From the guard's van

 It has been along time since we went to Alston in Cumbria to see the narrow gauge railway there. A lot has changed in that time... a new platform, an overall roof and new carriages. Taken with a fish eye lens... the uprights are actually straight! A comparison shot of the station on our last visit. 

  Bardon Mill is a very quiet station on the Newcastle to Carlisle main line.  Among the usual diet of class 156 and 158s there was a test train (with a very scruffy class 43 at the front)... .. . and a newly painted one (unfortunately) at the back in Colas colours. This loco headed east in the morning and returned with this lengthy engineers train in the late afternoon.  Sometimes there were no customers for the stopping service to Newcastle.  This is a nuclear flask train from Sellafield (honest). But this was the usual diet...