Night manoeuvres
In the early hours of a winter's Saturday morning, Class 73 electro-diesel no. 73004 waits time at Eastleigh with the 1.38am mail and parcels service to London Waterloo.
The train had started out, diesel hauled, as Friday night’s 10.37pm from Weymouth and was due a change of traction here at Eastleigh. In fact 73004 had been used on the down 10.52pm Waterloo - Weymouth mail / parcels train, which also happened to carry a couple of passenger carriages for folk travelling late out of the capital - the train I used myself.
The trip down here was an overnighter specifically to photograph this out and back working for the class 73 EDs - one of the few non-freight services they were regularly rostered for at the time. I was also hoping to bag a cab ride on the outward journey, something I'd managed a couple of times before, but alas it wasn't to be on this occasion.
For this shot, I locked the shutter open and zapped the front-end 3-4 times with an off-camera flash-gun in an attempt to bring out some of the detail - obviously not a technique you would get away with today. Unfortunately I don't have a note of the exposure details but am guessing it would be somewhere around 25 to 30 seconds, a duration I was reasonably comfortable with regards guessing the reciprocity adjustment needed.
There was not much doing after this train left so it was back to an uncomfortable night in the waiting room trying to get some sleep. The following morning, as soon as the light was good enough, it was a visit to the local diesel depot where the following of interest were noted: 07001, 07002, 07005, 07006, 07010, 07011, 07013, and 74001, 74010.
First uploaded in 2011, the image has been reprocessed and improved in the digital darkroom. The original is deleted.
Nikkormat FT2, Agfa CT18
Around 1.25am, 18th February 1978
Night manoeuvres
In the early hours of a winter's Saturday morning, Class 73 electro-diesel no. 73004 waits time at Eastleigh with the 1.38am mail and parcels service to London Waterloo.
The train had started out, diesel hauled, as Friday night’s 10.37pm from Weymouth and was due a change of traction here at Eastleigh. In fact 73004 had been used on the down 10.52pm Waterloo - Weymouth mail / parcels train, which also happened to carry a couple of passenger carriages for folk travelling late out of the capital - the train I used myself.
The trip down here was an overnighter specifically to photograph this out and back working for the class 73 EDs - one of the few non-freight services they were regularly rostered for at the time. I was also hoping to bag a cab ride on the outward journey, something I'd managed a couple of times before, but alas it wasn't to be on this occasion.
For this shot, I locked the shutter open and zapped the front-end 3-4 times with an off-camera flash-gun in an attempt to bring out some of the detail - obviously not a technique you would get away with today. Unfortunately I don't have a note of the exposure details but am guessing it would be somewhere around 25 to 30 seconds, a duration I was reasonably comfortable with regards guessing the reciprocity adjustment needed.
There was not much doing after this train left so it was back to an uncomfortable night in the waiting room trying to get some sleep. The following morning, as soon as the light was good enough, it was a visit to the local diesel depot where the following of interest were noted: 07001, 07002, 07005, 07006, 07010, 07011, 07013, and 74001, 74010.
First uploaded in 2011, the image has been reprocessed and improved in the digital darkroom. The original is deleted.
Nikkormat FT2, Agfa CT18
Around 1.25am, 18th February 1978