Photography
BR Standard Class 7 70000 Britannia at Platform 1, Victoria station, London
Hot, steaming and still running on coal, the 4-6-2 steam locomotive pulling the excursion train in to Platform 1 is Britannia, back running on the mainline rails after replacement of a connecting rod which failed during one of last year’s rides. Quite a contrast to the sleek electric commuter trains usually at this London terminus.
Photography note: one of those subjects where my camera’s exposure suggestion was wrong by more than two stops. Those old-time railway photographers had some quite specific skills to get the shots they did.
Not what you expect to see at your local station: neither the Piccadilly Line nor the District Line were running trains this weekend through Barons Court, my local Underground station. Usually the lines are busy with the rattle of passenger trains every couple of minutes, instead there’s a busy flock of hi-viz suits and a couple of engineering trains stationary on the tracks.
Wasdale and Eskdale in the same image, this is the view over the estuary of the River Irt from Drigg Dunes to the western valleys with Scafell (984 m.) and Gable (899 m.) at the heads of the valleys, The Old Man of Coniston (803 m.) behind.
Patterns, shapes and textures at low tide at Drigg Beach, Cumbria; there’s a suggestion of the infinite revealed here in the space between the land and the sea and the clouds.
Notably different architecture in Sartène, Corsica from mainland France or indeed any of the other bits of off-shore France that I’ve seen. The Genoese style prevails in buildings from before the Battle of Ponte Novu (1769). The shutters in the Italian style and the iron balconies persist after the defeat but French architecture becomes fashionable with the new government, including versions of the Haussmann style.
