Crossing the tracks

I knew there was a railway crossing point just up the line from Saltaire station but I'd never used it until the other day. The need to keep to local paths for our exercise, as the lockdown rules dictate, means I am seeking out the less travelled paths and exploring areas that are new to me. To get to this crossing means walking up through the Hirst Wood estate, past a small industrial estate, so the first part of the walk isn't very scenic. Then, turning right along a little cinder path, you arrive at the railway. It's on a straight bit of track so you can see a long way up and down the line, meaning it's not difficult to see oncoming trains. There are fewer running anyway at the moment.  A hop, skip and jump across and you are suddenly deep into Hirst Wood and enjoying the peace of the forest. (Peace, that is, until a train does come along. They blow their whistle as a warning as they near the crossing. The blast can startle you when you're in the woods!)

Lob Ghyll Viaduct

Addingham walk
My walking route descended the valley side, through fields of grazing sheep, who were not much interested in me. I then entered Lob Wood, where you unexpectedly come across this impressive viaduct. Built in 1888, it is now disused and getting overgrown but at one time it carried the Midland Railway from Ilkley to Skipton. The line closed as a result of the infamous Beeching cuts in 1965, though four miles of the line from Embsay to Bolton Abbey station were later reopened and now run as a volunteer-led heritage steam railway.

It was a bit hairy trying to negotiate the path underneath the viaduct. The banking seems gradually to be getting eroded and the drop is very steep. It was muddy and slippery and I started to wonder how long it would take for someone to find me if I fell!! Luckily, I safely gained a wider and flatter path on the other side. Phew. The perils of walking alone...

Over the bridge

If you're 5'5" like me, this is a view of Saltaire's Salts Mill that you never see... To take it, I had to balance my camera above my head on the parapet of the railway bridge and pretty much experiment in order to get the right composition. I guess the bridge has been built so high precisely to discourage photographers from climbing up to take the iconic shot of the Mill's long south frontage. It is, however, a view well-known to millions of TV viewers, since a similar shot appears in the opening video sequence to the nightly 'Look North' local news programme on BBC1.

True grit

The regular symmetry of the arches of the famous Ribblehead viaduct contrasts dramatically with the rugged limestone pavement of the hillside above. This was one of the few photos I managed to get at this location that didn't have rain spots on the camera lens. As fast as I wiped them off, more landed!

This impressive 100 foot high viaduct, with its 24 limestone arches, carries the Settle-Carlisle railway line over the wonderfully named Batty Moss. It was built in the early 1870s by over a thousand navvies, who lived in shanty towns on the moors with their families. It must have been a bleak existence. A nearby small churchyard has over 200 men, women and children buried there from this period, victims of smallpox epidemics, industrial accidents and other tragedies that must have been particularly hard to deal with in the circumstances.

Vintage arches

The glass and original ironwork canopy of Hellifield station (grade 2 listed, like many of the buildings in Saltaire) has some pretty tracery, incorporating the MR for Midland Railway.

Hellifield station

I went on a photography workshop with some friends from my camera club. As so often, the weather gods found out in advance and a run of pleasant, dry weather was interrupted by a day of cold wind and rain - heigh ho. Despite being frozen and often wet too, and having the usual battles with my tripod (think grappling octopus..) I came home with quite a decent batch of images (imho).

We started at Hellifield station. Hellifield is a village on the way up into the Yorkshire Dales, and has this wonderful old railway station on the Settle-Carlisle railway line, built by the Midland Railway in 1880. The line is celebrating 25 years of survival - thanks to 'people power' - after being threatened with closure and is one of the most scenic lines in England. Occasionally steam train excursions run through here and that must be a thrilling sight. The station itself has recently had a makeover so it's looking good, painted in the old Midland Railway colours. The signal box in the background is itself historic, being one of only two manually operated boxes left on the line.

Platform 9¾

Here's one for Harry Potter fans.... Platform 9¾ is the secret platform on Kings Cross station from where you could board the Hogwarts Express if you walked directly at the solid barrier between Platforms 9 & 10. (Mrs Weasley advised that "you should do it at a bit of a run if you're nervous").  Some of the filming was done at the station and this plaque and disappearing luggage trolley are there to commemorate it.  Rather unromantically, it has moved around a great deal and is actually nowhere near platforms 9 and 10, having now been moved to the new concourse.  But there is always somebody having a go at storming the wall and it provides a good photographic opportunity, especially if you have Harry-Potter-mad kids.

Kings Cross wonderland

I had a day trip to London last week for a brief reunion with my sweet grand-daughter.  She's thriving and seems a happy little soul most of the time.  She has recently learned to squeal - apparently just for the fun of it! - and is getting very 'conversational'.  I was granted some delightful smiles.

I was happily surprised at Kings Cross, the mainline rail terminal where the Leeds train arrives and departs, to find the new concourse open.  Very smart and spacious it is too, a thousand times better than the previous cramped lobby and with much better facilities.  It made my short wait quite a pleasure.  I  envisage the view from the mezzanine floor will become a much-photographed scene, akin perhaps to that famous view of Grand Central Station in New York.  I tried and failed to get an effective picture of blurred figures hurrying.  It didn't quite work, as there were too many people standing still and that spoiled the effect.  I needed a tripod too but that's one thing I generally don't carry with me in London!


[By the way, can someone please tell me how I can fix my blogs 'comments' so that I can add a reply linked to each comment?  Alan, Betsy and others can do this but I can't figure out how to. 
Later... Thanks Diane, embedded comments have done the trick.]

Light and shadow

(Hover mouse over image for the black and white version)

Because I'm me, when I download a day's worth of photos from one of my photographic explorations, I generally have a couple of attempts at more 'arty' shots, alongside the plethora of general record and landscape pictures.  I try to keep my eyes open for patterns and textures. This is Thornton Viaduct again.  I noticed in the strong, low sunlight that there were good patterns of light and shadow.  Then I couldn't decide if it looked best in black and white or if I preferred the colour.  See what you think.

This is the final day of the Thornton Challenge photographic experiment in which Alan Burnett and I agreed to explore the same village at different times and from our own perspective and then share what we each 'saw'.  For Alan's eye view, please go to his blog NEWS FROM NOWHERE.

I've had a lot of fun exploring Thornton, taking photos, writing the posts and, of course, seeing what Alan came up with too.  I hope you've enjoyed it as much as we have.  I think it proves the original hypothesis. (See here). Certainly in this series I think you can read, 'between the lines', quite a lot about the photographers as well as about Thornton.  I approached it like some kind of enthusiastic tour guide, picking out the highlights, bombarding you with historical titbits and determined to make you overlook the fact that your hotel is right next to a building site.  Alan, on the other hand, approached the assignment like a seasoned reporter, homing in on the underlying essence of the place and, with a journalist's flair for words, neatly summing up a world of truth in each pithy phrase.  Perhaps you need both of us really, to get a balanced picture.  The good news is that both of us will continue, in our own blogs, to explore our lovely home county of Yorkshire and we hope you'll continue on the journey with us.  Thanks Alan, and thanks to everyone who read and commented, for sharing this with us.  I've made some new friends and that's lovely. Maybe we should do it again sometime?

City meets country in a village

Thornton is part of the City of Bradford Metropolitan area but is situated right on the edge, where countryside meets suburbia.  Consequently it only takes minutes to access green space with a more rural feel, where old cottages are clustered into tiny hamlets and you can glimpse views of the city beyond the fields.   Thornton Viaduct is a notable feature, its 20 arches snaking across the Pinch Beck valley.  Once part of the Great Northern Railway network, it has been disused for 40 years or so.  It is now a listed structure and there are apparently plans to open it to walkers and cyclists as part of the Great Northern Railway Trail. (The little pointy bit apparently on the viaduct is actually the tip of Thornton St James' church spire!)

This is the Thornton Challenge, Day Five - in which Alan Burnett and I agreed to explore the same village at different times and from our own perspective and then share what we each 'saw'.  For Alan's eye view, please go to his blog NEWS FROM NOWHERE.

Transit patterns

Another York photo, but this one's just for fun.  It's the roof of York's main rail station: a wonderful soaring, sweeping glass and iron structure, made all the more interesting by being curved to follow the tracks.  The station was opened in 1877 and had 13 platforms at that time, making it then the largest station in the world.  It was designed by the architects of the North Eastern Railway, Thomas Prosser and William Peachey.

York is still an important rail junction, being about half-way up on the London-Edinburgh main line and joined by cross-country and trans-Pennine routes too.  (Probably why the National Railway Museum has its home in the city.)  I pass through it quite often and rather like the ambience of the station.

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A postscript - relevant to the WV debate - here's a comment that the Blogger spam filter siphoned off for me today:  'On speaking terms the homely correct hair spark, the arable land and combustor farmers are embowed at thrusters, headed for a level.'  Where do they find them?!

Victorian progress

The railway finally did reach Knaresborough in 1851, when this impressive railway viaduct was completed across the steep valley of the river.  An earlier bridge had collapsed three years before, just as it was almost finished.  (That must have been annoying!)  Victorian times, in Knaresborough as elsewhere, saw rapid progress in improving the town and living conditions for its inhabitants. Chapels and schools were built, gas street lighting established and a sewerage system installed.  But much of its earlier history is still very evident in its buildings, lanes, street names and the now ruined castle that towers over the town.