December 12th – Off to Telford in the early morning in temperatures pushing minus 6 with a fresh fall of snow the night before. Blake Street Station looked oddly eerie in the dawn light and pure white, and as the electric 323 train rolled in past a familiar view of the Sutton Mast going in the opposite direction, the pantograph pickup arced continuously and noisily due to the ice on the catenary wires.

A mesmerising sight,  I couldn’t help wondering if ithe 25,000 volt arc degraded the pickup carbons or just burnt of the ice. 

Something you don’t witness too often, that.