LarryG's general album

LarryG

Western Thunderer
DMU's rule at Huddersfield station, which still retained a skeletel overall roof but was looking well past its prime on a chilly 30th January 1984. A BRCW and Met-Cam lash-up wait to depart for Leeds. Pouring rain was doing its bit in removing the recent fall of snow...
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Class 08 No. 08372 of Heally Mills, shunts a pair of GUV's in the remains of the yard at Huddersfield on 30th January 1984...
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Meanwhile, 45112 The Royal Ordnance Army Corps enters the station from the east with a Liverpool bound train, again on the 30th January 1984...
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The west end of the station was a gloomy and depressing 'satanic mills' kind of place. Two LMS design 50' parcels vans await their final journey to the breakers yard on 30th January 1984. I chose a very wet dismal day to visit Huddersfield.
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I hadn't visited Huddersfield since 1950. I lived in Oldham at that time, and as important a town as it was from a manufacturing and population viewpoint, it wasn't on a mainline railway like neibouring Ashton and Stalybridge. So travel between Huddersfield and Oldham was much more convenient by Hanson bus from Clegg Street, as pictured here...
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LarryG

Western Thunderer
The AEC bus in the last post provides a neat link with Leeds in that it's Roe body was built there. Newly refurbished in the reversed livery and looking quite splended was this Derby Unit arriving empty at Leeds City station to form the 12.47 for Skipton on 6th August 1977....
WEB Standedge 24A.jpg

Class 40 No.40178 was entering Leeds City with the 09.00 Llandudno-York. It was sheer coincidence that I captured this working on film so often when in the Pennines, as I rarely turned out for it when home in Wales...
WEB Standedge 24B.jpg

Leeds City was rebuilt in the 1960's and still looked quite smart and modernish. A Trans-Pennine DMU bound for Hull had just arrived on its 2-hour journey as the 11.10 from Liverpool Lime Street on the 6th August 1977. A Met-Cam DMU with the large destination blind so typical of Yorkshire units had arrived from York...
WEB Standedge 24C.jpg
 
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Yorkshire Dave

Western Thunderer
In the days when Leeds was it's 1960's modernisation gloomy cattleshed.

My grandfather photographed this model of the 1960's redevelopment which was in displayed the LMS ex Midland lines concourse.

Leeds model.jpg

To me Leeds has significantly improved since rebuilding by Network Rail - with it's higher roof providing a brighter, open airy atmosphere. However there is still a bottleneck at the eastern end between the station and Neville Hill depot due to the viaduct which causes delays in the rush hours.

During the rebuilding of the concourse they did uncover some of the original 1960's decor. And over the last year it has gained a platform 0 (zero) reclaimed from the car park on the ex (slightly lower level) Midland platforms.

Leeds.jpg
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
Class 31 No. 31166 looking almost ex.works enters Leeds City station with a train from I knew not where at 13.15 hrs on 6th August 1977.....
WEB Standedge 24D.jpg

Five minutes later, Class 45 No. 45025 approaches the station during a busy spell of activity...
WEB Standedge 24E.jpg

Inside the station Clas 31 No. 31173 rolls in with Western Region coaches from Bradford at 13.25hrs. The guard, in the process of checking his watch, adds a touch of animation to the scene...
WEB Standedge 24F.jpg
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
Well, that's it on the Standedge route. Class 40 No. 40067 waits to depart Leeds with the 13.50 to Liverpool Lime Street on 6th august 1977....
WEB Standedge 24G.jpg

Class 37 No. 37182 rolls in with the 14.40 Leeds to Plymouth on the same date. Class 55 Deltic No. 55020 Nimbus is running round its stock....
WEB Standedge 24H.jpg

Portaite of a beast: 55020 Nimbus waits to depart Leeds City with the 14.28 to Harrogate on a hot and sunny 6th August 1977...
WEB Standedge 24J.jpg
 
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LarryG

Western Thunderer
The Midland, LNWR and GCR routes ascross the Pennines and Peaks have been covered. However, the LYR and indeed the scenery through which this railway ran looked far less inviting to me even as a child growing up in Oldham. I only made two visits to the Calder Valley, both on the miserablest days imaginable although when the sun did break through, it played havoc with exposures!

After the rainstorm, the clouds parted for this shot of Todmorden Station leaving me facing directly into the sun. Class 47 No. 47108 was on bogie tank wagons heading east on 28th September 1981...
WEB Calder Valley 1.jpg

Crossing the viaduct into Todmorden station was this DMU working the 15.35 Leeds-Manchester at 16.35 on 28th September 1981...
WEB Calder Valley 2.jpg

The 16.35 Leeds-Southport passes Hall Royd Junction on the 28th September 1981...
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The 16.45 Manchester Victoria-Scarborough nears Stansfield Hall as it heads away from Todmorden. Tracks to the right lead to to Burnley and beyond over the Copy Pit Line...
WEB Calder Valley 4.jpg
 
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LarryG

Western Thunderer
The 13.58 Manchester-Leeds crosses the 18-arch Gauxholme Viaduct at Todmorden on 29th September 1981...

WEB Calder Valley 5.jpg

A general view of the Todmorden area with the railway, road, river and canal squeezed into the valley. The 13.35 Leeds-Manchester climbs to Summit on 29th September 1981.
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LarryG

Western Thunderer
The 15.35 Leeds to Manchester Victoria approaches Hebden Bridge past the neat 1891 Lancashire & Yorkshire Signal Box sited at the eastern end of Hebden Bridge Railway Station on 29th September 1981. It became a listed grade II building in 2013...

WEB Calder Valley 8.jpg

The same train showing details of this magnificently restored station including the canopies and wooden station signs...
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The 15.45 Manchester-Leeds...
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LarryG

Western Thunderer
The sun greeted my second lineside visit to the Calder Valley on 29th september 1981 as the 12.35 Leeds-Southport DMU roars uphill out of the Calder Valley at Summit Tunnel East...

WEB Calder Valley 10.jpg

40062 with Scottish square-corner headcode boxes blasts out of the east tunnel and is about to enter Summit Tunnel with a westbound freight at 12.25hrs on 29th september 1981. Notice how the retaining wall bottoms out almost horizontally as if it were a tunnel wall...
WEB Calder Valley 11.jpg
 
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Focalplane

Western Thunderer
Larry, are you going to get farther north? I hope so, my stomping ground in 1967-69 was Westmorland and Furness.

Paul
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
Larry, are you going to get farther north? I hope so, my stomping ground in 1967-69 was Westmorland and Furness.

Paul
It is hard to say what I'll do Paul. I didnt go further north after the end of the 1970's for a number of reasons.

I look back at the 1970's and 80's with some fondness because I happened to like being around the Class 25's, 40's and 'Peaks'. Sprinterization killed all that and so I took fewer and fewer photos.
 
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LarryG

Western Thunderer
It was a shame I only purchased a neg scanner last week because there were so many negatives that could have told a better story than me simply relying on prints I had made in my old darkroom days. Like many railway photographers, I had never printed most of my negatives.

Anyway, I lifted down the 35mm slide boxes from the attic yesterday to see if I could find a story. The following were taken on the 'Top Line', as we call it: The route from Wrexham to Bidston that passes over Shotton High Level station....

The red cast from the low winter sun lights the passage of Class 60 No. 60081 rolling down the steep incline from Buckley with BLA Steel Coil wagons on 4th November 1994. Influenced by North American railroad photography for a short time, I was using a Sigma 300mm APO lens...
WEB Topline 1.jpg

At the other extreme, I was also making use of a Nikkor 24mm wide angle lens. It was put to good use here for this shot of Pacer No.142069 amid the fading Autumn colours near Cefn-Y-Bedd. The unit was working the 13,33 Wrexham-Bidston on 4th November 1994. The livery was virtually that of Ashton-Under-Lyne buses up until 1955...
WEB Topline 2.jpg

Another 300mm shot. Class 56 No. 56022 was approaching Pen-Y-Fordd with timber from Elgin destined for the paper mills at Shotton on 4th November 1994. These trains came down from Scotland to Chester and then reversed at Wrexham onto this ex.GCR line...
WEB Topline 3.jpg
 
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LarryG

Western Thunderer
A little earlier in the year, 37518 and 37107 were pictured passing Pen-Y-Ffordd station en rote to Wrexham with a long-welded rails train on 9th August 1994. The track bearing left behind the signal box connected to the LNWR Chester & Mold line at Hope Junction, which passed under the GCR line partway up this incline...

WEB Topline 4.jpg

Steel coils used to be carried flat as seen here before cradles were introduced to help cool the coils down while in transit. 60036 has just left the GWR Shrewsbury-Chester mainline at Wrexham General and is now on LNER metals. The shot was taken at 17.15hrs on 2nd August 1994 after which I discovered I was locked out of my car! A tee-shirt was barely adequate as the evening turned chillier so I took shelter wherever I could until my son turned up with spare keys...
WEB Topline 6.jpg

I called in at the depressing station at Hawarden on my way to Wrexham in time to capture Bidston-bound Pacer No. 142052 in the yellow peril livery. 2nd August 1994. The 1-in-53 gradient from Buckley must have been challenging in steam days, in fact the line continued plunging from here at 1-in-60 to Shotton...
WEB Topline 5.jpg
 
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Focalplane

Western Thunderer
I have a Nikkor 24mm f2.8 lens, one of my favourites, not so useful on a digital camera as it was with the film format F2 and F5. I keep telling myself to buy one of the full format DSLRs but my smart phone camera does such a good job in wide angle mode. Photography has changed a lot in the past twenty years, not always for the better, as the old scanned slides prove!
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
I could hear these two Class 37's coming for miles. 37107 and 37518 waken the dead as they put on more power for the climb through Pen-Y-Ffordd to Buckley with a ballast train on 9th august 1994...

WEB Topline 7.jpg

Having breasted Buckley, 60060 was on the downhill run through Hawarden en route to Dee Marsh with timber on 30th July 1994...
WEB Topline 8.jpg

Four years later and in the opposite direction, a battered looking 37887 was making terrific sounds as it climbed through Hawarden with twenty-three BCA steel coil empties on 16th October 1998...
WEB Topline 9.jpg
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
As you can tell from some of the previous dull weather shots, I went out in all weathers. The sun was actally out for Class 56 No. 56019 in railfreight red-band livery climbing through Hawarden at 15.15hrs with a short rain of steel empties on 15th October 1998...

WEB Topline 10.jpg

56088 in the early version of EW&S livery was dropping down through Rossett on the GWR mainline to Chester with timber empties. The train had reversed at Wrexham and was on its way back to Scotland on 6th October 1998...
WEB Topline 12.jpg

The then brandnew Class 66's were entering traffic in 1998 and this was my first sighting of one, namely No. 66001. Pictured at Hawarden on a short steel train from South Wales on 6th October 1998...
WEB Topline 11.jpg
 
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