LarryG's general album

[LarryG]

Regarding the nighttime shot at Berwyn.

It was next to impossible to work out a truly accurate time exposure with my hand-held light meter, so I didn't bother. With no tripod to hand, I firmly rested the camera (Mamiya 645) on the bridge parapet and propped it up at the required angle with a couple of small stones. The lens cap was gently held over the lens and the shutter manually opened and left open. As soon as the DMU stopped, I removed the lends cap to expose for 15 or more seconds with the aperture set at around f11. I also popped off the hand held flashgun a few time to add some light to the bridge and then the cap was held in front of the lens again until the driver opened the throttle. The lens cap was removed again to capture the exhaust. It was important to close the shutter as soon as the DMU started to move.

I knew where I was with a simple medium-format light-tight box such as I regularly used in 'film' days, but I cannot offer any advice on how to do it with a DSLR. Can a lens be kept open on a DSLR? Keeping one open could risk damaging the digital chip I expect.

 

[Focalplane]

I can certainly agree with your technique at Berwyn. Lucky you had an improvised tripod to hand!

Over 20 years ago, when I still had a superb film camera (Nikon F5) I had the opportunity to photograph a splendid firework show. Armed with a heavy tripod I joined thousands of others at a particularly good viewpoint which had been researched in the weeks before. I also had an electronic remote which helped to reduce camera shake, though the mirror was still active. My exposure with Fuji Astia (100 ASA) was around 8 to 16 seconds at a similar f stop to yours. At the time I owned a Jeep Wrangler so the tripod was carefully set up in the back with the canvas top down and we enjoyed the show which went on for about 30 minutes. Every photo I took was correctly exposed and the selected set are on an album on Flickr which I have just unlocked for general view.

Fireworks

As to DSLRs, I imagine the top of the range cameras can do what you did, Larry, but not the average camera. M yNikon D200, which is showing its age, cannot.

Paul

 

[LarryG]

Earlier days on the Llangollen Railway although the scene probably look older than that! The light was fading as Austin No.1, an industrial 0-6-0ST. had its fire thrown out. It is a shame there has never been the finances to put those old GWR Toplight coaches into traffic. They are over 100 years old now.

I foresee some ribald comments here.

 

[LarryG]

Llangollen shed bash.....Top link company for GWR 7822 as the fire is dropped on 28th March 1993...




So that's it. The last train has departed and the sun sets over the Llangollen Railway...

 

[LarryG]

Planet Narrow...

A visa of Tanygrisiau with the pumped storage generating station in the misty distance and a narrow gauge Festiniog Railway Double Fairlie heading out from Blaenau Ffestiniog in the days before Tanygrisiau station was fully developed into a passing place. I recall I took this shot from an old roofless cottage that hadn't been lived in for years. The chap with me told me he had put a bid in for it! Good luck mate. With a view like this, the expenditure must have been worth it. Steam from an approaching Down train can be seen in the distance...



As part of the Festniog Railway 150th Anniversary celebrations, a BR Class 47 No.47645 was named Robert F. Fairlie at Blaneau on 1st May 1986. After the ceremony, Earl of Merioneth hauled a special train on invited guests to Tan-Y-Bwlch. Seen coasting downgrade past the closed BR(M) Festiniog North station. This day was infamous for the Blaenau area receiving fall-out from the Chernobyle nuclear disaster...


Two double Fairlie locomotives, Merddin Emrys and Earl of Merioneth prove super power for the 16.00 Ffestiniog-Porthmadog. Pictured heading into the sun at Minffordd on 19th April 1991. The poster board beside the road advertises Portmerion, the village in the TV series 'The Prisoner'.

 

[LarryG]

Coal burning Palmeston storming past Boston Lodge Halt and a 1920's Austin Seven car on 3rd June 1993. This loco had been out of use for about 55 years and had only recently been restored at the time. It was standing in for Blanch on the Minffordd shuttle...


While Merddin Emrys (nearest the camera) prepares t leave Porthmadog with the 14.45 departure, the newest Double-Fairlie locomotive on the line, namely Dafydd Lloyd George, waits with the NENTA Railtours 'Ffestiniog & Snowdonia Explorer' on 24th April 1993...

 

[LarryG]

Still unfinished and later to be named David Lloyd George, the FR's newest locomotive was hauling its first public passenger train, the 10.45 Porthmadog-Blaenau Ffestiniog on 22nd July 1992. Pictured at Tanygrisiau in plain gloss black without dome covers and cab roof. I was on my way to cover the FR Gala at the request of Handel Kardas, editor of 'Railway World' while he gathered the words. This was shot on black & white before re-loading the camera with Ektachrome 100 for the magazine...


Earl of Merioneth built in 1979, a Double Fairlie from the Darth Vador school of design! The low view accentuates the angular lines of this loco as it departs Tanygrisia when quite new. Coaching stock at this period was maroon until a change of management in the mid-1980's brought with it brighter liveries.


Merdyn Emrys in fully lined out maroon receiving attention in the works yard at Boston Lodge...

 

[LarryG]

Ex. Penrhyn Railway Linda on Bank Holiday Monday 26th May 1986.....


There are some cute back roads and paths around Blaenau and Tanygrisiau that appear not to have changed in years and it is clear thta many were linked by a web of narrow gauge tracks at one time. When I walked this way in 1963 there was only rusty rails. Twenty-six years later, Mountaineer threads its way through the narrow alleys with the 13.30 Ffestiniog-Porthmadog on Easter Monday, 27th March 1989...

 

[simond]

About ten years earlier, you might have caught a young woollyback firing Linda with Warren Shepherd at the controls...

Several happy summer holidays in the late 70’s

Atb
Simon

 

[LarryG]

Merdyn Emrys coasting into Tanygrisiau on 6th September 2014. Unlike on gala events, there aren't many trains, so my visits are usually spent driving between here and Porthmadog...


I have had a soft spot for the Festiniog since the early 1960's, yet I took surprisingly few photos unless there was something new to report. When Liverpool Broad Green gave me a new lease of life in 2010 after assuming all was lost, the first place I headed for was Tan-Y-Bwlch because it was so good to be alive. That's how much I like the FR. Unlike heritage sites, it's a living railway that is constantly developing...

 

[Focalplane]

I too feel more at home visiting narrow gauge railways like the Ffestiniog. And now the Welsh Highland is there it’s even better.

Steam on the main line is my preference over 25mph heritage railways. A few years ago I was on an Hs125 going from Taunton to London. I looked up at the overpass junction west of Taunton to see Tangmere pulling a down special at speed. Just a glimpse but magical!

 

[LarryG]

For me, the mainline bashes bare no resemblance to the steam railway I grew up with for 25 years, so I head off over the hill to Portmadoc or Llangollen when I want a 'fix'. A less that spotless Black Five on blood & custards is more like it. 25th March 2017...



On the Corwen extension on 14th June 2017. It could easily pass for the Vale of Clwyd...

 

[Dave Holt]

The Ff&WHR are my favourite railways, too. I've always been intrigues by that incline in the background in the upper photo, which disappears into a tunnel near the top. Must have made operation a bit more challenging than most as the winch-men wouldn't have been able to see the lower section of the incline and must have worked blind, so-to-speak.
Dave.

 

[Mike Garwood]

What a lovely series of photos on this page. Thanks Larry.

Mike

 

[LarryG]

Thanks Mike, and to all those who have followed the thread.

 

[LarryG]

Back in the 1990's, I signed a form with permission to film from the cab of this loco with driver PhilH of this forum. It formed a 30 minute documentary on preparation (fire-raising, oiling round etc) before hitching onto the train and filming the route from the footplate and trackside. The 'still' was taken at the old terminus within the park at Llanberis.


Mary and I often include Llanberis on our trips out, and this picture shows a train some ten years later on the extension to the new terminus in Llanberis town. All the Quarry Hunslet locos carrying different liveries...

 

[LarryG]

Older people on here will remember certain classes of steam loco entering traffic only to read a few years later they were being withdrawn prematurely because of dieselization. The replacement form of traction was permanent, here to stay, and so it came as a shock to learn from a pal the diesels too were being withdrawn. Here was the perfect fodder for my brandnew shiny camera!

44008 Penyghent was one of the last Class 44 's, pictured here on a farewell tour at Chester on 21st January 1978. The Class 24's weren't doing so well either, so it was a neat touch putting 24133 on at Crewe to provide much-needed steam heating...


The Peaks were rarities on the North Wales mainline, that is until 19th June 1979 when 46045 turned up on the 15.40 Manchester Victoria-Bangor. It worked the service for three days and then they became rare again, but only for a while. 46045 on its first afternoon run to Bangor in Curzon Park Cutting, Chester...


Normally these services were in the hands of the Class 40's. On one of the few hot and sunny days of 1979, the 12.40 Manchester Vic-Llandudno snakes past Chester No.6 signal box behind an immaculate 40094 on 15th September 1979...

 

[LarryG]

This shot of 47452 entering Chester General with a Euston-Holyhead train in mid 1976 was among my first railway pictures on the new 35mm camera and was only taken to show off the LNWR signals. I was in Chester for the Guy Arab buses really! John Fozard developed the film and it showed me that 400ASA Tri-X film could deliver good results when sympathetically processed...


A Manchester -Mayfield bound empty van train threads its way past Chester no. 4 box behind an unidentified Class 25 on 22nd April 1977...


Mass enthusiasm for Diesels inspired by highly informative fortnightly railway magazines was still way into the future in the 1970's and so one never knew what to expect when trackside. The Class 24's had moved from being those bloody type 2's to highly prized specimens, and so I was pleased to capture 24023 and 24133 laying over in a siding on 11th February 1978...

 

[LarryG]

A very clean 40120 heads directly into the sun as it passes between the tunnels at Chester on 15th September 1979. The train was on its way to North Wales at 14.06 hrs, but I couldn't find it in the timetable at the time....


Just beyond the tunnels is Moorgate Locks. Diesel Parcels Unit No. M55994 crosses the Shropshire Union Canal en route to Chester on 11th April 1980....


Beyond the locks are the city walls from which this shot of 47466 was taken on 27th June 1981. Having left Chester on the down Slow line, this MGR working was about to regain the mainline at Crane Street...

 

[LarryG]

Class 40 No. 40001 crossing the Roodee Bridge over the River Dee with the Summer Saturday's Only 12.42 Manchester vic-Llandudno on 3rd September 1977. The two tracks in the foreground generally carried Western Region trains bound for Shrewsbury and beyond...


40 001 again, this time on BRT wagons, known locally as the Cokes, bound for Holyhead on 19th June 1979. Work was in progress renovating the GWR bridge so that it could carry ALL traffic and the LNWR bridge left out of use...


F