Red Dragon

Chuffed to bits with this capture!! :))

I got the nod from Geoff the Gardener, who got the nod from Nick the Photographer who got the nod from a trainspotter's blog that the Orient Express would running down our bit of line today. Passing our house at 9:11 precisely and returning at 5:30 exactly....AND it was a double header - Wow! Obviously I could not contain myself with the sheer excitement of it...... ha ha.......but it might just make a blip I thought.

We had been out last night so set the alarm (just in case) and opened the curtains to blizzard like conditions this morning! So we ended up on the bridge over the railway line freezing in the biting cold. I was seriously questioning my sanity! I would be the first to admit that we looked sad!

It was all over in a flash as the train came into view and powered down south, engulfing us in the process in a cloud of thick white smoke as it past underneath. The train had been aptly named Red Dragon.

This afternoon we tried a different location, a level crossing further down the line but on a bend to see if there might be other shot. We rocked up to a host of other cars doing the same. I am sure there is nothing really wrong with trainspotters per se but standing amongst the anoraks I felt a total idiot. I was given the once over - yaeees I had a lens but no anorak and no binoculars either. No way was I going to join that club as I tried to make my head disappear into my fleece.

The Orient Express started life in 1883 as a luxury train going between Paris and Constantinople and finished it's life in Dec 2009, a victim of high speed trains and cut price air fares. However the route has evolved over time and so has the rolling stock. I would imagine The Red Dragon was chuffing it's way to London and back to the Midlands this afternoon.

The good side to this blip is that I didn't meet anyone I knew!