A Few Trains in the Neighbourhood

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Trains are more a feature of work than my spare time, but this blog might suggest otherwise since a bunch of posts have included trains. I live right by the south-west mainline, so we have plenty of trains coming by and I rarely pay any attention to them. Periodically, we get something a little unusual come by and, when I see that from home, it gets me thinking about whether there is somewhere good to get photos.

I had seen a location just south of Winchester that seemed like it might be a good photo location and figured I would check it out at some point. One Saturday morning, I was kicking my heels trying to think of something to do and this spot came into my mind. I only had a relatively short time before I had some other stuff planned but I decided to go and try it out.

We had the regular traffic coming through but there was some freight movement and the weekly transit of the Chiltern unit that has deeper maintenance done at Eastleigh and then heads back up to is home base. I can often hear it pass the house since the loco is quite a distinctive sound compared to the other diesels that pass regularly. Here are a few shots of the trains.

Unusual German WWII Planes

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The Steve Udvar-Hazy Center has aircraft from across the world and eras but does have some very unusual Second World War aircraft. The US acquired a variety of types at the end of the war from the German programmes which were taken home to evaluate. Some of these ended up in the hands of the Smithsonian when they were no longer needed. Two interesting examples are now on display at Dulles. These include a jet powered bomber and a puss-pull fighter.

The Arado AR234 Blitz is a conventional looking plane if you set aside the engine pods under the wings. To a modern eye, it looks very tame, but I imagine it was something special at the time. Next to it is the Dornier DO335 Pfeil – a push-pull configuration piston engined fighter. This was not a unique design idea for Germany. The US had a similar concept – an example of which I saw in Kalamazoo. So much innovative aerospace concepts were developed in the heat of war and these two are very rare examples of what was underway at that time.

Dawlish Seafront

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The beginning of our holiday to Cornwall and Devon included a stop in Exeter for lunch and then, since we were so close to Dawlish, I decided to take a diversion down there. I had seen numerous pictures of Dawlish over the years with waves crashing against the wall and spray covering passing trains. Seemed a no-brainer to check it out – admittedly on a rather calmer day. We parked up along the seafront and took one of the footbridges over the tracks to the walkway along the shore. This whole area had a significant rebuild in recent years as a result of some storm damage. The tide was out and people were down walking on the beach.

I was a little surprised to find that, beyond the station, the fencing ended and there was quite a drop off the edge of the path down to the beach. I guess people just take care. I was trying to work out what some of the shapes of concrete were on the beach. At first, I thought they might be the remains of previous structures but, after looking at them further, I decided that they were sewer drainage pipes. If anyone knows differently, please let me know.

After walking for a while, we backtracked at went under the tracks at the station. Time to grab an ice cream because were were on holiday. Then we sat on a bench along the river as it comes into the shore. Apparently, Dawlish has an association with black swans and there were several down in the river. Not sure of the story on that one. It was only a brief stop, but it was nice to see this place for myself after all of these years.

Air Peace Almost Catches Me Out

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During my visit to Heathrow for the Cathay special, I was looking at the list of inbound types to see if there was anything else that would be of interest. An Air Peace 777 was listed but it didn’t show its departure time so I figured that it might have been cancelled. Consequently, I wasn’t expecting it to show up. Consequently, when I saw it appear on approach using FR24, I was delighted and rather surprised. Here is is – another new operator to see in person.

Sheep Have Replaced the Cattle

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During the summer, I have been taking a lot of opportunities to be out on the bike – not least because I was training for the Ride the Route charity ride. This meant I didn’t go walking around the reserve near the house at Barton Meadows. When I had last been there, the cattle had gone and the area was reverting to a meadow. I did finally get to walk around the trail recently and was surprised to see that some sheep had been introduced. I couldn’t resist getting some photos of the new residents and also took some video of them. They are way more mobile than I expected. Always on the move!

Even a Gloomy Day Can Yield Some Aviation

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Sometimes, my aviation explorations take me to lower key locations. Snohomish is about 20 minutes north of where we lived in Woodinville and it has a small airfield, named Harvey Field. I was interested in the skydiving operations that they undertake there using a Cessna 208 and went up to have a look around. It was not a particularly nice day but still good enough for some flying to be underway – but not the skydiving! There was a Cessna 152 doing some pattern work and a Super Decathlon came in while I was there. These shots remind me of how much aviation takes place that might not normally get much attention.

L’Eixample

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On one of our days in Barcelona, we took a trip to a neighbourhood called L’Eixample. Nancy had read about the geometry of the blocks in the area with the buildings in a grid but with each block shaped like an octagon. This makes each intersection more like a square (although the roads through disrupt the idea a bit). While the buildings are in the same layout, the architecture of each structure is individual so there is plenty of variety to see.

We didn’t have a huge amount of time to play with, but we did manage to walk through quite a few of the streets and I was taken with the patterns that the balconies made on the walls. If I had planned a photo trip, I would have gone with a wider-angle lens to allow me to bring more of the shapes into the image. Instead, I worked with the phone to see what I could get. It was a really interesting area, and it is nice to know that such interesting architecture can survive without redevelopment taking it down.

NH-90 Encounters

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With over 400 helicopters in service, the NH-90 is a widely used type. Built by a consortium of European manufacturers for many nations, the programme has not been covered in glory. Australia was not happy with theirs and retired them early. Similarly, Norway got into a dispute which involved them saying they wanted to hand them back. A settlement has now resulted in them being bought back. Despite these two, there are other countries making plenty of use of the type.

However, I have only seen them at one place and that is RIAT. The Dutch Navy and the German Army have brought example to the show, and these are the only ones I have been able to photograph. Now I live back on this continent, I might have more opportunities, but we shall see. In the meantime, I decided to go through my shots and see what I have of the type.

There are a couple of things that I like about the airframe. The angular shaping makes me wonder whether they were looking to be stealthy. However, with all of the other features bolted on the outside, I suspect this thing really shows up on someone’s radar. It also seems like quite a low profile. The rotor head is low down. I suspect that this is designed to make it air transportable in a variety of aircraft. Whatever the design choices, I think it looks like a purposeful type and hope to photograph many more soon.

The Narrow-Gauge Railway at Exbury

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I have posted some photos of the gardens at Exbury as well as some steam engines on the roads. However, it also has a narrow-gauge railway that has both steam and diesel locomotives. It takes people for a ride through the gardens. We didn’t take a ride, but we did see the trains a few times during our walk.

There are a few crossings where the trains intersect the pathways, and a whistle will give you a heads up that they are coming. The route also takes the trains around the back of the dragonfly pond. Plenty of spots to see the trains. At the end of one of our visits, the last train was running, and it was being hauled by a bunch of locos for some reason. When they came back, they stopped early and detached a few of the locos to allow them to come in separately. Then the train came in and the remaining loco was moved on to the turntable. Seems like a cool little operation.

Why Does the Black Widow Fascinate Me?

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In my early teens, I got into model making. One of the things I used to look forward to was when Airfix released their catalogue for the year. This included the new releases and, one year, they released a kit of the Northrop P-61 Black Widow. I had never heard of this type at the time. WWII aircraft weren’t really my thing then. However, for some reason, this plane really caught my attention. Not enough to buy the kit though – too many modern jets for me to focus on!

For some reason, this fascination with the P-61 has stuck with me. There aren’t many of them in preservation so, when I see one in a museum, I am drawn to it. There is one supposedly being restored to flight but that is a multi-year effort which will take a while yet. The NASM has on at the Udvar-Hazy annex. I was keen to get shots of it. However, they do seem to have done a decent job of tucking it in between other airframes that makes getting a clean shot tricky. I did the best I could with angles between other planes or getting elevated.