47810 stands on platform 5 at Manchester Piccadilly after arriving with 1H26 08:51 Birmingham New Street - Manchester Piccadilly vice Virgin XC Vomiter on the 29th April 2003

Obviously communication between Virgin XC control & Network Rail was fine on this day, as platform 5 at Manchester Piccadilly is the only platform where you could run the loco round. As this was taken some 8 months after Virgin XC had ditched loco hauled trains & inflicted their hideous Vomiters on the general public, so no spare loco's were on Longsight to drop onto the stock for the return working so 47810 had to run around its train. 22 years later & the general public are still having the woefully inadequate now 'Arriva' XC Vomiters rammed down their throats, still with the same pokey rancid interiors & no sign of a replacement anytime soon.

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I was still only 14yrs old when I took this & it was a few days before I turned 15yrs old. So please don't judge it too harshly.

Plenty of interest though to catch the eye, the loaded post office trolleys on platform 6, the GUV's stabled up on platform 2, the 80s fashion on the young lad taking an interest in 85032 & it's train, then there's the lack of yellow warning line or tactile paving on the platform. Better & more interesting times.

Scanning the neg in, I noticed that 85032 carries a double arrow transfer under the 2nd mans side window & not a cast double arrow in the middle of the bodyside like most 85s did. Only took me 39yrs to notice that.

85032 hauls an intermodal train through the then recently opened centre roads and remodelled Crewe on the 1st March 1986

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LNER 5P6F 2-6-0 Class K4 No 61994 'The Great Marquess' heads a northbound passsenger train through the closed Boulton's Copper Works at Froghall on the Churnet Valley Railway with a working for Cheddleton on 27th January 2007

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A Re-Edited Post

Tags:   LNER 2-6-0 BR ER West Midlands Staffordshire Froghall CVR Boultons Copper Works 5P6F Class K4 Gresley Churnet Valley Railway British Railways No 61994 - The Great Marquess passenger Froghall - Cheddleton restored preserved monochrome digital image January 2007 Nikon D200

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37894 heads for Aberthaw power station with a trainload of coal from Tower Colliery as it passes Morganstown, north of Radyr.

This was my last photograph on a successful, albeit low shot count day shooting coal trains in the Cardiff Valleys. We had shot the empties that formed this train on the approach to Tower Colliery ( flic.kr/p/2nHHz2R ) , shot it on the loading pad, shot it leaving and then chased it down for a further two shots.

This, the former Taff Vale Railway main line once had a four track formation but was reduced to double track shortly after my visit . It is now electrified.

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DRS Class 68 No. 68017 'Hornet' runs along the coastline at Nethertown working the delayed 6C16 Drigg to Shap Summit Quarry on Wednesday 5th February 2025.

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