Watching for the Steam Train - Black Five - Warminster, England

Quickly to the station!
If we are quick, we get to see!
A lovely steam train flying by!

The web site said it is due
We get to guess at the time
Quickly to the station!

Almost there, let’s not hear
That steam whistle blow too soon
If we are quick, we get to see!

A few minutes to catch our breath
Then the chug-chug and baited breath
A lovely steam train flying by!

(This style of poem is called a Cascade - where the lines of the first stanza are repeated at the end of subsequent stanzas.)

I never quite decided which end of the platform I preferred to stand when waiting for one of these steam trains to zip through Warminster Station. I like this end for the lovely profile shot I was able to get, but next post I'll show you what it was at the other end of the station! I've also taken shots from the walkway over the tracks. They're all good - but for different reasons! In this one, I get all the other "twitchers" (a British term for birdwatchers who go to great lengths to add a new bird to their life list) in my shot as well!

When estimating the arrival time of the train it really was a bit of a gamble. Coming this way, I might know the time that the train was supposed to leave Salisbury (this would be good luck), but more often, I only had the time it left Southampton and the time it was meant to be in Bristol. That gave a pretty big spread of time! So, we would get down to the station super early and sit there and wait until we heart the chug-chug-chug in the distance. Adrenaline pumping, you then set up for the picture and wait again... and then click, click, click when the train is within view!

I do like this portrait thought - what do you think?

The Black 5 is a LMS (London, Midland and Scottish Railway) Stanier Class 5 4-6-0. This particular example was built in 1945 and withdrawn from service in 1968. It is currently being overhauled (according to the Wikipedia article ) so that it can be mainline certified again.

Photos taken in 2012 with my Pentax K100D.
Today’s post is crossposted at: Steemit, Whaleshares, Bearshares,
WeKu

See the others from this series:
USA
Crossett and Western part 1 and part 2
SP&S 700
Southern Pacific 4449

Lori Svensen
author/designer at A'mara Books
photographer/graphic artist for Viking Visual
verified author on Goodreads
find me on Twitter
also on: Whaleshares, WeKu, and Bearshares

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