I once said to a civil engineer, in a field somewhere in south Wales, “Nothing says railway engineering like a moving train.” We waited some time…
Not the same at Marsh Barton, Exeter, though; loads of the things.
This has been a slightly unusual commission for me, occasionally I get asked to shoot progress photography, and this is the third such visit in around 18 months.
There is a new railway station in Marsh Barton you know, and now it has power and lights so the added aspect to this shoot was that I was to be there as the lights turned on. Actually I split the shoot, starting around the middle of the day I caught some of Devon’s all seasons in a single hour weather and returned later in the day to a reasonably clear sky.
In my early days of photography these dusk or dawn moments really excited me. At the time the streets were lit by sodium vapour lights but I found an excitement in the interplay between the natural and artificial lighting.
Just me then?
On this evening though, the ambient light took ages to fall to the point where the platform lights triggered. There were a couple of engineers on site, probably wondering how long it was going to take.
Nothing says nightime railway engineering like a moving train and a lit platform.