Loose_Grip/Pete's photos with the keyword: black&white

Like many of the South Wales coal mines the Big Pit at Blaenavon was located high up on the valley side above the village. What's missing at what is now a museum is the huge spoil tip that loomed behind the site when it was active. HFF to everyone. Have a great weekend.

On the northern coast of the island of Skye. HFF to everyone. Have a great weekend.

The fireman of Stanier Black 5 4-6-0 45305 has overcooked it in the station but the combination of swirling steam and sunlight makes for a stirring sight as she departs Loughborough with a train for Leicester.

Is it a window or a wall? The New Orleans Superdome as seen from the Hyatt Regency. HWW to everyone. Have a great day.

A Northern Class 185 dmu heads south out of Leeds station over Globe Road bridge in the rain. There are lots of diesels running over these electrified lines! The bridge in the foreground is ex-LNWR and is part of the disused 1882 viaduct line to Farnley Junction, hopefully retained for a possible future reopening?

We were living in The Hague at this time and made a Sunday visit to nearby Delft. A fairly quiet day generally but ideal for wandering around the streets and canals of this beautiful town. This view is from Catharijnebrug looking along Oosteinde towards the Nieuwe Kerk on the Markt in the centre of the city. The Kleine Oostpoortbrug is behind the camera. HFF to everyone & have a great weekend.

French commuter steam at Paris Gare du Nord as 141TC39 (ex-ETAT 42.039) departs rapidly northwards. These big 2-8-2 tanks, built by Fives-Lille in 1922, were impressive machines & at this time they were working the very intensive suburban services push & pull, smokebox first, out of Paris. While my then girlfriend had lectures on her year ahead as a French assistant in Verdun I hung around Gare du Nord & Gare de la Bastille taking in the Gallic steam atmosphere. The girlfriend ended up married to a frenchman, steam disappeared & the TGV arrives at these platforms now. C'est la vie!

I lived in Birmingham in the 1970s and the Broad Street area of the city was fairly unexciting and the canals, while atmospheric, were run-down. This all changed in the 1990s and the area is now the hub of Birmingham's regeneration with a good blend of old and new. It's still possible to get a virtually unchanged view of the old at the junction of the Birmingham Canal Navigation & the Worcester and Birmingham Canal in the city centre of Birmingham. This bridge was build by the Horseley Iron Works of Staffordshire in 1827. HFF & have a great weekend.

On the edge of the Gobi desert. JS 2-8-2 8366, on the eastern mines branch, brings its 20 empty China Rail coal wagons back to Nanzhan yard with the beautiful snow-capped mountains of the Tian Shan behind.

First Trans-Pennine Class 185 diesel multiple unit crosses Union Mill (Batley) Viaduct just south of Batley station as seen from Back Station Road. It is travelling south on the ex-London North Western Railway Thornhill LNW Junction to Holbeck East Junction line opened in 1848. Next stop is Dewsbury to the south. HFF & have a great weekend.

A reworked & re-cropped version of an earlier post. Ivatt 4MT 2-6-0 43106 darkens the skies over Lancashire while filling its tender from the archaic looking water column. Her blower is hard on to lift the smoke & get up steam ready to depart the shed for the Severn Valley Railway at Bridgnorth and a new life in preservation. Stanier 8F Class No 48476 had its day of fame on 4th August double-heading 1L50, the RCTS 'End of Steam' tour with Standard 5 73069.

The abandoned down platform of the MGWR station at Mullingar is slowly deteriorating. The up platform looks in better shape but neither are in railway operational use. Note the junction signal box in the centre distance. The line from here to Athlone opened in 1851 as the first line from Dublin to Galway but with intercity trains diverted in 1973 it closed for passengers in 1987 and freight in the 1990s. Trains to Galway are now concentrated on the old Great Southern and Western Railway via Portarlington to Athlone. HFF & have a great weekend.

Shadows.

A scene that has changed out of recognition in the last 50 years! The Trent & Mersey Canal meandered through Shelton Bar steelworks and many a splendid industrial vista could be seen from the tow path. The gas holder, cables, pipework and scrap piles cannot hide the impressive Wolstanton church on the skyline.

The Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven is situated on top the former Aztec sacred precinct near the Templo Mayor on the northern side of the Plaza de la Constitución. It was built in sections from 1573 to 1813 around the original church that was constructed soon after the Spanish conquest of Tenochtitlan. It's not your eyes, the building was structurally unstable because much of Mexico City is built upon the dried lakebed of Lake Texcoco. Restoration work beginning in the 1990s stabilized the cathedral and it was removed from the endangered list in 2000

Fighting against the fierce gradient and the curvature JS 2-8-2 8167 pulls its load of side-tippler coal trucks out of the deep open cast pit at Sandaoling.

The Great Northern and London & North Western railways opened the southern section of their joint line from Melton Mowbray to the junctions at Welham and Drayton in 1879. It included a tunnel at East Norton and this viaduct over the valley at John O'Gaunt. The railway closed to passengers in 1953 and completely in 1964. HFF and a great weekend!

A different kind of fisherman on Lake Inle. He is “fishing” for lake bottom weeds to use as fertiliser on his crops in the floating fields behind. The pile that he has already gathered appears to be about to engulf his boat.