More Steam Trains...

I'm accidentally becoming a bit of a spotter. I haven't invested in an anorak yet, but have been weighing up the benefits of a pac-a-mac.

There is something a little bit special about a steam train though, if they were pulling into your local station I'm sure you'd think about popping down for a look.

I jostled for position with the old men on the bridge to catch the King Edward I pulling into Par Station :

(click photographs for larger versions)

Then walked down the platform to the business end of the train. I bet this fella loves his job:

Check out the little Cornish Piskie hitching a ride :)

Finally the train headed off to St Blazey, where a couple of men operating the turntable by winding it round - looked like hard work!

Train Spotters Info:

GWR 6000 Class 6024 King Edward I, once driven by Prince Charles.
King Edward I is a GWR 6000 Class steam locomotive built in June 1930, originally housed at Plymouth Laira dept, before being transferred to Old Oak Common, London, in March 1959 and finally to Cardiff Canton depot in 1962.

Thanks Wikipedia

My Flickr

Trains, Mills and Horses...

So I discovered photomatix...

Having had a long standing hatred of the over saturated HDR images where clouds seem to look like trees, I never thought it would be my bag.

However...

I found out that you don't have to process the images to that extent and I quite liked experiementing with the different effects, but I am trying not to get too addicted.

So here are a few examples:

70013 Oliver Cromwell at Par

One for all you train spotters out there. Got up early and headed to Par station where I got a good spot on the bridge to see this steam through.

Forgot that standing on the bridge would mean that I would be in the steam cloud itself, so got a couple of interesting shots of... steam.

The engine was at the back as it was on it's way back upcountry and it didn't stop at the station, so I was pretty pleased that I managed a couple of half decent efforts.

Train spotter info:

70013 Oliver Cromwell is a British Railways standard class 7 (also known as the
Britannia class) preserved steam locomotive.

The locomotive is notable
as one of the four steam locomotives which worked the last steam railtour on
British Rail (BR) in 1968 before the introduction of a steam ban.

(Thanks wikipedia)

Luxulyan Water Mill

We headed to Luxulyan Valley to walk over the viaduct and explore the trail which is part of a World Heritage site because of the amount of old industrial buildings / works that are still there.

This mill used to have a huge water wheel which powered an incline to Joseph Treffry's railway to Pontsmill.

Dirty Horses



Just a couple of dirty old working horses. I experimented with textures on this too, probably a little overdone.

Larger sizes can be seen on my flickr