Sgwarnog: In the Field

By sgwarnog

Highest Station in England

Starting the catch-up from my brief sojourn to Glasgow, here's a picture from the way up, at Dent Station on the Settle-Carlisle Railway.

The Settle-Carlisle line regularly features on lists of the world's greatest railway journeys, and although it's relatively close by, I hadn't had an opportunity to travel on it before. It is not quite the quickest route to Glasgow from Bradford/Shipley, but it's close enough, and the view offsets the speed.

I've never had great success in taking pictures from a train, but on this and the return trip I've managed a few nice images which I'll try to make available in a set over the weekend. The key challenges are dirt on the window, reflections of the inside of the carriage, and the speed of movement with trees and cuttings constantly emerging just as you think you have a shot nicely lined up. One thing I've reconciled myself to, is that sometimes including traces of reflections can enhance the image, and perhaps makes it more authentic - it communicates vividly the circumstances within which the picture was taken. I also like the effect of blurring on the moving foreground, when combined with a sharper background image. In that sense, I've developed a different aesthetic sensibility for these images. In a classical sense, this is a fundamentally flawed image, but I like it.

For this picture, I did at least have the advantage of being stationary on the platform, so had a few more seconds to think about what I was doing. I've retained the strip lighting from the interior of the carriage, which nicely follows the same line as the track. I've also got the disappearing end of a train heading south on the opposite side of the track, I had to wait for it to move before the station building was revealed.

At 1150 feet above sea level, Dent Station is proclaimed as the highest main line station in England.

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