Lightning

Project #063 is an English Electric Lightning, one of the classic Cold War British warplanes and the sort of exotic air shapes that thrilled 60s and 70s British lads (before they discovered girls anyway!) Its progressing well and painting has now begun.

Imperial Wharf and Chelsea Dock

I've spent a lot of time over the last couple of years exploring London's waterways, especially the Thames in Eastern London. On Friday i moved West and visited Imperial Wharf in Battersea as well as Chelsea Dock. This is similar to St Katharine Dock which i've visited a few times in the past, a nice little dock full of expensive yachts and river craft, though also a narrowboat! You can see the photos i took here.

Rails South of the river

I returned to London this week to attend a conference on e-learning, afterwards i had time to do some railway and waterway photography. Now last November i traversed the North and East of London on the Overground travelling from Willesden Junction to Shoreditch. Today i (more or less) completed the circle by travelling across South and West London from Canada Water to Willesden Junction. In doing so i took in Peckham Rye (no sign of Del Boy) and Clapham Junction - the busiest station in the UK, truly the Heathrow of the network with trains arriving and departing whichever way you look!

The most interesting part for me was the chance to see so many (ex-Southern) DC Electric Multiple Units. I've hardly ever seen any before (as they pretty much never come North for any reason) but that has certainly changed now! My railway photos can be seen here.

Return to Leamington

I like Leamington Spa a lot so returned last weekend to do some more photography at the station as well as a little bit along the canal. You can see my railway photographs here. You may notice that some of them are not square! I have decided to not crop photos taken with my DSLR anymore, its a pain having to crop dozens of photos!

Some of the photos are square but that is because when i got to Leamington i thought the battery in my Nikon DSLR was flat so started taking photos with the iPhone instead, actually it turned out the battery was fine but had got slightly knocked out of alignment in my bag so once the battery was restored to its proper position the photoshoot was finished using the Nikon.

Broad Eye Windmill

The Broad Eye Windmill is one of the landmarks of Stafford, though these days it is home to a radio station and the sails have long been removed. The windmill was built in the early 1800s in order to help provide flour for the population of the town which was rising fast. The windmill is the highest in the Midlands though only the upper floors were used for flour production.

The original sails were augmented by a steam engine in 1835 and production continued until 1886 with the sails removed in 1897. New transport links meant flour could be bought into the town more cheaply than the windmill could provide plus people wanted finer grade flour which the windmill could not provide. In the 20th century the windmill was used as a shop and for storage but eventually lay derelict. It became a listed building and was restored in the 1960s. Since 2011 it has been the home of Stafford Radio, there is the hope also that a heritage centre can be set up in the windmill.

Vickers Viscount

Recently completing a model of a Vickers Vanguard reminded me of its much more successful smaller brother the Viscount which i used to see flying into BHX in the late 70s and 80s. The Viscount was one of the first airliners equipped with the new turboprop engines in the early postwar period. It first flew in 1948 and despite the new engine technology was a conventional aircraft, however it was also very reliable and popular with passengers too. The new turboprop engines gave it a higher performance and smoother flight characteristics than piston engined airliners, but it was also more fuel economic than turbojet powered airliners (albeit which were faster and larger)

A total of 445 Viscounts were sold (compared to only 44 Vanguards) and they served with airlines across the world on short and medium haul routes. The last Viscounts probably flew commercially in 2007/8, not a bad service life at all considering it was designed just after the war. The Viscount below in the grainy photo was at RAF Cosford when i photographed it with my Instamatic camera!