Cross country

The UK's transport system is focused on the capital - all roads lead to London, and so do the railway lines. Well, that's not strictly true because obviously the system allows travel across the country. But it is certainly easier and quicker to travel to London than to any of the regions and provinces, and the north-south routes are the obvious choice for speedy travel. Standing on platform 2 at Gloucester railway station recently, looking at an interestingly lit train, I was reminded that cross country routes have their own services and lines, one of which is called CrossCountry. We've never used it - Great Western Railways (GWR) take us to London and our train rolled in shortly after the one in the photo departed.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10

King's Cross facade

During the two periods when we lived in the east of England we frequently visited London using the east coast mainline railway connection with the capital. The terminus of the trains was (and still is) King's Cross and this, in time, became my favourite railway station. I liked it for its simple, relatively unadorned "form follows function" facade where, in the manner of the west end of a cathedral, the external arches express the internal arched spaces - in the former the nave and aisles, in the latter the arches above the lines and platforms. It helped, of course, that King's Cross is next door to my second favourite London terminus - St Pancras!

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10

Grand Central, Birmingham

Grand Central is the name given to the shopping centre that adjoins the redeveloped Birmingham New Street railway station. Both of the buildings opened in 2015 after a £750 million refit. Grand Central is linked to the Bull Ring shopping area, and the railway station has a concourse three times as big as the one it replaced. The redevelopment that became Grand Central was plagued by disagreements between the architects AZPML and the clients, and the final building has features that were not in the original design. This photograph shows a part of the development where the station adjoins the shopping centre.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon D5300

Paddington railway terminus

When I lived in north-west England I arrived in London by rail at Euston station. After I moved to East Yorkshire King's Cross station became my point of arrival in the capital. A return to living in the north-west re-acquainted me with Euston, and a re-location to Eastern England took me back to King's Cross. My most recent move, to Herefordshire, means that I now arrive in London at Paddington station, a terminus that I don't know particularly well. Consequently, on a recent visit to London I took a few minutes to walk around Brunel's building, much of which dates from 1854. The photograph shows the main 102 feet wide main span of the train shed. There are two flanking spans each about 70 feet in width.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Cannon Street station

Cannon Street is a station we use fairly regularly to go to Greenwich. Consequently I have taken a few photographs there. It has two features that make it attractive to the photographer in me - the "exoskeleton" that dominates the main elevation of the building (a subject I have yet to successfully shoot) and the darkness of the platforms. The fortuitously placed figure seen silhouetted against the outside light prompted this shot.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Diagrid structure, King's Cross, London

Being a relatively regular user of King's Cross railway station in London, I often pass under its new diagrid structure roof support above the new concourse. And, it being such an interesting piece of engineering (well, to me anyway!), I often try to get another (and better) photograph of its lattice work tubes and beams. Here is my most recent, and possibly best photograph, one that shows off the dramatic purple lighting as well as something of its symmetry.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10

Evening, King's Cross Station, London

If we travel to and from London by rail we arrive and depart at King's Cross railway station. This wonderful, essentially Victorian building, stands next to St Pancras railway station, another Victorian masterpiece that has quite different qualities from its neighbour. I've photographed the main entrance elevation of King's Cross before in the evening, though on that occasion it was somewhat earlier. So, for this shot in full darkness I stood a little further back, opened the 17mm (34mm/35mm equiv.) lens up to f1.8, and relied on this together with the effective image stabilisation of the camera body, to keep my image sharp. The camera chose ISO 2000 which is quite reasonable should I wish to print from the image

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10