mjalford98

[mjalford98]

Belatedly wishing all my friends & followers a merry Christmas and a peaceful & prosperous New Year.

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I've been thinking of attempting to visit every heritage railway in the world between 2025 and 2030 to raise funds for heritage railways most in need, covering costs through blog & video content.

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I'm still slowly working my way through editing all the still images, from Warley at Statfold, but just by way of a hint of what's currently going through the sausage machine, here's the three photos I took of the model that was probably my greatest reason for going - a static display model of Brunel's experimental atmospheric railway. This used steam power to pump air out of a tube running between the rails, into which was inserted a piston connected to the train through a slot sealed off by continuous valves. The piston which would be pushed along by the difference in air pressure, pulling the train along. Unfortunately, however, the system's underpowered specifications, combined with continual malfunctioning of the continuous valve system led to the mechanism benig abandoned. It does, however, illustrate the incredible ingenuity and innovation of the 19th century, even if some if not many innovations ultimately proved impractical, not entirely unlike some of the crazy ideas we see floating around the tech space nowadays.

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Solemn Requiem Mass at the SSPX Chapel of St Michael the Archangel in Burghclere, Hampshire, England for Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallarais on Saturday 19 October 2024. 🙏

I think a lot of newer generations of Traditional Catholics can easily fail to appreciate just how crucial a role Bishop Tissier played in establishing the traditionalist movement within the Catholic Church - dare I say that without Father & later Bishop Tissier, we would not have had the historical giant that was Archbishop Lefebvre. I did know some of the well-known stories, such as his involvement as one of the first nine seminarians who went to Abp Lefebvre during the initial upheavals in the 1960s, and of course his later consecration as a bishop, but there were also many stories of his ongoing support to the Archbishop both in the early days of the Society, and later in the lead-up to the consecrations of which I was personally unaware until after his recent untimely passing.

Thanks be to God for such a wonderful man!

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My latest YouTube video features a collection of images and footage from the Weston-Super-Mare Model Railway Show at the Priory Community School back in January 2024. I can't quite place my finger on why, but this was honestly my most enjoyed exhibition so far, with a fun mix of main line and branch line/industrial settings covered, and generally some very satisfying models to stand and watch.

All photography & videography was shot by myself and available for download and reuse in other creative projects subject to the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, crediting me (Michael Alford) as the original author of the footage. Individual images and footage clips are available for download from my dedicated photography website.

[mjalford98]

Finally released my stock footage compilation from last year's model railway exhibition in Swansea, featuring some fantastic models including Box, Overlord, and Allenby, with all imagery downloadable for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution License, crediting me as the author.

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Dipping my toes into some urban planning photography passing through the Showell Park housing estate on my way to photograph last Friday's steam railtour. I know a lot of New Urbanist types have a lot of criticism for such housing estates, and so do I; however, I do find these neo-traditional housing estates interesting as an urban planning solution, because they do make an impressive effort to create an aesthetically pleasant environment for people to live in, with plenty of green space. Coming from South Africa, I have a lot of time for shared communal green space as a place for people to spend time and children to play.

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I’m passionate about bringing to life the charms and challenges of yesteryear with the aid of modern digital photography, but why? And how?

Find out more in my latest article.

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Road traffic presses on during the evening rush hour on the outskirts of Taunton, apparently heedless of the magnificent double rainbow in the heavy, but patchy rain - taken last Friday evening as I was on my way to see the Mayflower vintage steam railtour passing through Norton Fitzwarren. I can't help wondering how many people were just too busy getting on with there lives to notice - indeed, it says something about the modern world and its mentality that we so easily miss such fleeting finer things. If you're seeing this post and were in the Taunton area on Friday, did you notice the rainbow?

Hopefully my work as a photographer might help to draw attention to the little details in the world around us that make such a difference to life, and the importance in creating such details when designing the places we are to live, work, and play in.

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Been playing around with Luminar photo editing software for the first time this afternoon, processing some snaps I took walking around the urban fringe of Bristol after my visit to the city archives, and *Oh My Goodness* is that a powerful tool! I've been using PhotoPad up until now, with some really handy filters for adding a bit of atmosphere, and a good starting point for getting into pro photo editing, but the basic level of its tools has started proving a bit clunky for me as I've been trying to up my game. Luminar is pretty much second in terms of industry standard only to Adobe Photoshop & Lightroom/Lightroom Classic, which I'm not keen on with the subscription and their contractual claims on anything created with their software, but I should imagine Luminar will probably keep me busy enough for a while getting my head around all the tools in there.

[mjalford98]

Marking the withdrawal of the class 323 electric multiple unit trains from service around the West Midlands, seeing as I couldn't be bothered to brave the rail replacement bus service between Gloucester & Birmingham yesterday to see the farewell railtour, I thought I'd share these two snaps from shortly after the announcement of the intended replacement of the 323s by the new class 720s, taken just seconds apart, as a pair of unidentified class 323s cross paths departing from and arriving into Birmingham New Street on Saturday 12 August 2022 while on my way to the Blists Hill Victorian Town Steam Weekend. I love getting these shots showing such a change of scene in such a short space of time.

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British Rail Western Region/Great Western steam locomotives Nos 5043 Earle of Mount Edgecombe and 7029 Clun Castle double head the returning Mayflower steam service through the dusk shadows, passing Norton Fitzwarren shortly after sunset. This was about as much rail-related photography as I got attempting to beat the train to Dainton, only to have a delayed CrossCountry train, a missed bus, and a trip on the wrong bus thwart my attempt earlier in the day. Going for the evening shot, my camera conveniently decided to refuse to focus in manual mode just as the train was already in view, so a had to make a rapid switch to auto mode and hope for the best. Considering the way the shot looked in camera, I can't say I'm that upset with the final result post processing.

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Chester - 2023 vs 2024

1 year apart at Chester... It's not just the PEPs that have gone, but the TfW class 150s are doing the disappearing act as well, with some being listed for sale by ROMIC, the same firm behind the export of the class 43/Mk III HST sets to Mexico and Nigeria.

Like a lot of people I'll definitely miss the classic, rugged, utilitarian looks of a lot of these old British Rail built multiple units, but I have to admit there's been an incredible amount of thought put into passenger amenities on a lot of the newer regional, suburban, and local trains taking over services across the country.

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First fruits of a mad dash after church altar serving duties last Sunday up to Hooton in Merseyside, Cheshire, to see the end of the Wirral Swansong enthusiast railtour, which marked the end of the 1970s built PEP class 507 trains on the Merseyrail Wirral Line. The 20 or so minutes the train was in the platform gave opportunity to get a couple of "old vs new" photographs with the new class 777 METRO trains replacing them. The results were not quite as stellar as I was hoping, but the quirks of the station layout and number of people on the platform made it somewhat challenging to get anything better. Merseyrail are planning another farewell railtour on the City Line, so hopefully that offers a better shot.

See my full collection of photos & videos from the day on my dedicated photography website.

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Little jaunt to the Somerset & Dorset Railway today to ride their vintage Wickham trolley built to transport maintenance crews to/from work sites, which offered an interesting perspective on this unique line.

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Discouraging people from driving is popular for improving urban air quality, but it’s unfair and unhelpful without viable public transport alternatives. Read more in my latest Medium article!

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The Chapel of St Michael the Archangel, owned by the SSPX in Burghclere, England, seen decorated for a wedding last Saturday, and reflected in the bright afternoon sunlight in a puddle left over from a solid downpour of rain in the morning. These conditions of bright sunlight following a solid rainfall necessary for such a great puddle reflection are quite rare in the UK, although they tend to be more common in the Autumn, but they're such great fun for creative shots, and traditional architecture, with all its colours and human proportions always looks great as a puddle reflection. The chapel was only completed last year.