monorail: Robin Barbour collection

New on the "monorail" pages, the first of many from another northern railway photographer, Robin Barbour of Hawick on the old Waverley Route. Robin sadly died last year, and the proceeds from the sale of his railway book collection have paid for an eccentric crank for the new A1 "Tornado" - what a great legacy!
Visit page 1 - "Wandering Willie" on the monorail pages.

Rail Diaries - Metrolink

Just published to "Rail Diaries" - "Lowry and trams" - an illustrated account of the trip on 15 February 2007

Trams and Lowry

A little trip to Manchester, by rail from Shropshire, and by tram from central Manchester to "The Lowry", the gallery established on the derelict docklands to display, among other things, the works of L S Lowry. Can't say the "other things" were quite my cup of tea - World Cup photography and football art (!), but it was great to see the originals of those "matchstalk men and dogs" which we've been familiar with for many years.


The new(ish) Metrolink tramway through the docklands is great fun - lots of ups and downs and tight curves. The rail journey? - bang on time both ways, but the crammed conditions in two- and three-car trains are hardly going to tempt motorists into greener habits...

A fall of snow...

...which turned out to be perhaps the heaviest snowfall for over 20 years. Some photographic opportunities - shame about the lack of sunshine. By the time we had a little sunshine, most of the snow had melted.