I'm rather pleased with my current digital camera - it's able to take good evening and night shots of the sort I would scarcely have thought possible a couple of years ago.

This image is at Westbury Station last Sunday evening, when the Portsmouth to Cardiff trunk service had been replaced by a bus from Westbury all the way to Bristol - here, the train from London pulls in to a platform that's already crowded with passengers awaiting it, and also awaiting a Portsmouth train that's due to start from the same platform five minutes later. I was down at Westbury collecting a visitor who should have been able to connect into the 19:35 to Melksham - except that it had been replaced by a bus two buses - one to Trowbridge, and one on to Melksham.


Here's another picture at night - Melksham station earlier this month, with the 19:11 to Southampton approaching. Again, taken with available light on the marvellous little camera that - it seems - others can't believe can be so good. For I stand accused of the heinous crime of using flash to photograph a moving train ... which is against the rules as it can distract the driver and he might steer the train off the road. No - there has to be something wrong with that explanation!

Actually, it's not the first time that I've been (falsely) accused of breaking the rules ... and I'm sure it won't be the last. And frankly it makes me both rather sorry for the people who make the assumption that a rule was broken ... and also rather sure that the rule is probably one that THEY are in the habit of breaking themselves - for why else would they assume that other do?

I guess I also feel a bit sorry for the lad - a bit sympathetic for him - as he's quite young, just trying his wings for the first few times out of the nest, and coming in to one or two rather abrupt collisions with the ground, taking advise and being led by some of the other fledglings.


Should you wonder at the quietness of Melksham Station in the previous picture, I'll agree with you. You really can't expect anything else when the 19:11 is the first southbound service after the 06:40 - there simply aren't enough and rightly timed trains to make the service attractive. But then this final picture - at Swindon just a couple of hours after the Westbury picture - makes you realise that - even in a supposedly busy place - there are dramatically quiet times.

P.S. No flash here, either!



(written 2008-10-28 21:27:05)

 Z501 - Public Transport - Rail

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Reactive (dynamic) formatting in Perl
Seven new intermediate Perl examples
Wiltshire at dawn - the tourist trail
Camera with night vision, youth with no vision
November and December Public Course Schedule
A few of my favourite things
Volunteer v Employee - a skewed balance? (FSB)
Three Seasonal Pictures
Well structured coding in Perl