Some seasonal snow scenes from the Tonghua area of north-east China 30 years ago, when everything was still steam worked. It seems a world away now in these times of Covid lockdowns and travel bans.

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go to Tonghua area photo gallery

Turkey has now been migrated to the newer style of photo gallery and 11 new images have been added to the 3 already there. All the existing pictures are now a bit larger than they were.

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go to Turkey photo galleries

Slovakia has now been migrated to the newer style of photo gallery with the ability to view images by line, class etc. There are only a handful of new images but all the existing pictures are now a bit larger than they were.

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go to Slovakia photo galleries

Spain has now been migrated to the newer style of photo gallery with the ability to view images by line, class etc. No new images but some are now a bit larger than they were.

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France has now been migrated to the newer style of photo gallery with the ability to view images by line, class, operator, traction type etc. No new images but most are now a bit larger than they were.

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The line from Westbury to Cogload Junction, near Taunton, carries inter city passenger traffic from London to the West of England as well as local services between Bristol and Weymouth, all worked by units these days. The east end of the line, around Westbury and Frome also sees a significant amount of freight traffic, most of it limestone from Merehead and Whatley quarries, which is taken to destinations all over southern England. The stone workings are of particular interest as they employ Class 59 diesels as well as the ubiquitous Class 66s. These pictures were taken in September 2019, around 6 weeks before Freightliner took over the stone workings from DB Cargo.

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go to 135 Westbury - Cogload Jn photo gallery

Zimbabwe's Garratts were active on line work into the 1990s, handling heavy trains on the Victoria Falls and West Nicholson lines from Bulawayo long after their South African and East African counterparts had been retired. A first batch of 18 new photos have been added, showing locos of Classes 15, 16A and 20 at work in 1987 with, as a free bonus, a look at one of the CFM Class 951 Garratts, fresh from overhaul at ZECO. There are plenty more where these came from, to be scanned when time permits.

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go to Zimbabwe photo galleries

The Czech photo galleries have been updated to the same format as China, UK, Germany, Switzerland etc, so it's now possible to view the contents by classes, operators or train types as well as by lines. In the process 40 new photos have been added to the galleries, covering all sorts of traction, and many of the photos are significantly larger than they were before.

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go to Czech Republic photo galleries

Added a new gallery for pictures from the Nancha area of Heilongjiang. Only a handful of pictures there at the moment with more to follow when the opportunity arises. Also added a few extra pictures to the Jiamusi, Mudanjiang and Harbin galleries and more to the Lanzhou - Wuweinan gallery. Plenty of QJ shots and one DFH3 diesel.

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go to Harbin Bureau : Nancha Area gallery
go to Harbin Bureau : Jiamusi Area gallery
go to Harbin Bureau : Mudanjiang Area gallery
go to Harbin Bureau : Harbin Area gallery
go to Lanzhou Bureau : Lanzhou - Wuweinan gallery

The next instalment in the Chinese photo saga, a few pictures from the Zhongwei - Gantang line, a section of the long route from Beijing to Lanzhou via Inner Mongolia. Westbound trains face around 60km of 1 in 80 gradients as they climb out of the Yellow River Valley and onto the fringes of the Gobi Desert. It was a spectacular place to see single, double and sometimes triple headed QJs hard at work in the early 1990s. The first diesels arrived in late 1993 and electrification followed shortly afterwards.

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go to Zhongwei - Gantang Line gallery

Yet more Chinese pictures including a few taken at Tangshan Works in 1988 when it was building new SYs. There's a new Tangshan Locomotive Works gallery and a few newly processed pics added to existing galleries.

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go to Tangshan Locomotive Works gallery

More Chinese pictures, mainly from the Tonghua and Jilin areas in the late 1980s and early 1990s and a mixture of steam and diesel subjects.

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go to Shenyang Bureau : Tonghua Area gallery
go to Shenyang Bureau : Jilin Area gallery

Added a selection of pictures taken at Baotou and Changchun depots in the late 1980s and early 1990s, mainly of QJs. There are also a couple of pictures taken inside Changchun Works.

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go to Hohhot Bureau : Baotou Area gallery
go to Shenyang Bureau : Changchun Area gallery

After a major exercise to track down and file numerous film images scanned over the last decade or more and prepare them for publication, the first 38 pictures are now online. This batch were all taken on the JiTong line in Inner Mongolia between 1996 and 2002, when QJ Class 2-10-2s ruled the rails.

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go to JiTong Railway : Chabuga - Daban gallery
go to JiTong Railway : Daban - Haoluku gallery
go to QJ Class gallery

Added a batch of 50 (appropriately) photos taken between 1988 and 1990 on the LSWR main line, mainly between Woking and Farnborough but with a few closer to London. Classes 33, 50, 47 and 73 feature as do EMUs of several classes. There are new galleries for classes 33, 50, 421 (4-CIG), 423 (4-VEP) and 442.

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go to 158 Waterloo - Weymouth gallery
go to Class 33 gallery
go to Class 50 gallery

go to Class 421 gallery - - - - - go to Class 423 gallery - - - - - go to Class 442 gallery

A handful of new pictures taken in 2019 and 2020 around Peak Forest and Chinley, Wokingham, near Reading and Newtonhill, south of Aberdeen.

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go to 078 Peak District gallery
go to 148 Reading - Redhill gallery
go to 229 Dundee - Aberdeen gallery

A batch of 66 new photos taken between Maidenhead and Reading in 2016, while electrification work was taking place. There are some HSTs and DMUs but most pictures are of class 59s and 66s on freight. This takes the total number of UK images to over 1000.

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go to 125 Paddington - Reading gallery

A few more pictures from Barnetby in early 2019 and from the impressive new Reading station in August of that year. There's also a new Reading Area gallery bringing together all the photos taken within a 3 mile radius of Reading from the various galleries on the site.

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go to 029 Barnetby Area gallery
go to 125 Paddington - Reading gallery
go to Reading Area gallery

A return to the now partially electrified Berks and Hants, with 56 new photos taken on the wireless section from Newbury to Westbury in 2019, before Freightliner took over the Mendip stone contract. There are plenty of Class 59s, a number of Class 66s, a few IETs and even Network Rail's Class 950 Track Recording Train.

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go to 135 Reading - Westbury gallery

The final batch of 55 photos from the Dundee - Aberdeen line in 2019 featuring the usual mix of classes and locations.

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go to 229 Dundee - Aberdeen gallery

Yet more photos from the Dundee - Aberdeen line in 2019 and three new galleries covering ScotRail, VTEC/LNER and Caledonian Sleeper.

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go to 229 Dundee - Aberdeen gallery
go to ScotRail gallery
go to Caledonian Sleeper gallery
go to VTEC/LNER gallery

Another batch of photos from the Dundee - Aberdeen line in 2019 including DRS Class 66s and a Colas Class 70 on freight and a Class 73/9 on the Caledonian Sleeper. There are plenty of DMUs and HSTs on this scenic line as well, including the now departed LNER HSTs in their striking red and white livery.

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go to 229 Dundee - Aberdeen gallery

By early 2017 the electrification of the east end of the Berks and Hants line was beginning to make serious inroads into the number of photographic locations available between Reading and Newbury. These photos show freights, HSTs and DMUs on the line as the poles went up. It was good while it lasted.

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go to 135 Reading - Westbury gallery

Sorry, no locos in this batch of pictures. It's all units, taken at various places between Clapham Junction and Gatwick Airport on the old SR Central Division. There are also new galleries for Class 375, 377, 379 and 387 EMUs, for Class 455 and 456 EMUs and for the predominant operator on the route, Southern.

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go to 170 Victoria - East Croydon gallery
go to 186 East Croydon - Brighton gallery
go to Class 375, 377, 379 & 387 gallery
go to Class 455-456 gallery
go to Southern gallery

The Didcot - Swindon section of the GWML was one I ignored until it was almost too late. It doesn't have the scenery or the volume of freight traffic that can be found elsewhere but turned out to be a lot more attractive than anticipated, until the poles went up.

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go to 125 Didcot - Swindon gallery

The discovery that time machines are exempt from lockdown restrictions prompted me to go back to the early 1980s, visiting Glasgow in January 1981 and Manchester in January 1982, or maybe I just found some old scans that hadn't yet been published. Either way, it was a completely different world back then, in the days before the entire population was convicted of breathing and put under house arrest.

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go to Manchester Area gallery

Another set of pictures from the East Midlands taken in early 2019, specifically on the Stenson Jn - Sheet Stores Jn line and the Midland Main Line north of Leicester, both of which now have their own galleries. There's also a new gallery for the East Midlands passenger franchise, sadly all units apart from the occasional HST, and another for Class 73s, which should have been published along with the Scottish photos.

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go to 053 Midland Main Line gallery
go to 054 Stenson Jn - Sheet Stores Jn gallery
go to East Midlands Trains gallery
go to Class 73 gallery

Some more pictures taken north of the border in recent years, comprising 7 images from the Glasgow - Dundee line and the first 35 from the Dundee - Aberdeen line. It's been all change in the North-East of Scotland recently and several of these shots show traction that's now been replaced or reliveried, including HSTs in Virgin and LNER colours and DRS 68s on freight.

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go to 229 Glasgow - Dundee gallery
go to 229 Dundee - Aberdeen gallery

The last of this batch of catch up images consists of 24 pictures taken in the Rugby area over the past few years. Plenty more pictures to come but they need sorting out first, so it may be a few days before the next batch appear.

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go to 065 Euston - Crewe gallery
go to LNWR and West Midlands Rly gallery

A selection of pictures from the Birmingham Area and the lines to Derby and Peterborough via Leicester. Many of the images date from 2003, only 17 years ago but another world as far as the rail scene is concerned.

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go to 047 Water Orton - Peterborough gallery
go to 057 Birmingham - Derby gallery
go to Birmingham Area gallery

Another 20 photos from the UK added to the website, all from Kings Sutton, south of Banbury, together with new galleries covering the Aynho - Jn to Leamington line, Chiltern Trains and Class 68 diesels.

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go to 071 Aynho Jn - Leamington - Coventry gallery
go to Class 68 gallery
go to Chiltern Trains gallery

The UK catch up continues with 53 photos taken over the last few years, mainly in the Oxford area and including the transition from HSTs to IETs as well as good number of freights. A few holes have also been plugged with new galleries, including Class 67s and Network Rail.

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go to 116 Didcot - Aynho Jn gallery
go to Class 67 gallery
go to Network Rail gallery

36 new photos added to the UK galleries from 3 day trips to East Anglia in late summer 2019, concentrating on the Class 90 electrics working between Norwich and London and the class 37 diesels covering a Norwich - Great Yarmouth/Lowestoft diagram. Both the 37s and the 90s have since been replaced by new multiple units.

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go to 011 Liverpool St - Norwich gallery
go to 015 Norwich - Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft gallery

27 new photos added to the UK galleries from visits in recent years to Edinburgh and the Abington area on the north side of Beattock, mostly units but a few locos. There are several new categories as well for TransPennine Express, DRS, Class 350 and Class 390 EMUs.

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go to 065 Carlisle - Glasgow gallery
go to Edinburgh Area gallery

A large selection of pictures from my latest trip to China in late November and early December 2019 have been added to the photo galleries. The vast majority are steam shots from Sandaoling but there's also a shot of a new long-distance EMU at Beijing.

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go to Beijing Bureau - Beijing City gallery

The report from my latest trip to China in late 2019, only 3 months late this time. Once again the destination was the opencast coal mine at Sandaoling, just about the only place where real working steam locomotives can be seen these days.

go to Sandaoling Soldiers On report