66736 at North Blyth with the Alcans, 6S45 for Fort William. 14th Jan 2012.
It did occur to me, during the period that GBRF ran the Deltic "Royal Scots Grey" during late spring and Early summer in 2011, that the first, or last portion of its short journey from the Lynemouth Aluminium Smelter to the North Blyth Aluminia import silos, that this section of line ran along the coastal sand dunes. In fact there had been colliery tipping on the beach up to the end of the 1960s here from Cambois colliery. There is a picture of this in one of Colin Giffords books. And Gone Forever, plate 213 to be precise.
But there were scant few in the hundreds of photographers who turned up during that time who acknowledged this obvious fact. Well, you would have to arrive early, and not many then shot in dull conditions.
So a calculation was made. The sun would rise over the sea at an acute angle in the mid winter, and the train for Fort William left on Saturday at 09:02, around half an hour after sunrise. Prone to run a little early too..
Keep an eye on the forecast and go. So long as the empties ran the day the day before.
Postscript:
The Lynemouth smelter, which received three trains each weekday from here, closed in March 2012, leaving from then on two to three trains a week to Fort William from this terminal.
Minolta x300, 100mm f2.5 Rokkor. Fuji Provia 100, 1/250 @ f8/11 with a 0.6 Hard ND Graduated filter mounted on a tripod.
Sometimes the first picture is the best. I could leave this place alone but there is something here, there is not another place like it and its not just the sea and the structures. Its everything that made what it is now, and what it was before. Life feels different in the North. For all its economic inequalities, life feels better up here, the melancholic celebration of life in the North is symphony for the soul.
66736 at North Blyth with the Alcans, 6S45 for Fort William. 14th Jan 2012.
It did occur to me, during the period that GBRF ran the Deltic "Royal Scots Grey" during late spring and Early summer in 2011, that the first, or last portion of its short journey from the Lynemouth Aluminium Smelter to the North Blyth Aluminia import silos, that this section of line ran along the coastal sand dunes. In fact there had been colliery tipping on the beach up to the end of the 1960s here from Cambois colliery. There is a picture of this in one of Colin Giffords books. And Gone Forever, plate 213 to be precise.
But there were scant few in the hundreds of photographers who turned up during that time who acknowledged this obvious fact. Well, you would have to arrive early, and not many then shot in dull conditions.
So a calculation was made. The sun would rise over the sea at an acute angle in the mid winter, and the train for Fort William left on Saturday at 09:02, around half an hour after sunrise. Prone to run a little early too..
Keep an eye on the forecast and go. So long as the empties ran the day the day before.
Postscript:
The Lynemouth smelter, which received three trains each weekday from here, closed in March 2012, leaving from then on two to three trains a week to Fort William from this terminal.
Minolta x300, 100mm f2.5 Rokkor. Fuji Provia 100, 1/250 @ f8/11 with a 0.6 Hard ND Graduated filter mounted on a tripod.
Sometimes the first picture is the best. I could leave this place alone but there is something here, there is not another place like it and its not just the sea and the structures. Its everything that made what it is now, and what it was before. Life feels different in the North. For all its economic inequalities, life feels better up here, the melancholic celebration of life in the North is symphony for the soul.