Flanked by two sister engines, 47704 waits at Paddington to leave with the down great west travelling post office for Penzance.

In 1995 the Royal Mail and Rail Express Systems (the British Rail sector responsible for mail transport) were planning significant changes in rail-borne mail in the UK.

From the following year a new hub and spoke operation was implemented, with the end of sorting of mail on trains and the end of the use of passenger stations for mail traffic.

A.network of 8 new mail terminals were built, including the new hub at Willesden in North London.

On this cold and dull January evening I made a trip to London to shoot the soon to disappear mail trains at both Paddington and Euston.

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In the last minutes of the day's sunshine, 33111 heads away from Woodyhyde campsite with a demonstration freight from Swanage heading for Norden.

For the last few years the Swanage Railway has completed its operational year with a ‘winter warmup’ event, where the railway runs an intensive service using its own locomotive fleet over a weekend. This image was captured during the January 2024 event. The weather for the 2025 event in the first week of January was less kind, with no sunshine over the weekend.

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A filthy, unidentified class 31/4 approaches Hilsea with a Bristol Temple Meads to Portsmouth Harbour service in May 1978.

These workings were my first introduction to the delights of class 31 haulage. I learnt first-hand of their ponderous performance and the locomotives always seemed as dirty as seen here.

As the legendary David Maxey once said, class 31s are only of interest to the Flat Earth Society. So... the real interest here is the remarkable collection of 1970s era cars, not to mention the attractively liveried Leyland Atlantean bus belonging to Portsmouth Corporation Transport.

Photograph by Bruce Oliver, now part of my collection.

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A filthy 37026 ‘Shap Fell’ and 37415 ‘Mount Etna’ pass Peak Forest in Derbyshire with the 0804 Oakleigh to Tunstead limestone empties, formed of 1930s era former ICI vacuum braked hoppers.

The car park for British Rail staff at the former station contains a classic combination of cars mostly from the 1990s. Non-domestic cars include a couple of Peugeots, a BMW and a white Fiat Uno. However, Ford products dominate. As well as the inevitable British Rail Ford Escort van, a Sierra, an Escort, a Mondeo, a Granada and a Cortina are visible. Pride of place goes to what looks like an early 1970s Ford Zephyr Mark IV.

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57303 begins its climb of Parkstone bank while passing Poole boating lake on a showery December morning.

This was my second attempt at this local shot in recent weeks: a few weeks earlier traffic problems and early running saw the train passing as I walked to the location.

This time traffic, train times and weather all combined to produce a rare, sunny shot of a non-EMU working on the Bournemouth line.

The previous day the locomotive had delivered a refurbished class 458 unit to Bournemouth depot. This working, the penultimate one with only one more unit to be delivered, returned barrier coaches to their temporary base at Leicester.

Taken with a pole-mounted camera.

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