Weekly Photo Challenge: Down

One of the joys of childhood is to look down on trains passing under a bridge.   Often those first glimpses are from the shoulders of a patient parent.   We soon grow tall enough to see over the bridge parapet ourselves…. Oh! the pleasure of being enveloped by the clouds of steam and smoke as an engine passed beneath and then the rush to the other side to watch it disappearing into the distance leaving a smell of warm oil and coal.   Such were the memories of my childhood when trips to Hadley Wood were a popular picnic treat for the family and journeys to Scotland were by night train.   Back then all the mainline expresses were commonly in the hands of Steam locomotives.

Of course, sooner or later, we grow up and many of the joys of childhood are forgotten or become faraway memories of a time when the sun always shone.   For some of us though, that early encounter with the view from the bridge stays with us into adult life.   I still can’t resist standing on a bridge watching the trains go by and I’ve been doing it off and on for the last 40 years.

Willesden Junction has always been a popular mecca for trainspotters / railway enthusiasts, featuring a confluence of lines from all points of the compass and all regions of  British Railways (with the exception of the Scottish Region).   Around 1920, as the new lines were built for a local electric service to Watford Junction from Euston, a footbridge was built across the main London to Crewe lines for a new footpath connection.   Ever since it has been a popular location for enthusiasts to look down on the passing express, outer suburban and freight trains whilst also affording a view of the trains operating around the North London Line.   Here are a couple of then and now views looking down from that footbridge…

Willesden Junction 1982 and 2010

Willesden Junction 1986 and 2012

A-Z Archive: H Challenge

From My Archive I Choose…

H is for High-Rise

Apartment blocks in Paddington

I wanted to convey the starkness of High-Rise housing in this image so I retained the converging lines of the buildings whilst removing an intruding section of an adjacent block from the right of the frame.   I then converted the image to Black & White, upping the contrast, before applying a Charcoal filter and thin black frame.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Regret

Ahmet is going to regret this Hong Kong Phooey challenge…

…as the Referee is going to give him a Straight Red Card.   Of course, some players don’t regret their actions…

…They just look bemused and say “Wot’s That For Ref?”

It should be noted that Ahmet’s challenge looks much worse than it was – in fact the opposition manager stated that he didn’t think it warranted a Red Card and they offered to supply video evidence in his defence to the FA disciplinary hearing.   But the referee on the day saw the challenge from almost the same angle as my photograph and I can fully understand why he  would give a Red Card in the circumstances.   The FA stood by their man and Ahmet received, I believe, a 4 match ban.