I passed this locomotive several times while in Tokyo. It was sitting in a square near Shinbashi station. I never got off but I did finally get some shots of it while we were stopped at the station. Consequently, I know nothing about it although I suppose if I was truly interested I could look it up. There must be something about it on the internet. It probably has a Wikipedia page. Guess I won’t find out though.
I made a visit to the California Railroad Museum in Sacramento for a press unveiling of a new locomotive for Caltrans. After the event was over, I headed outside to make some calls and walk along the river. The museum doesn’t just have vehicles inside. Outside are a pair of steam locomotives too. They are beefy looking things too. Finished in black, they make for a difficult thing to photograph on a sunny day and the iPhone camera handled it surprisingly well.
I was quite taken with the texture around the boiler area where the outside of the loco includes a large array of rivets. I don’t know whether they were recently restored or just are well looked after but they were an impressive sight and attracted a large number of people having their pictures taken.
There are plenty of historic railways in the UK but most of them are a tourist attraction and operate at limited speed to allow people to experience something from days gone by. However, there is a slightly more unusual railway on the Kent coast. The Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway runs along the Kent coast from Hythe down to Dungeness. It is a narrow gauge railway that, while popular with tourist, does provide a year round service. It is even contracted by the council to take kids to a local school.
The railway has been in operation for decades. In the Second World War they even had an armored train for coastal defense. The service was restored after the war. Most of the locomotives date from before the war and are outstanding scale steam locos. These are a few shots I got of the trains from a crossing in Hythe about ten years ago.
