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Plenty of London Underground connections within this photograph taken from North Weald Station. The track was formerly part of the Central Line. Prominent is steam locomotive Metropolitan E Class No 1 from 1896. On the right is a 1959 rolling stock driving motor car 1031, based on the more famous 1938 rolling stock.
Easy to forget just how far out of London the underground railway system reached above ground, and still does.
Dispite the name, Regent Theatre, this was mainly a cinema from 1913 until 1975. It became a bingo hall after that. The building is now a late night bar.
Chelmsford based AU58 FFS at the Army and Navy bus stop in the Moulsham area of the City of Chelmsford, Essex.
The bus stop, like many others, retains the name of a pub that no longer exists.
Photograph taken in 2019.
5 gallon pyramid topped can from the interwar period.
Displayed at the Buckingham shire Museum, Aylesbury.
Must be getting rare now to find several well established pubs all within a 3½ minute walk. Public Houses within the UK seem to be closing down on an almost daily basis. Good to see these ones.
A rare cast iron fountain with lamp posts. It dates from 1888 and was originally located in the town centre to mark Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee of 1887. It was moved to Lurgan Park in the 1920's to make way for a war memorial which still stands on the original footprint.
Opened back in 1864 as part of the Metropolitan Line. Current day a stop on the Hammersmith and City Line and also the Circle Line.
A tourist interacting with a fruit seller on Lakeside in Pokhara, Nepal.
I noticed this scene while I was having lunch at a street cafe. A group of tourists, seemingly from the far east, entered the hotel next door. I noticed how all of them were wearing face masks. That left me wondering. How do people who carry an overriding fear of infections really enjoy a holiday? I couldn't appreciate then that their part of the world has experienced frequent viral epidemics. Thus, such precautions have become a routine affair for them. With the COVID-19 pandemic, I can now understand. It is usually common suffering that brings universal comprehension.
YN08 DFZ is one of the specially adapted buses with a self steering capacity when travelling on purpose built dedicated road track. Metrobus use the name Fastway for this bus rapid transit system that serves Gatwick Airport amongst several other destinations. Photograph taken in Crawley town centre.
The busy A260 Canterbury Road from Folkestone, Kent leading on to the A2. A division via the narrow lanes of Acrise and Densole was in place.
Kent Police Vauxhall Corsa GN67 FJD providing the blue lights.
The CWGC headstone of David Samuel Anthony Lord V.C. D.F.C. in Arnhem Oosterbeek Military Cemetery, Netherlands.
This brave man was born in Cork, Ireland in to a family with strong military heritage. David Lord was already in the RAF before WW2 broke out. He became a very experienced transport pilot and was awarded the DFC in July 1943. During the ill fated Operation Market Garden, Flight Lieutenant Lord was involved in flying resupply missions to the troops on the ground. On Tuesday 19th September 1944 flying a resupply mission in Douglas Dakota III, KG 374, at low level his aircraft was hit by enemy flak setting one of the wings ablaze. Have already made a drop on one pass he continued with a second drop in the strickened aircraft and ordered his crew to bale out. But the plane crashed almost immediately. The actual story only became know in 1945 and the V.C. was awarded posthumously. He is buried alongside members of his crew.
Forerunner of the more plentyful K6 design from the mid 1930's. The Kiosk No2 ,K2, started to appear on the streets of London in 1926. Designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and made from cast iron. Other versions soon followed until the univerally accepted smaller K6 design became the standard public kiosk that we are more familiar with.
The rubbish on the pavement is very much twenty-first century though.
Code For America Summit 2018
May 31 + June 1
Oakland, CA
Drew Bird Photography
San Francisco Bay Area Photographer
Have Camera. Will Travel.
drew@drewbirdphoto.com
This is the statue within a monument dedicated to the "Soldier King" of Belgium. It is located at Nieuport, Belgium. H.R.H. King Albert I was King of the Belgiums from 1909 until his death in a mountaineering accident in 1934. A popular King who took charge of Belgium military forces during WW1. There was a small area of Belgium that was not occupied by the Germans and King Albert I was acclaimed for defending it whilst also trying to broker a peace deal with Germany. He was not particularly supportive of British or French ideas of how the war should be conducted.
LTZ 1168 working its way through Notting Hill Gate.
This is one of the 1,000 New Routemasters produced from 2012 until 2017.
RATP Group London United LT168 in an all over advertisment wrap.
The very impressive heritage restoration of the disused Folkestone Harbour Station along with the Folkestone Harbour Arm and old railway bridge across the harbour.
The station is largely from the 1890's (replacing an earlier station) and the signal box dates from 1915.
It has just been featured on Michaell Portillo's Great British Railways programme.
Money from the Regional Growth Fund has helped with this project.
The 15" British naval gun came in to service during 1915 as a major weapon mounted on major warships to fight against enemy warships. However as things turned out it was used more for bombarding land based targets than slugging it out battleship against battleship. The Battle of Jutland being the major exception.
The 15" naval gun on the left in this photograph was mounted on HMS Ramillies when commissoned in 1916 and removed in 1947 before the vessel was broken up. Only fired in action a couple of times.
On the right is the 15" naval gun mounted on HMS Resolution from 1915 to 1938, then put in to storage. This naval gun was remounted on the moniter HMS Roberts and did sterling work in a bombardment role during D-Day and throughout June 1944.
MX58 KYR of Redline Buses in "waterRIDER" livery. Redline has been around since the 1990's and has a fleet of over 30 vehicles based in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.
The road bridge at Nijmegen along with the nearby rail bridge were important objectives for Operation Market Garden during September 1944. Unlike a lot of the famous bridges in this area that have been rebuilt, the central span here is original. It had been blown by the Dutch Army on 10th May 1940 with the central span falling in to the Waal River. Presumably largely in tack as the Germans were able to raise it and rebuild the bridge that had originally opened in 1936. Surpringly the German forces did not detonate the explosives on the bridge in September 1944. The rebuilt rail bridge does not look anything like the original, although some element of the old bridge remain.
Photo taken in 2019.
Not sure how old this is as it was given to me from an older friend the first time that I went to see speedway at the Rayleigh Weir Stadium, Essex. The last meeting there was on 20th October 1973. The Rockets did re-emerge at Rye House in Hertfordshire, but alas are no more.
F926 NHK on display for an open day at the Vulcan Restoration Trust. Outside of Hanger 6 at London Southend Airport, Essex.
This Dennis RS is in private ownership now after service with Essex County Fire and Rescue Service, mainly at Harlow.
In the outside lane is a Johnston C201 Compact Road Sweeper.
Photograph is just within the area prematurely named City Beach when Southend-On-Sea was bidding for city status, and lost out to Chelmsford.
Code For America Summit 2018
May 31 + June 1
Oakland, CA
Drew Bird Photography
San Francisco Bay Area Photographer
Have Camera. Will Travel.
drew@drewbirdphoto.com
The Bluebell Railway have a good number of early railway carriages from the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. Many of the restored carriages have a story behind them, often rescued from being used as static buildings.
There are carriages of this style that had served with, London Chatham and Dover Railway, London Brighton and South Coast Railway and the Metropolitan Railway.
FGZ 3109 works out of the Milewater Depot in Belfast. It is in the dedicated Airport Express livery working the route between Belfast International Airport and the Europa Bus Centre in the heart of Belfast. Powered by a modest 5132cc diesel engine.
Photographed here at Belfast International Airport.
The superb FMM 714J on display at the Steam and Transport Festival 2019. Historic Dockyard Chatham.
The 1296cc engine in the 13/60 models gave a much needed
boost in performance over the earlier 1147cc and 948cc power units. A long time since I drove any of the Herald models now.
Baya Weaver bird working its nest on a palm tree in a garden near Ludhiana, Punjab.
Once the nest is partially built, the male hangs from it and courts females by flapping its wings. The nest is completed after a female accepts courtship and joins the nest for breeding.
CSF 984L at the Festival of Steam and Transport 2019. Historic Dockyard, Chatham.
The paperwork on the windscreen tells the story of recovering the car from a farm barn, rebuilding it and then driving the Dyane to Kazakhstan rally style, raising money for charity by doing so. All done with a 602cc engine for power.
The area of the central theme of the film A Bridge Too Far, although a different bridge had been used in the film.
John Frost Bridge was opened in 1948, built in the same style as the famous bridge in Operation Market Garden. That had originally been built in the period 1932-35, so a relatively young bridge in 1940 when the Dutch destroyed it and the Germans rebuilt it.
Major-General John Dutton Frost was in command of the small Airborne force that actually made it to the bridge at Arnhem from the drop zones so far away from the town. The battle raged from 17th September until 26th September 1944. The Airborne forces were overwhelmed by the numerically superior and well equipped German Army units in the area.. Had the Allied ground forces working their way up from inside the Belgian border via the other famous bridge at Nijmegen been about 12 hours ahead in their push towards Arnhem the outcome would probably have been different. ¾ of the 1st Airborne Division was effectively wiped out in this one action. A force of over 10,000 men reduced to around 2,000 by deaths, capture or wounded. The bridge at Arnhem was about 60 miles inside the German lines. The Dutch had destroyed the bridge in 1940 and it took the German forces until August 1944 to rebuild it. A pontoon bridge had been used at this important crossing point of the lower Rhine for the intervening years.
The 1st Airborne Division had been formed in late 1941 and disbanded in November 1945.
Photo taken in 2019
BJ11 ECV on the A13 London Road about to head out of Westcliff-On-Sea in to Chalkwell, Essex.
Hadleigh based First Essex 69519 working route 28 from Southend-On-Sea to Basildon, Essex.
Volvo B7RLE / Wright Eclipse Urban 2,
GJN 421N at the Rochford Hundred Agricultural Society's Ploughing Match 2019. Held at Hall Farm, Little Stambridge Hall Road near Rochford, Essex.
The Ford 3000 tractor was produced over a 10 year period in the USA, Belgium and Basildon, England.
In September 1944 the German pontoon bridge was about in line with the building seen across the canal beyond the current bridge. The building was used to house a 88mm gun.
The starting point of the ground offensive element of Operation Market Garden in September 1944.
The bridge photographed here is a post war construction. When the Allied Forces took control of this area on 10th September 1944 a German built pontoon bridge was in place here replacing the original bridge destroyed in 1940 to slow down the German advance.
Crossing the Bocholt-Herentals Canal this is Bridge Number 9, taken and protected by the 615th Field Squadron, RE, known as Joe's Troops. Crossing the bridge the road leads to, Valkenswaard, Eindhoven, Nijmegen and Arnhem. If the ground troops taking this route had not been ordered to stop for overnight resting the result of Operation Market Garden may well have achieved its objectives. Being 12 hours late appears to have been the difference .
In the Protestant Church at Driel, Netherlands hangs this memorial to the 1st Airborne Division for their part in the September 1944 landings and bitter fighting at Arnhem (A Bridge Too Far).
Photo taken in 2019.
Chequered Keelback snake swimming in the lake at Harike Wildlife Sanctuary, Punjab.
The snake looked to be six feet long - which is an unlikely size for a keelback - and seemed to be going after an egret foraging on a hyacinth island. That made me think that it was a python. But back home, a closer look at the image presented a different story altogether.