Squirrel Awareness Week
View allAll Photos Tagged 8th
happy birthday w'9oo7 my dear sis :P i know these days my flickr is all about birthdays *_* and there is more trust me -.-' any way :P sweet 21 hope you enjoy your day :P♥
Penelope, Jillian and Susie ponder the age old problem of how does Father Christmas really get down the chimney!
Nottingham Suspension Bridge, Victoria Embankment, 8th October 2018. Interestingly the bridge was built primarily to carry a water main linking Nottingham with Wilford Hill reservoir over the River Trent and is currently owned by Severn Trent Water. The bridge was opened in 1906 and was refurbished between 2008 and 2010 at a cost of £1.9M. Along with the major water main the bridge also carries two major gas mains. It is a Grade II listed building.
Stuck at Cottman and Castor with a broken alternator and windows down in blizzard on Sat waiting on tow
CP 2224 and 2211 move down to the switch at the east (south) end of the Thief River Falls yard while moving around CPKC 241 that is occupying the mainline. The four hoppers look like the type for Thunderbird Commodities in Mahnomen. This power set just returned from a round trip to Lake Bronson to drop off gondolas for collecting used ties. They are now on their way out of Thief River Falls for local service.
A heard of Highland cows in a snow covered field by a frozen Loch Meiklie in the Highlands of Scotland.
East Midlands Railways 43059 approaches Market Harborough working 1B23, 06:34 Leeds – St Pancras, 8th January 2020.
Locomotive History
43059 was built at Crewe Works and entered service in August 1977 as part of HST set 254002 for East Coast Main Line duties. Since 1991 it has been a regular performer on the Midland Main Line and has been fitted with a Paxman VP185 engine in lieu of its original Paxman Valenta.
www.scottishphotographyhides.co.uk
This is from the new Water Rail hide. The old one is still in use, but when the water levels are up even 4 inches it is not possible to do. So this one was designed so that it does not matter if the river is even up 6ft it can be done unless severe flooding has occurred at the site. It also offers far more light and the birds here are active all through the day and usually with the 2 coming at once. Please email me at info@photographyhides.co.uk to book. This one is £70 a day.
On a grey January morning East Midlands Railways 43049 heads north from Market Harborough working 1D13, 08:34 St Pancras - Nottingham, 8th January 2020.
A scene that has changed considerably from when I last stood here just over forty years ago (see first comment)
Locomotive History
43049 was built in 1977 at Crewe works as part of HST set 253024 for Western Region London – Bristol/South Wales services. 253024 was one of five Western Region HST sets transferred to Midland Main Line duties in 1982 and 43049 has been pounding up and down to London St Pancras from the East Midlands and South Yorkshire for the last thirty eight years. 43049 has been fitted with a Paxman VP185 engine in lieu of its original Paxman Valenta.
A section of the Cromford Canal, Derbyshire and in the distance is the end of the canal at Cromford Basin, 8th April 2017. The Cromford Canal used to run more than 14 miles from Cromford to join up with the Erewash Canal at Langley Mill. It had four tunnels and fourteen locks and was built in the late 18th Century. It was last used as a working waterway in 1944 and since then most of it has fell into disrepair. Parts of the route are now blocked by modern buildings, roads and other obstructions, including the Butterley Tunnel, which collapsed as long ago as 1900. At one time this tunnel was the third longest canal tunnel in the world at 2 miles long. The derelict tunnel is one of the major obstacles to getting the canal re-opened. This section of the canal in the photograph at the northern end has been fully restored and turned into a popular linear country park. The section includes many of the best sites on the canal including Wigwell Aqueduct, Leawood pumping station, High Peak Junction and Cromford Basin. Although the water is still shallow, it is possible to navigate the canal in this area.
A view across part of Attenborough nature reserve with Ratcliffe on Soar Power Station on the horizon, 8th March 2024.
In 1929 large-scale commercial gravel extraction began around Attenborough and would continue for the next ninety years. The extraction formed deep lagoons and as the extraction moved away from the works the gravel was transported by barge through the ever-expanding network of lagoons. In 1965, an application from the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) looked to fill the lagoons with ash from Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station. However, by this time, the pits were already well-known for their wildlife interest and extensively used by local fishermen and birdwatchers, with records starting around 1948. Due to the strength of local feeling the CEGB withdrew their application and the ash was taken to Fletton, Peterborough. Discussions then began with the site’s then owners, Trent Gravels Ltd, about the future for the lagoons and it was agreed to develop the site as a nature reserve in parallel with continued gravel extraction. The opening ceremony as a nature reserve was in 1966 and was performed by David Attenborough. Gravel extraction has now finished, and the works have been demolished, whilst the nature reserve now welcomes around 500,000 visitors per year and is regarded as one of the best sites in the UK to see kingfishers.
Ratcliffe on Soar 2116MW power station was built in the mid-1960s and opened in 1968 and is one of the biggest coal fired power stations built in the country. In 1981, the station was burning 5.5 million tonnes of coal a year, consuming 65% of the output of the south Nottinghamshire coalfield. Emissions of sulphur dioxide, which caused acid rain, were greatly reduced in 1993 when a flue gas desulphurisation system using a wet limestone-gypsum process became operational on the four boilers. Emissions of nitrogen oxides which also cause damage to the ozone layer, were reduced in 2004 when Ratcliffe became the first in the United Kingdom to be fitted with Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) technology. One of the last coal fired power stations still in use it is due to close in 2025.
Dipping into my photo archives in past weeks I found this shot in the Pornic file. Until I became used to it, the naming of places after important dates did seem a particularly French custom. This date resonates with me and brings to mind the concluding pages of my father's diaries.
In the early hours of 8th May 1945, my father was in a column of prisoners being marched away from the PoW camps. They had reached the German-Czech border, after a 'stopover' in a tin mine at Zinnwald. My dad saw the guards shine their torches down and feared they would have no option but to sleep on the wet ground. He suggested to his pals that they leave the column.... Which they did. Unnoticed.
There followed a time of living on their wits for food and shelter, plus a few adventures, until they met three American ex-PoWs, who had found a 15 cwt truck. My dad and his mates hitched a lift to Pilsen where they were officially registered as recovered allied PoWs by the Third US Army.
There followed a flight to Reims in France and thence onward to England where my dad finally arrived home to his wife at 4.30 p.m. in the little village of Claydon, Suffolk on 25th May 1945.
I was born the following year - nearly a Christmas baby. A new little family; a different life.
As my Flickr friends who have read the story know, the help of a fellow member of a local U3A Photography Group has been invaluable to me in publishing, in paperback and kindle format, my father's diary account of his WW2 service, captured at Tobruk, subsequently as a PoW in N. Africa, Italy and Germany:
www.amazon.co.uk/Till-We-Meet-Again-Gunner/dp/154404870X
My royalties are donated to the Red Cross, without whose food parcels sent to the PoW camps, my father felt that 'a lot of us wouldn't have come back'.
M-A
Bergger Pancro 400
28mm Elmarit-M
Berspeed
Labbox
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Surrounded by wagons and with a “Not to be Moved” sign attached it would appear that 66602 is out of traffic and in need of some tender loving care at Leeds Midland Road depot, 8th February 2015.
Derelict Class 11 0-6-0 shunter 12083 rusts away in a siding at Market Bosworth on the Battlefield Line, 8th July 2023. In the thirteen years since I last photographed this locomotive the only thing that seems to have happened to it is it has moved around 50 yards to the other siding at Market Bosworth.
Locomotive History
In 1945 the London Midland and Scottish Railway began building at Derby works a batch of diesel electric 0-6-0 shunting engines. By the formation of British Railways on the 1st January 1948 fifteen had been completed and construction was continued by British Railways until 1952 when one hundred and six had been built. They were numbered 12033 – 12138 and were the forerunner of the class 08 design. They were later classified as class 11 and the class remained intact until May 1967 when 12104 was condemned. Withdrawals continued until October 1972 when the last of the class 12127 was withdrawn. 12083 was built in 1950 at Derby works and spent its entire British Railway career at Carlisle being withdrawn from Carlisle Kingmoor in October 1971. Following withdrawal it was sold for industrial use at the Tilcon Quarry, Grassington, where it worked until 1998 when it was sold for preservation. Initially based at the South Yorkshire Railway at Meadowhall until the 1st August 2001 when it moved to Shackerstone.
08782 stands in the yard at Barrow Hill, 8th October 2017
Locomotive History
08782 was built at Derby Works and entered traffic in April 1960 as D3950, allocated to Old Oak Common MPD. It was transferred to Tyseley two months later and in October 1967 transferred to Merseyside, initially at Edge Hill but moving shortly after arriving to Allerton when Edge Hill closed. Its next move was to Tinsley in May 1972 and again it moved on shortly after arrival this time to Shirebrook were it remained for the next nine years before returning to Tinsley in August 1981. Its next move was to Knottingley in September 1986 and again it moved on shortly after arrival this time to Holbeck were it remained for the next three years before returning to Knottingley in February 1990 where it remained for the next ten years. Its later years have been spent as far a field as Warrington, Castleford, Fowey and Doncaster.
The Sir John Barrow Monument (or Hoad Monument) on Hoad Hill, Ulverston, Cumbria. The mist has been sitting over the town all day, just as I popped to the shops I noticed that it was starting to lift and the Hoad was becoming visible through it. I ran back up the road home, grabbed the camera and up to the bedroom to take this shot from the window (we get one of the best views of the monument in town!)
I quite like it - and it is unusually subtle for me too!