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Lady of Legend - English Steam Locomotive in Black and White

cjf2

Well-Known Member
Some pictures taken yesterday on the West Somerset Railway in Somerset, England in one very dull day between sunny days! I think you'll agree the black and white versions are better.

Lady of Legend is a "Saint" class recreated from a Hall class locomotive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GWR_2900_Class_2999_Lady_of_Legend

aDSC_0969 B&W.jpg

Departing Williton Station

aDSC_1044a B & W 2.jpg

Passing the restored cattle dock at Stogumber. This is my favourite as the period infrastructure is increasingly rare on preserved railways.
aDSC_1044a.jpg
aDSC_1237 B & W.jpg

Passing the plate layer's hut at Netherton

aDSC_1237.jpg
aDSC_1010 B & W.jpg

Leaving Stogumber
 
Passing the cattle dock my favorite of the series as well. But I'm wearing out my mouse going from mono to color and back again. Both renderings so nice.

OK, I'll go with color for the cattle doc, and say Williton Station is my favorite mono.. All great images.
 
Passing the cattle dock my favorite of the series as well. But I'm wearing out my mouse going from mono to color and back again. Both renderings so nice.

OK, I'll go with color for the cattle doc, and say Williton Station is my favorite mono.. All great images.
Well I'm glad I put the colour ones in. I nearly didn't as it looks such dull weather.
 
Nothing like a steam engine for the steaming fury - and they photograph so well.

One of my great photographic regrets was missing the capture of the "Flying Scotsman" double banked with an equally large NSW Railways engine heading up the incline out of Coffs Harbour NSW for Brisbane when the FS was in Australia for our Bi-Centenary celebrations.

It was a quiet morning and there was nobody about let alone someone with a camera. It is merely burned into my memory banks.

I had known it was 'in town' and had managed to get a very ordinary shot of it passive and silent at the station the previous day - surrounded by crowds and the engine itself was well obscured.

Rare enough for such an engine to be seen on a public line - but double banked in dual full fury with another classic (!)

Another of my moments as a once young train spotter was on a trip into Crewe when the carriage seemed to be moving along a a great pace and so smoothly. On walking past the still steaming scrupulously clean seemingly brand new engine it turned out to be the "Duke of Gloucester" and I excitedly pointed it out to my parents who were far too busy trying to get to their next connection to be bothered with such mundane things as the latest and greatest railway engine.
 
Nothing like a steam engine for the steaming fury - and they photograph so well.

One of my great photographic regrets was missing the capture of the "Flying Scotsman" double banked with an equally large NSW Railways engine heading up the incline out of Coffs Harbour NSW for Brisbane when the FS was in Australia for our Bi-Centenary celebrations.

It was a quiet morning and there was nobody about let alone someone with a camera. It is merely burned into my memory banks.

I had known it was 'in town' and had managed to get a very ordinary shot of it passive and silent at the station the previous day - surrounded by crowds and the engine itself was well obscured.

Rare enough for such an engine to be seen on a public line - but double banked in dual full fury with another classic (!)

Another of my moments as a once young train spotter was on a trip into Crewe when the carriage seemed to be moving along a a great pace and so smoothly. On walking past the still steaming scrupulously clean seemingly brand new engine it turned out to be the "Duke of Gloucester" and I excitedly pointed it out to my parents who were far too busy trying to get to their next connection to be bothered with such mundane things as the latest and greatest railway engine.
Ah yes we all have regrets for the pictures we missed and we all needed a camera sooner that we acquired one. Happily you can rekindle something of your Flying Scotsman experience at this link:-

"The Flying Scotsman in Australia". 4472 and 3801 storm Thorton Bank on a tour to Paterson. Main North, Hunter Valley, NSW, 4th March, 1989. by Dennis Rittson, on Flickr



The Duke of Gloucester has had a bit of life in the preservation era here in the UK, including on the mainline. They say it may have run better than it did back in British Rail days. I got this shot on the Severn Valley Railway which kind of looks like it is going faster then it is as it storms up Eardington Bank at 25mph!

1 High Speed Steam Train - Eardington Bank - Duke of Gloucester prespective controlled sf.jpg
  • Canon - Canon EOS 50D
  • 24.0 mm
  • ƒ/6.3
  • 1/500 sec
  • Pattern
  • Manual exposure
  • ISO 200
 
Oh the link of the Flying Scotsman and 3801 has opened up. It is not my picture but was a link to a Flikr page of Dennis Rittson. I hope he would not begrudge it being shared here.
 
Ah yes we all have regrets for the pictures we missed and we all needed a camera sooner that we acquired one. Happily you can rekindle something of your Flying Scotsman experience at this link:-

"The Flying Scotsman in Australia". 4472 and 3801 storm Thorton Bank on a tour to Paterson. Main North, Hunter Valley, NSW, 4th March, 1989. by Dennis Rittson, on Flickr



The Duke of Gloucester has had a bit of life in the preservation era here in the UK, including on the mainline. They say it may have run better than it did back in British Rail days. I got this shot on the Severn Valley Railway which kind of looks like it is going faster then it is as it storms up Eardington Bank at 25mph!

View attachment 2105
Thank you so much for those images. The double banked one is far better than I would have achieved with my camera gear capabilities of the day - even though I would have tried mightily. It was the exact same outfit that toured NSW and went as far as Brisbane where the Standard Gauge ended heading north - there would ahve been something amiss if it had not gone to Melbourne as well. Harder for the far west line but you can get standard gauge all the way to Perth. Harder in the sense that it is a long way and not much population to see and appreciate the thunder passing by.

I think that the Duke of Gloucester was still very new when we travelled on it. I did look up up once and our trip was not long after the engine had been commissioned.

It certainly felt quite at ease flying on the main line up to Crewe Junction. Strange that you can feel associated with a famous engine just because it has pulled a carriage that you were in. This was a regular commercial trip, it was hardly a wonder that my parents thought it 'just another steam engine'. From reading the engine's restoration history I believe that during the process of that restoration they found some essential fault that had prevented it achieving its full potential commercially.

There was no doubt that when we we travelling on it and I did not know which engine was out front that I did notice the smooth power an speed at which it was travelling. I had been on enough mainline trips to know when a thoroughbred was the motivating force.
 
Great photos, thanks for sharing.

FYI there was a recurring thread for train photos on the DPR Landscape forum that has just started up again here:
 
Another picture of the same train on this dull day, in colour and black and white. At least the sky is looking quite imposing.
aDSC_1282a.jpg
aDSC_1282a B&W.jpg
 
I always considered myself a "b/w guy," worked for Ilford USA for years, but I'm drawn to color in this series for sure. :)
 
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