliferate from the mid-80s?
* although PO freight wagons were already a lot more colourful in that era!
 

lostwin(m)

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Like the black and white at the end of the “everything dull blue/grey” era* - did you move to colour when different liveries started to proliferate from the mid-80s?
* although PO freight wagons were already a lot more colourful in that era!
It's strange, I was never a fan of colour photography at the time - preferring B&W even when looking through books and magazines. I enjoyed developing and printing as well, which was far more straightforward with B&W. My rail photography comes to an abrupt end by mid '87, as the competing attractions of music and girls changed my focus, and I have never returned to it since. That era , when I was a teenager, is still one I remember fondly though - especially for the independence my travels and adventures provided.
 

lostwin(m)

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One more and then I really need to crack on with the things I should have been doing this weekend!

05/07/86. 47636 'Sir John de Graeme' at Carlisle. A fairly straightforward shot, but that wall behind the stabling road at Carlisle always provided for a strong backdrop for B&W images.
618.jpg
 

Cowley

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One more and then I really need to crack on with the things I should have been doing this weekend!

05/07/86. 47636 'Sir John de Graeme' at Carlisle. A fairly straightforward shot, but that wall behind the stabling road at Carlisle always provided for a strong backdrop for B&W images.
View attachment 144419

One of my favourite 47s back in those days. :)
 

Sun Chariot

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One more and then I really need to crack on with the things I should have been doing this weekend!

05/07/86. 47636 'Sir John de Graeme' at Carlisle. A fairly straightforward shot, but that wall behind the stabling road at Carlisle always provided for a strong backdrop for B&W images.
View attachment 144419
Spanking clean BR large logo livery is still one of my all-time preferred liveries. It always sat "right" on the 47's. Even better when it had a WR black nameplate (Colossus, Titan, Odin. etc)
 

rf_ioliver

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Fantastic photographs.

One question... Brighton to Ramsgate hauled by a diesel? What was the routing? I assume diesel because of Hastings-Ashford (straight through Polegate or via Eastbourne?) or did it go via Tonbridge Wells? Thanks
 

rf_ioliver

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Wasn’t the photo a London Bridge to Ramsgate newspapers train? Loco-hauled because of all the vans. The passenger accommodation was just the one BSK effectively as an afterthought.
Yes.

Apologies, my brain looked at the picture (looked like Brighton a bit), and then read Bridge as Brighton.....but thanks, clarifies why it was loco hauled.
 

lostwin(m)

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I did seem to love using a window as a framing device in some of my shots, so consider yourself forearmed for the following selection;

22/10/86. 47115 approaches at speed on containers. Shot through the window of 101307 on a North Berwick - Haymarket service. Provided the driver wasn't feeling miserable by pulling the blind down, grabbing the front seat on a unit made journeys by these almost tolerable.

1045 shopped.jpg
 
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lostwin(m)

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19/10/86. On a particularly mucky day, 47708 on a morning working to Edinburgh from Glasgow QS.
921.jpg
 
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Sun Chariot

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I did seem to love using a window as a framing device in some of my shots, so consider yourself forearmed for the following selection;

22/10/86. 47115 approaches at speed on containers. Shot through the window of 101307 on a North Berwick - Haymarket service. Provided the driver wasn't feeling miserable by pulling the blind down, the grabbing the front seat on a unit made journeys by these almost tolerable.
View attachment 144453
The joys of pre-Sprinter/Pacer years. As a young lad, I'd kneel on the front bench seat on a 310 EMU and enjoy a nigh-panoramic view forwards, along the southern WCML. Once photography beckoned, I'd often try to "bag" the front bay.
 

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