Trains, cows and ponies

I've got it in my mind just recently to go to Exmoor at dawn and take pictures of some of the Exmoor ponies. Trouble is I need to get up at about 3:30am, and I just couldn't motivate myself enough this weekend to get up that early and go out and hope that it wasn't raining on Exmoor and that I could find ponies in the right place. I've been up scouting and there are a couple of interesting places that I will try, I just need to get there in good weather. And the weather being as bad as it has this past week, it's a really big ask to convince myself that if I get up so early and drive for an hour, the sun will come up strong and the sky will be beautiful and I will get some nice pictures.

So instead on Sunday I attempted to take a picture of a steam train! Well that's not strictly tue, actually I wanted to take a picture of the River Tone but with a steam train in the background. There is a bridge in Bradford-on-Tone that crosses the river, that I thought might be promissing, so I visited that.

There are some nice bridges on the Tone, and I thought the river running under such a bridge, while a train went over might be a nice idea. This location wasn't really suitable though sadly. I couldn't legally get to a good point to shoot the scene; the bridge was quite high; the river was quite narrow; and there was a lot of tree and shrub growth obscuring the view. Even if I could trespass into a better position, I can't really see how the scene I want could work here. So instead I decided to climb up onto the track, get the camera about wheel level and shoot the train just zooming down the tracks towards me.

The train in question on this day was the Tangmere, number 34067. There is a public footpath that takes you across the tracks themselves and you can get really close. But trust me, don't get too close when the big cross-country services hurtle though. They go really fast, I mean really fast, past here. It's flat, and a fair distance still from both Tiverton and Taunton and there are no stations left between them so it must be nigh on full speed. A couple went past about 15 feet from me and the ground shook and the wind really whipped about. It was quite awe inspiring. I figured a little steam train might be slower but actually even it managed a fair old pace down the line. It's a good job I didn't go with my initial idea of lying in the track and shoot the train from ground level as it came towards me.

I also met some new friends on this little day out. So it was quite a nice day out.