The weather this week has been continuously dreich – not exactly conditions to excite the photographer. There were also other commitments preventing me from getting out on the rails – two football matches and a dental appointment!
Tuesday night saw Wingate & Finchley playing Carshalton Athletic and was the baptismal match for my ‘new’ second-hand lens. It performed its work very well and I was pleased with the results – Here’s a couple of examples…
…Definitely better suited to football under what passes for floodlights at non-league matches! It was also a good night as we ran out 2-1 winners😎👍
After visiting the dentist on Thursday, I was finally able to get out and about spotting on Friday. Last week I went west along the North London Line. This time I went east. I started by taking the 232 bus across to New Southgate. There’s a 09:30 train into Moorgate from there. Unfortunately my Freedom Pass only becomes valid at 09:30 and, if that train is running to time, the doors are closed before I can touch-in. However, if it is slightly late then I have time to validate my Pass and board. That was what happened – the train was only 1min late but that’s enough for me. The upshot was that I was at Canonbury, after a change at Highbury & Islington, in time to photograph 90005 & 90047 with a Basford Hall to Felixstowe service that I don’t normally get to see…
From there I hopped along to Hackney Central. I was last there on a lovely sunny day but this time we were battling the murk and enjoying some autumn colour. Here’s 66084 approaching with the Plasmor Peterborough to Bow concrete train…
…Another train that I don’t usually get here in time to see though I have caught it at Alexandra Palace in the past.
There were issues for the London Overground with a broken rail on the Clapham Junction route resulting in some cancellations but the 378’s were still providing a good service overall. Here’s 378210 arriving from Stratford with a Richmond service…
I was checking what was coming on the Realtime Trains site and there was a 5Q74 from Ilford to Reading due. You never know quite what these ‘EMU maintenance’ runs will produce – it could be a unit running under its own power or it could be something else…
…In this case, 37884 hauling 387154 back to its home depot. That was a bonus😎👍
With a gap in the freight traffic I decided to travel in to Liverpool Street from Hackney Downs and capture some lunch from Pret once I got there. Then it was back out to Stratford for another hour or so of spotting. Here’s a view of 720109 arriving with a Clacton bound service…
…Though I doubt any of the passengers were planning on a visit to the beach😅
59004 snuck up on me – it was on a Chelmsford to Wembley aggregates service and running nearly an hour late…
…No wonder it was acting sheepish! 😅
Another mystery service was the 6J49 Ashford Crane Depot to Romford Engineers Siding – another catchall for a variety of possible train types. In this case it turned out to be a Matisa Tamper, DR75408…
In the summer, the time I leave is dictated by whether I want to get home before the school kids or after. In the winter months it’s decided by when I start to feel the cold getting into my knees🙄😅 So, not long after I decided to head home. Tally for the day: 128 of which I needed 7. I also picked up 4 new for haulage.
Saturday was another home football match with Hastings visiting. It was a chance to experiment with the Auto ISO function on the camera. This allows me to set a minimum Shutter speed and the camera will adjust the ISO as necessary to get a good exposure with the lens wide open. Moving from daylight to floodlight during course of a match means this could be a useful setting and I think it worked very well. Once again, here are a couple of shots from the match. 1st half – daylight…
…2nd half – floodlights…
..I was quite pleased with the outcome of that experiment and the lens once again performed very well😎👍
Another week beckons and once again we have two football matches to contend with. Hopefully I can fit in some spotting as well.
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