Tag: railway

June 10th – Anyone interested in the canals of the Black Country knows about Smethwick Galton Bridge – the beautiful cast iron structure; the multiple railways, roads and two canals intersecting at different heights.

However, there’s something not half a mile away that’s as wonderful; where the M5 crosses a railway, which is running alongside two canals, and crossing a third.

This is a fantastic thing – right next to the sadly derelict Chance Glassworks, Victorian Aqueduct jars with 60s brutalism, which pays no heed to the water. A fine, fine thing that makes one wonder at the progress of engineering, the wildlife that perches in such situations, and the smallness the scale makes you feel.

You may not agree, but it’s beautiful in it’s harshness and ingenuity.

May 14th – The first century day ride of the year saw me travel to Congleton in Cheshire first thing. It was a nice journey with a single change at Stoke, which is a very underrated station.

I love the wide open, light and airy feel it has, and a decent buffet, too. Stations like this are a pleasure to wait in, and I’ve always loved this one.

Let’s hope it isn’t ruined in a drive to ‘modernise it, just as Rugby was. 

March 7th – Meeting a friend of the train at Walsall to ride home together, the sunset was vivid and beautiful. This isn’t the most handsome of stations, trapped in the red-brick late 70s gap been brutalism and the utilitarianism of the 80s, it’s functional and a decent place to get a train or wait. 

I don’t know why, but I love this place at twilight.

February 7th – A better day, but still grey and showery, with a building wind. I nipped out for a short run to Chasewater, where I noted the water level still rising and the valves still closed. It’ll be interesting to see if the powers that be let the water overflow again this year.

Over at the Chasewater Railway, I noted a new arrival – a rather unusual looking shunting engine with a very continental appearance. It’s carrying the Corus logo – once of course British Steel and now Tata – and from a little Googling I can see it’s come from the former Lackenby Steelworks, which closed a while back.

It’s an interesting thing and I’d love to know more about it. It certainly looks very powerful.

February 5th – I’d nipped into Brum late in the afternoon on an errand, and came back to Shenstone on a surprisingly empty commuter service. The wind was again building up and it wasn’t going to be a pleasant ride home. 

I love Shenstone Station. It’s like a lot of things in life – it was once truly beautiful, but is now aged, still beautiful, but weatherworn and a haunting reminder of something once glorious. At night in particular, it whispers of a more genteel railway age.

Leaving here on a Friday with a bad ride home to come, the one frustrating aspect is the steps. The northbound platform from which I alighted has no level access, and one must heft the bike up the steps, only to ride back down to the same level off the bridge.

It always seems a little bit pointless, like an assault course… but it’s always nice to be here.

February 4th – Yes, I know, vandalism. But I couldn’t fail to be intrigued by this graffiti I spotted mid day when travelling through Droitwich station. Anagrams. Then the cryptic ‘Elm is a Lea Tree’. It must be a message, I’d guess to ‘Miles’, but who knows?

Mindless graffiti is bad kids, don’t do it. But it is unusual to see something so literary.

Odd place, Droitwich.

January 11th – Another reason I wasn’t feeling too chipper was I’d forgotten my camera, but felt like I might have lost it. I hadn’t, thankfully, just in the general cloud of roughness that morning I’d left it behind.

Returning to Shenstone tired, I chanced my hand at a couple of night shots of my beloved station, and have been genuinely surprised at how decent the phone camera is in low light. 

A bit grainy, but I don’t think it did too bad. Surprising.

December 16th – New Street, mid morning. These are not photos of the station pre-upgrade, but afterwards. Some of it may be improved later, but nothing shows the  shallowness of the turd-polish this project really was than this view; just a little away from a main route through the station, bare 60s concrete, dirty 80s cladding and ugly, dark structures. 

New Street looks stunning in press photos from the concourse, and from the streets nearby; but use it and you soon realise that the Emperor has no clothes and the station is still failing, still unpleasant and still unfit for purpose.

You can’t polish a turd, as the saying goes, but they have rolled this one in glitter.

December 6th – A late spin around Chasewater, and the railway caught my eye. Finished for the day, the carriages were left on the platform for cleaning and the engine in the sidings further over towards the shed. I loved the light, the open doors and the gathering dusk. There was a real atmosphere of abandonment, as if everyone had just disappeared in some 1950s rush hour sic-fi movie.

I was lucky to catch this.

November 30th – Telford, early in the rain. Not quite fully light. The skeletal, brutalist 80s footbridge and covered walkway at the station is like some strange portal. Ghosts of people, further away than you think; exaggerated perspective and peculiarly yellow lighting.

An otherworldly, slightly unsettling place.