I thought, for a change, I’d post an entry to Nancy Merrill’s photo a week challenge. This week’s theme of Public Transportation is very much home territory for me. My entries are trains in the London area that I actually photographed on Tuesday and Thursday this week. My main target was freight trains but I’ll post some of those later.
Here is a London Overground service approaching Kensal Rise station on its way from Stratford to Clapham Junction…
A Bakerloo line train at Willesden Junction on its way to Harrow and Wealdstone…
A Southeastern Trains service passes Factory Junction, near Wandsworth Road, on route to Dover Priory from Victoria…
Hi Chris – Yes they do. Part of the reason is probably the intense passenger timetable that we run. The top photograph illustrates that point quite well – during the day the longest gap between passenger trains through Kensal Rise station is 15 minutes. It’s more usually 10mins. And they have to fit freight services between those passenger trains.
The train in the middle is a London Underground Tube Train – which is why it has such a low profile. Most visitors to London don’t realise that there are sections of the Underground above ground! š
All of the trains shown are electric multiple units. The one in bottom photo illustrates another common UK practice – end connecting doors allow trains to be altered in length easily. That lunchtime Dover service is made up of two 4-car units. But in the peak hours when people are trying to get to work it would be strengthened to 12-cars by adding another 4-car unit.
Running our services so close together requires short distances between signals which is why Freight Trains in the UK are much shorter than the ones I see videos of in the US. Hope that’s helped to explain some of the differences š
If you take a look at my Back on Track post you’ll see some of our freight trains. With the exception of the Class 90, the diesels are all General Motors or, in the case of the Class 70, General Electric. You’d certainly recognise the sounds they make š
Images from Finchley 
I adore those tracks with all the switches.
Thanks Cee š For some reason they’re called Points in the UK!
Great photos! Love the intricacies of the tracks. š Thanks for joining the challenge!
Thanks Nancy š
These are fantastic photos. I like them all but I think the second one is my favourite.
Thank you š
Your trains look so different from the ones we have in the US.
Hi Chris – Yes they do. Part of the reason is probably the intense passenger timetable that we run. The top photograph illustrates that point quite well – during the day the longest gap between passenger trains through Kensal Rise station is 15 minutes. It’s more usually 10mins. And they have to fit freight services between those passenger trains.
The train in the middle is a London Underground Tube Train – which is why it has such a low profile. Most visitors to London don’t realise that there are sections of the Underground above ground! š
All of the trains shown are electric multiple units. The one in bottom photo illustrates another common UK practice – end connecting doors allow trains to be altered in length easily. That lunchtime Dover service is made up of two 4-car units. But in the peak hours when people are trying to get to work it would be strengthened to 12-cars by adding another 4-car unit.
Running our services so close together requires short distances between signals which is why Freight Trains in the UK are much shorter than the ones I see videos of in the US. Hope that’s helped to explain some of the differences š
If you take a look at my Back on Track post you’ll see some of our freight trains. With the exception of the Class 90, the diesels are all General Motors or, in the case of the Class 70, General Electric. You’d certainly recognise the sounds they make š