Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: first

This is...yet another Battersea Park shot!! :-) This time, though, instead of viewing it from the LB&SCR mainline, we're seeing it from the old GWR. I think that this shot may in some ways be much better than the other one, though, in spite of the better detail on the other one. I like the color and contrast on this one better.

When I went to Keighley to ride the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway for the third time, however, I departed from Bradford Forster Square rather than Leeds New. Here my train is on the left, with another 333 sitting over on the adjacent track.

Maybe the best known service worked by 333s other than the Heathrow Express is the Metro Trains service from Leeds New Station to Skipton. This service, which is monsterously fast for a local service, with 100 m.p.h. sometimes possible, was originally worked by old Class 307 EMUs with slam doors!! I actually had a chance to ride some of the last of those in 1998 before these 333s came into service. When I rode the 307s, it was on the way to Keighley for my first ride on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway.

This was yet another random shot in Leeds, this one of 155347, which while quite old, was nevertheless painted in the new Northern Trains advertising livery.

Here's another shot of a Class 185, only this time pulling into Leeds New Station. It wasn't going anywhere close to its full 125 m.p.h. speed, of course, but was blurred because I was shooting at f4 and 1/30, I think.

Not convinced that I had gotten the earlier shot of 185140, I moved in as close as I could while still getting the whole front end, and used my flash. This was what I got, decent, but surprisingly not as good as the first shot. It's that ugly bleaching from the flash, as usual.

Among the newest trains in Britain are these Class 185 DMUs, which are intended for express and longer-distance regional services outside of electrified territory. Obviously, they often wander in and out from under the wires, and here's an example of that at Leeds, where 185140 is waiting to depart with a service to Middlesborough. In order to allow them to make full use of the British rail network and not hold up traffic, Class 185s are authorized to run at 125 m.p.h. where track conditions permit, as on this service. I originally never expected this shot to come out properly, as I shot it at f4 and 1/45, which I was sure would blur, but in reality it came out quite crisp, to my amazement.

This was the Class 158 that took me and some friends to a concert in Leeds. I wasn't the only railfan, but I was the only one with a camera. :-)